With over a year having passed since the release of the Black Panther movie, here we look back at some of the supporting characters’ key 1st appearance comic books; specifically, those of Shuri, Zuri, Okoye, and Nakia.

 

 

BLACK PANTHER #2 (VOL. 4, 2005)

The 1st appearance of Shuri, a Wakandan princess/scientist/warrior, occurred in the modern book Black Panther #2 (Vol. 4, 2005). Sales for the book, graded CGC 9.8, are shown below; note the very low volume of sales before 2018.

Sales of the book returned in full force just a few months before the Feb 2018 release of the Black Panther movie. In the few weeks immediately surrounding the actual movie itself, sales volume all but disappeared; almost as if the market of buyers and sellers all held their collective breath; with two peculiar sales of note at a very high $450. From there, it trended upwards to finish out the year, but interestingly, right after New Year’s, the upward trend reversed to a more aggressive downward movement. This turn is likely due to the release of the first Endgame trailer released in Dec 2018, which revealed that Shuri didn’t survive the snap.  Below is the sales again, but focused on 2018 to present.

Again, it is interesting that sales of this book not only didn’t slowly go up or down in the year leading up into the worldwide release of the movie but that there was an extremely low volume. This book would appear to be completely movie speculation which is further substantiated by the cause of the Dec 2018 downward movement. With that in mind, the damage seemed to be done because the return of Shuri in the final act of Endgame failed to reverse the sales prices back to a positive trend. The minor good news in this instance, however, appears to be a recent flattening of sale prices, but with an increase in volatility.

From here on out, the worst is likely over. It would be important to see if the current $150-175 level holds on the low end. Unfortunately, any change in sentiment from additional Shuri/Black Panther movie sequel news might be a long time from now. This book does not appear to be a suitable long-term investment, but rather, it could be a good short-term play that can be revisited at a later timeframe.

Outside of this approach, it's worth noting that there is always the chance that Shuri could take up the Black Panther mantle; such an event could be quite the lottery winner for this book, or possibly to a lesser degree the first Shuri as Black Panther appearance in Black Panther #5 (Vol. 5, 2009).

 

 

BLACK PANTHER #1 (VOL. 3, 1998)

Quite the mega book of 1st appearances, Black Panther #1 (Vol. 3, 1998) contains the debuts of Zuri, Okoye, and Nakia. Given the significance of this book, it is surprising that its market hasn’t developed to a higher volume of sales. For Black Panther #1 graded CGC 9.8, sales did kick off 2018, with a jump in prices just above $100 from the previous single sale in 2016 of $56.55. Again, any single indicator of price change wouldn’t tell the full story as it was only a single sale in 2017. The low volume continued with only 5 sales in 2018, and also only 5 in 2019. With the book currently sitting at around the $100 level, it’s difficult to see a large positive change in sentiment any time soon.

 

 

CLOSING THOUGHT

Given the current market performance of the two books examined above, it makes one wonder how they’d perform otherwise should the key characters have appeared on the covers of their respective books.

 

 

“It's a mantle, not a catsuit, thank you very much.” – Shuri

 

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