Much has changed since starting coverage of the market for the first Suicide Squad members’ key comic books. This includes an official confirmation of the returning, and thus, non-returning characters for the sequel movie. By coincidence, the three remaining members of the first squad to be analyzed here: Enchantress, Killer Croc, and Slipknot; are definite no-goes. Perhaps the information here will provide final closure for anyone still on the fence of whether to hold out for the longer term.

 

 

STRANGE ADVENTURES #187 (1966)

In short, Strange Adventures #187 tells the story of how artist June Moone got the best party favor ever; the ability to turn into the powerful sorceress Enchantress. Due to a small number of CGC graded copies of Strange Adventures #187 that exist and a low volume of sales, a wider-range of grades are observed below. Included are CGC 9.0/8.5/7.5/6.5/5.5.

It would be adding insult to injury to insert an Enchantress joke about losing in the movie, and also failing in the market. Only bad news with sales for Strange Adventures #187 declining in price across all the grades, with the higher end declining at a faster rate. Again, the higher end does have a lower volume of sales, but it also has much more room to fall, which it has been doing. This is a knife not worth trying to catch.

 

 

DETECTIVE COMICS #523 (1983) & DETECTIVE COMICS #524 (1983)

For Killer Croc (aka Waylon Jones), his two keys are spread across his first cameo appearance in Detective Comics #523; followed immediately after with a first full appearance in Detective Comics #524. Between the two, it appears the market prefers the cameo over the full appearance. On the left is CGC 9.8/9.6 for Detective Comics #523, and on the right is CGC 9.8 for Detective Comics #524.

 

 

 

 

For both books at the 9.8 grade, sales occur in a rather wide-range relative to the books’ values, which may mislead some into thinking that a large upward or downward movement is occurring; but looking at it over a larger timeframe of the last few years, the overall trend of the wide-range is flat. While both books don’t have optimistic outlooks, Detective Comics #523 performs marginally better than #524; again, not that it’s a good thing, more so a lesser of two evils.

 

 

THE FURY OF FIRESTORM #28 (1984)

In a direct homage to Suicide Squad #9 (1989), it was quite the comedic beat that Captain Boomerang’s meddling led to the quick death of Slipknot. Unfortunately, this also led to slipknot’s first appearance issue of The Fury of Firestorm #28 embodying probably the worst-case example of the downsides of speculation based completely on a movie appearance.

In the blink of a movie release, the market for Fury of Firestorm #28 all but disappeared at the end of 2016. The chart below shows sales for the book in CGC 9.8. Sales volume completely dried up; with the few copies that exchanged hands selling at rock bottom prices. It’s a bad sign when a CGC 9.8 graded copy of the book barely covers the cost of slabbing it.

 

 

THE BOTTOM LINE

  • Strange Adventures #187 (1966) - SELL
  • Detective Comics #523 (1983) - REDUCE
  • Detective Comics #524 (1983) - SELL
  • The Fury of Firestorm #28 (1984) – STRONG SELL

 

 

"That reminds me... I really need to get some new shoes." – Joker, upon seeing Killer Croc

 

 

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