Whenever you buy a key book, it helps if the key has multiple first appearances or even an origin story. Additionally, last month the Bronze Age had only four DC books that made it to the top 25 most popular Bronze Age comic books on GoCollect's website. One is Lobo's first appearance, another is Shazam #1 his first appearance since the Golden Age, and two are Teen Titans books that both have significant first appearances. For many fans, Dick Grayson is an obsession. His first appearance as Nightwing is a book to own. This character has remained popular today, not an easy thing to do as grown-up side-kick of Batman's. His first comic book extravaganza was Tales of the Teen Titans #44 which was his first appearance as Nightwing. This book also contains another big first appearance the superhero Jericho, a key member of the Teen Titans. Though not as popular as Nightwing with the fans he still represents yet another superhero first appearance. Can a super-hero team really be worth reading about without a fascinating and deadly villain? DC Comics realized the importance of a villain to the story and created the origin of Deathstroke the Terminator in this same book. Deathstroke who is a more interesting character than most of the DC villains; is very likely to have a showdown with the Teen Titans in the series Titans. So you have two first appearances and an origin story of a well known but only occasionally glimpsed villain on the big screen. Is the first appearance of Nightwing a trifecta of profits?
The Tales of the Teen Titans #44 comes at the very tail end of the Bronze Age of comics. At the time, it seemed new and fresh that Marv Wolfman and George Perez were creating a new superhero and supervillain. They had indeed knocked it out of the park. Personally, Nightwing seemed a tad contrived at the time. Now, looking back it is a great beginning to developing the future story of a renowned side kick that went on to feature prominently in DC Comics on his own dime. Currently, the cost of mint grade (9.8) is $280 FMV with the last two sales surging well above this average, always a good sign. For those of you that can only spend about $100 on a key or less, this book is a good bet with grade (9.2) floating at around $80 FMV. I would not chase anything lower than this. After all, Nightwing has become a key character and has developed an impressive fan base.
In addition to great entry cost and rising fair market value, this book has received the vaunted status of having a catalyst. Yes, the Cartoon Networks series from many years ago had a huge influence on the new generation. Now there is the show simply called Titans (2018 TV series). This new catalyst series stars the main superheroes from Teen Titans with Robin, Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy. In my humble opinion, this is probably the best of the group of Titans fit for TV. It has received mostly positive reviews and seems to be holding an audience and then some. Considering the first season just dropped in October you very well could see this book rocket into the stratosphere in the next year or two. Sometimes there is a lag as people get used to a new show.
Financial returns are positive for Tales of the Teen Titans #44 with mid to high grade performing well (7.0) returned positive+78.7%, (8.5) returned positive +13.3%, and even a low grade (5.5) had impressive positive +36.6% returns. Nightwing's comic was very popular back in the day, but as an old Bronze Age book, it continues to increase in value. Some of the grades do not perform as well as those stated here, but that is probably just the nuance and hype surrounding the new show. My guess is it will even out over time and the first Nightwing will swing high in the sky over Gotham with soaring profits.
