Dark Phoenix is anticipated to lose close to $100 million at the box office, but for bronze age X-fans looking to add X-Men #101 to their collections, that will eventually be welcome news.

Dark Phoenix was destined to fail from the start.

A year before the final entry in Fox's X-Men franchise, the movie wasn't highly anticipated by, well, anyone. It was a very public lame duck. Since Disney had already announced the Fox buyout, there was more buzz surrounding Marvel Studios' eventual X-Men reboot than Dark Phoenix. It didn't help matters that it was the follow-up to the poorly received X-Men: Apocalypse, and the trailers didn't look any better than the last onscreen Dark Phoenix treatment in 2006's X-Men: Last Stand.

Despite all that was against the film, prices soared for X-Men #101 - the first issue of Chris Claremont's opus, the Phoenix Saga. Last year, every grade felt the ripples from the latest adaptation. Even though it was a movie that, apparently, no one wanted to see, it was still enough to push prices into the next stratosphere.

Starting at the top, the 9.8 jumped from a 2017 fair market value of $2,581 to an FMV over $4k by the end of 2018. The 9.6 went from an average of $877 in 2017 to $1,340 a year later. It wasn't just the high grades experiencing the effects of the movie news. For the past 12 months, every single grade of X-Men #101 that has sold on eBay - from the 9.8 down to the 3.0 - has seen a significant rise in value. Whereas $200 could once get you up to a graded 7.5, that amount will barely get you a 5.0 based on that 12-month average.

To me, that was horrible news.

For years, I had been scouring comic conventions, local comic shops, and online auctions on my quest to build the complete bronze age Claremont X-Men run. Instead of putting money into X-Men #101, I opted for a Giant-Size X-Men #1 and an X-Men #94. Once I saw prices for X-Men #101 picking up, I decided to play the waiting game, and I'm still playing it. Now that Dark Phoenix is bombing, I may get a chance at adding #101 to my collection...in due time. However, it's not a strategy for the impatient.

After Last Stand's May 2006 release and subsequent failure, the 9.8 dropped from selling for over $4,500 to less than $2k. Of course, it took four years for that to happen, though it did experience a steady decline and bottomed out at $1,300 in 2012. The 8.0 took a sharper turn and fell from a peak of $150 in 2006 to a high of only $85 a year later.

With Dark Phoenix's horrendous box office numbers, things are already starting to change. On June 4, just three days prior to the movie's U.S. release date, a 9.8 sold for $5,500. After the premiere, the next sale fell to $3,850.

The 9.4 brings me real hope. After it went for a whopping $1,250 on June 6, the last sale was for $760, which is the second-lowest its brought in over a year.

As an avid X-fan, I hate to see the franchise take a hit, but Dark Phoenix may be a necessary hit. With the inevitable reboot once the X-Men reach the MCU, all the major keys, especially those from the bronze age, will skyrocket. I'm banking on a window of opportunity between now and then when prices will be reasonable thanks to Dark Phoenix's failure.

For now, I'll continue the waiting game.