The Spec Radar: Secret Wars #5

During SuperBowl LVIII, a teaser trailer ran for Deadpool 3 (now entitled Deadpool and Wolverine). In one of the closing shots of the trailer, we see Deadpool laying on the ground with... a copy of Secret Wars #5 (2015) beside him! Naturally, the secondary comic market went absolutely crazy overnight... but will it last?

Personally, I don't think it will. You see, Secret Wars #5 is certainly a cool enough comic, and it does qualify as a "minor key" with it being the 1st appearance of Night Machine... but it isn't going to help you retire early unless you managed to have a tremendous stockpile of them prior to the SuperBowl.

We have seen this many times before, where a trailer comes out and a book blows up overnight. Sometimes the book stays afloat until the film releases, however one thing remains clear: the book will always come back down once the movie is out. And sometimes it's in spectacular fashion! Let's take a look at Sleepwalker #1.

Nearly one third of the graded copies on the census were given a 9.8 rating by CGC. This is generally not a good sign when investing in a comic, because it means that there is an abundance of the highest graded copies available. You will see this more commonly with modern comics (1990s and newer), as the paper quality is better and resists damage.

Speculation that the character Sleepwalker could appear in the 2022 film Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness began to circulate late 2021 when some product SKU codes leaked to the internet for an upcoming Marvel Legends action figure set. I saw people spending upward of $100CAD on raw copies of this book in Nov 2022. The highest grade possible is worth ~$120CAD today.

(Price charting courtesy of gocollect.com)

All of this is to say that, in my opinion, Secret Wars #5 isn't necessarily the kind of book that has the type of staying power that should make you run out and grab copies of it before it's too late. This particular issue doesn't have the kind of significance to make it magically hit a market high and hold onto an inflated floor price forever. I believe that we're hitting the ceiling with this one over the next couple of weeks, if we haven't already!

Secret Wars #5 had an estimated total of ~207,000 copies sold. As of today's date there are only 66 total copies graded on the census, which is normally a good sign, but everybody is looking to make a quick buck so I suspect that the market is going to flood quickly with graded copies over the next month or two as the census climbs due to casual interest. For reference, please consider that this book was selling for ~$10CAD on Ebay a week ago. It's currently selling for an average of ~$45CAD with the odd outlier between $50-$85CAD or so. Remember: shill bidding can happen on Ebay, so you must treat outlier sold listings with caution when tracking data points. Market manipulation is a real thing.

I would absolutely love to be wrong about this book, but I don't believe it to be a great investment unless you can get into a ton of copies at a cheap price quickly, then sell them even quicker.

TL;DR: Secret Wars #5 will see a spike for a short period of time, then plummet back down. There are too many copies in circulation for it to be a viable speculation purchase. Be wary of purchasing with your FOMO, or be quick to capitalize if you have a stockpile.

- Bobby.