We sell comics for a living, so believe us when we say we'd love the answer to be yes. Here it is anyway: mostly, no. Comics are a wonderful thing to collect and a mediocre-to-terrible way to invest. The industry has already run the definitive experiment proving it. Let us tell you about the '90s.
The experiment: 1991–1996
In 1991, Marvel launched a new X-Men #1 with five collectible covers. It sold roughly 8.2 million copies, still the best-selling single comic issue of all time. In 1992, DC killed Superman; Superman #75 shipped millions of polybagged "collector's edition" copies (by some estimates over 6 million sold) and did an estimated $30 million in sales in one day. Shops that normally ordered a dozen copies of a Superman book ordered far, far, far more Superman books than they regularly should. Well, speculators bought them like crazy (there's a documented story of one buyer taking home 2,400 copies of X-Men #1), all on the theory that the price of the books would go up over time.
By April 1993, Publishers were shipping around 48 million comics a month; three years later it had collapsed. Comichron (the industry's sales historian) recorded the wreckage. The market shrank to roughly $300 million by 1996, distributors consolidated from a dozen to essentially one, and somewhere between a third and a half (retailer estimates say more) of America's comic shops closed. On December 27, 1996, Marvel Comics itself filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $229.6 million in assets against $693.2 million in liabilities. Contemporary reporting was blunt about the cause: the collectors who had bought with abandon had stopped, because the "collectibles" weren't worth anything.
And they still aren't. Those 8.2 million X-Men #1s? Dealer bins are full of them. Comichron's John Jackson Miller calls it "one of the least collectible comic books of all time." First-print copies of the Death of Superman were selling for cover price within months. Millions of people carefully bagged and boarded the same books, which is precisely why none of them are valuable.
The actual formula: scarcity × demand
Compare the comics that are worth fortunes. In April 2024, a copy of Action Comics #1, Superman's 1938 debut, sold for a record $6 million. Its print run was about 200,000, and an estimated 100 copies survive. That's the formula: the valuable comics are the ones nobody thought to save, printed in modest numbers, read to death by kids, with decades of accumulated cultural demand. A comic marketed as a collectible (polybagged, foil-covered, printed in the millions, preserved by everyone) is simply not rare. Scarcity can't be manufactured retroactively.
"But prices went crazy in 2021…"
They did. The pandemic era saw a historic spike in collectibles, and then a multi-year correction. GoCollect's graded-sale data shows even blue-chip keys falling hard off the peak: a CGC 3.0 Amazing Fantasy #15 that fetched about $48,000 in early 2022 was trading around $30,000 two years later, down roughly a third, with mid-grade Hulk #181 and even Amazing Spider-Man #300 sliding similarly. That's the good stuff. Speculative modern books fared far worse. If you're trying to collect comics for a big day, your odds are low.
What this means for you
- Buy what you love. This is the only comic-buying strategy with a guaranteed return because you own a thing you love. If it appreciates someday, great, it's a bonus but not the plan.
- Read your comics. A comic sealed away unread on a bet about 2045 prices is just a sad, neglected thing. The '90s produced millions of them.
- If you do chase value, know the rules of that game: established key issues, high grades, real scarcity, which means real money up front, grading costs, market timing, and genuine downside risk. It's a hobby-within-the-hobby for people who enjoy it but don't treat it as a retirement plan or an investment for your kids.
- Be suspicious of anything marketed as an instant collectible. If the ad says "future key issue," history says otherwise. The real keys are only determined by time.
Here's the part we mean most sincerely: the crash of the '90s happened because people bought comics they didn't care about. Every era's best outcome belongs to the people who bought what they loved. Worst case, those people ended up with a great collection. That's why we do what we do; share the love of comics.
Invest in a good evening instead: graphic novels, back issues (priced for readers, not speculators), and this week's new books. Or just walk in and ask us. We'll tell you the truth about any book, including the ones we're selling.
Sources
- Comichron: "The Bestselling Comic Book of All Time"
- Comichron: "1993 Comic Book Sales Figures"
- Comichron: "1996 Comic Book Sales Figures"
- Deseret News (AP, Dec. 28, 1996): "Marvel in Bankruptcy Despite Superheroes"
- Mental Floss: "When DC Comics Killed Off Superman"
- CBR: "The Death of Superman Crashed the Comic Industry"
- NPR: "A very rare copy of Action Comics No. 1 has sold for a record-setting $6 million"
- GoCollect: "Status of the Comic Book Market in 2024: Have We Hit Bottom?"
