In my long and checkerboard-top history of pushing paper, I’ve seen things. Some things only happened once, like an alarming amount of seemingly normal people suddenly believing that a fictional character can actually “die”, and that said character might remain unpublished and un-monetized forevermore. Watching strangers stand in line, desperate to hand me money to see the end of Superman, it was neat to see a bunch of near-feral consumers waiting in line to own the death of one of the most popular fictional characters in American history. The fact that it was sealed in its sleek black body bag would mean that most of those in line would never even see the thing they were desperate to have. Of course, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American comic nerd. Except for Marvel that one time.
As we all know, that was the final time a comic book character ever died…that required waiting in a line to purchase. Whilst I know nothing of the true warp and weft of the fabric of the universe, I know of one absolutely rock-solid truth, everybody in that line thought that comic book was going to “go up”. People asking me if something is going to go up was not in fact, a singular event. The phrase holds so much juju that it soundly replaced “Hulk or Wolverine in a fight?”, which is the question that replaced “Hulk or Thor?”. It is now the omnipresent question. Sure, you could ponder why you’re here on Earth right now and what your purpose for being might be, but it’s way funnier to muse upon the future as you consider if Mother needs that new pair of shoes, all the easier to procure if you can flip that copy of D’Orc #1 in the rapidly closing window of insanity. I like to picture hundreds of speculator torsos popping up out of holes in the ground, gazing about as they bleat “Go up? Go up?” excitedly to their brethren.
Please understand that I have no issues with speculators, their community, or their intentions. If that’s how you want to do comics, knock yourself out. The modern breed of speculator was hatched with the success of All New All Different X-Men. Like a phoenix from the near cancellation ashes of bimonthly reprint status, the primordial modern speculator is born as the prices for the books soared. Buy a copy of X-Men, one of the most beloved comic runs of all time, enjoy reading- book good, be doubly entertained when an ad in Amazing Heroes tells you that just made ten bucks while only lifting a finger 22 times in order to turn pages. Repeat. I suspect there are none who dislike it when items in their possession are worth more than they paid. In fact, I’d stake my life on it, but the over-under on Kalshi is murder.
All of that is to say, a comic book market functions in the same way as the stock market, as much of the going purchase price for anything assumes a higher future return. You won’t be buying Apple stock today at the price it’s worth now, you’ll be buying it for less than you think it’ll be worth in the future. Gambling is fun, and Momma ain’t gonna cobble her own shoes. For fun, a single share of Apple stock is around $335.00 today, it was $238.00 a year ago. For perspective, think of a comic book as a single share, with the entirety of the run representing the company as a whole, hopefully growing over time. Absolute Batman costs $4.99 a share, and every certificate is a banger.
Do people ask me if Absolute Batman is going to go up? Nope not ever. Why ask about a thing that you already know. They know it like they knew that Superman #75 was going to be an event that generations hence would commemorate with despair. Sadly, they were wrong, as a copy of Superman #75 is worth only a fraction of what Apple stock costs and maybe not even as much as a share of Enron. They were wrong about Superman, but I think they may be right about Absolute Batman. It took me a bit to reason out my support of what seems like lunacy, but I’ll answer the question never asked.
Assuming World War 3 doesn’t happen, I will type out loud, “I really think it is.” I’ve heard some prices paid for AB #1, and was mildly surprised when I didn’t react with incredulity. So many dollars for a book that new? I’ve got milk in my fridge that’s older, is the thing my brain failed to fire off. However, I think Absolute Batman is worth some lunatic prices for two main reasons.
As more unfamiliar people came in to pick up the title, many of them younger than the average customer, I started to ask where they heard about it, since Wizard hasn’t been a thing since 2011. The overwhelming answer was TikTok. Apparently, if a thing is cool enough, just watching other people talk about it is enough to generate interest, and Warhammer Batman is a cool thing indeed.
Here’s the thing to remember, comics in the 70’s and 80’s comics were frequently considered to have an underground vibe, as Robert Downey Jr. had yet to sign a Disney contract. The first comic shop I worked in was in a windowless basement. Comics at that time were sometimes getting attention in articles that inevitably were headed by the words biff, bam, and pow.
Then Blade became a movie, which was cool, and the civilians started to trickle in. Comics got cool. Avengers Endgame came out and comics were super cool. Two years later, Secret Empire showed up on Disney+ and I stopped selling Infinity gauntlet trades, because cool is a fleeting quality in the modern world. The random customer who wants to try comics because of a movie they saw is much less common now. Although nowhere near as dingy and rough and tumble as the industry was in the early 80’s, the comics have somewhat regained that “you have to work to find it” quality. We’re back to the old mildly dangerous brand of cool, that elusive glorious sheen of unusual merit, something that most might say The Marvels lacked. Batman cutting off a dude’s arm with his Bataxe is so glazed with that sheen that it would hurt your eyes if you held it up to a light.
There is one thing I can’t really stop thinking about, other than WW3. There’s an argument to be made that Absolute Batman might be fundamentally equivalent to Showcase #4. It’s not a beat for beat comparison, but stick with me….
While it’s true that the superhero genre had largely fallen out of favor after the end of WW2, its collapse led to the subsequent rise of EC Comics and their horror line. An audience who had lived through the war now cared substantially less about magic words and evil worms with radios slung around their necks. The older Golden Age heroes had been largely a product of magic or alien origin, in many cases literal magicians and aliens. The Silver Age heroes would be science based, culminating in Stan Lee’s love of radiation rays. Now these colorful fantastic characters were nominally based in real world science, adding that small soupcon of reality in order to make the characters more believable, eventually leading to another familiar comic shop discussion, ” Wolverine’s claws can never possibly be longer than his forearms. Because science.”. The audience had changed, and the business responded, simple as that. Flash fact.
I don’t think it’s crazy to think of Absolute Batman #1 as a modern Showcase #4. Before you kick it around, remember that there were plenty of old guys who were sure that the Flash sucked because he didn’t dress like Mercury.
I remember when Batman was the World’s Greatest Detective, and he had the Batcomputer in the trunk to prove it. Science, logic, and deduction would win the day against the bad guys in those kinder gentler days and it’s just swell to feel nostalgic about it.
The new Batman has an impossibly futuristic self-repairing cape that he can use to stab the bad guys if he can’t get close enough to poke out their eyes with his razor-sharp Bat Ears, and it all looks so damn cool.
The world is changing, as it always has, seemingly in a grim fashion that can leave you feeling more powerless and frustrated. There’s a version of Batman who’s going to figure out how it all happened and come up with a plan (no doubt with the help of his trunk computer) to fix it. Now there’s a Batman who will just drive his Batmobuilding through the problem and it is outselling everything in a way we haven’t seen in some time.
Guess what I’m trying to say is that I think Absolute Batman will continue to go up, because humanity seems to be unable to learn a damn thing, and because art will always evolve in order to meet the growing darkness, and sometimes you have to put down the shark repellant and pick up the axe.