Today is the big news that almost every Deadpool fan has been waiting for: the confirmation of a Deadpool movie in 2016 by Fox. Not surprising, this caused a huge buying frenzy at Ebay as I witnessed how copies of 9.6 and 9.4 are being bought at record breaking prices. $350 for a 9.4? It is a good time to be a New Mutants #98 seller 🙂

However, is that a madness to this activity? Could it be that the New Mutants #98 comic book value is under estimated by most collectors? To avoid this blindspot, I did some interesting analysis that you might want to take a look. Rather than comparing to Spider Man 300, which is the common yardstick, I want to compare to Hulk 181, the full appearance of Wolverine. Why? Because my personal view is that Deadpool is going to be the Wolverine of this generation. Venom’s popularity just doesn’t do Deadpool justice.

The Methodology

Do not worry though, I am not so silly as to compare the value of Hulk #181 with New Mutants #98’s 9.8. They will never be equal. What I did instead is this:

• Starting from Hulk #181 9.8, find the lowest grade level whereby total graded copies of Hulk #181 is equal to New Mutant #98 9.8 (which is around 1,540 as at this date).
• Then take this lowest grade level of Hulk #181’s pricing to compare again New Mutants #98
• Repeat for the New Mutants 9.6 and 9.4

I know it is hard to understand from the words so pictures might help

These are the census information as at this date

The following chart is the cumulative total from the numbers above.

From the table above, we can see the total copies of Hulk 181 that is 9.0 and above equals that of New Mutants #98 9.8. This means from a supply point of view, there are just as many New Mutants #98 9.8 as there are Hulk #181 in 9.0 and above. Assuming equal popularity and demand, using the lowest denominator of Hulk #181 9.0 should be a conservative gauge on the potential of New Mutants #98 9.8. In other words, if I assume all the graded copies of Hulk #181 from 9.0 and above are priced at 9.0, what is the ceiling that New Mutants #98 can go to since both titles now have equal supply.

Similar for New Mutants #98 9.6, its supply is the same as Hulk #181 7.5 to 8.5. In this case, the conservative grade to be used as a benchmark would be 7.5.

Using the same logic, New Mutants #98 9.4 should be compared against Hulk 181’s 6.5.

What is the potential of New Mutants #98

Once we have established which is the right benchmark, below are their corresponding prices. As you can see, there is still a wide gap in their prices. This means that if Deadpool becomes as popular as Wolverine, there is still quite a lot of room for the New Mutants #98 to grow.

Is such a benchmarking model sound? I am not sure I have seen anyone else did this kind of analysis so I would love to hear some comments and feedback.