CASE STUDY 003 · AN ANIMATION CYCLE IN PROGRESS
Absolute Batman #1
CGC 9.8 NM/M · Universal · DC Comics, 2024
Collector hype came first.
Animation added another chapter.
Cover A. First printing. A dated study of publishing milestones, adaptation talk, and the animated-series announcement—and what happened to recorded prices and sales volume around them.
01 / THE MARKET SO FAR
A rising comic market. Then a screen announcement.
2,235 eligible sales. Six dated milestones. Publishing news and media news share the timeline so neither gets all the credit.
Dots use actual recorded dates; monthly medians sit at mid-month and do not estimate daily prices. September 2026 is partial through September 14. Three entries dated before the official on-sale date are excluded. Scroll horizontally on smaller screens.
Jan–Mar 2025 pooled median244 sales
May 26–June 24, 2026130 sales · 30 days
June 26–July 25, 2026186 sales · +83.3% median change
August 2026 median142 sales
THE EARLY READ
The rally did not begin
with the animated series.
The monthly median rose from $100 in January 2025 to $361 in December 2025, then eased to $270 in April 2026. Collector interest had already produced both a rise and a correction before the June 25 series announcement.
The announcement’s 30-day comparison moves from $300 to $550, or +83.3%. Recorded transaction volume moves from 130 to 186, or +43.1%. Price and volume answer different questions; a higher median does not by itself mean more copies traded.
July and August 2026 both show a $550 monthly median. That is early persistence at a higher price level, with less than three months of follow-up after the announcement.
02 / PRICE AND VOLUME
What changed around each milestone?
Each comparison uses the preceding and following 30 calendar days, excluding the event date. Counts are recorded transactions, not unique physical copies.
| Milestone | Before median | After median | Price change | Volume change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 Issue #1 goes on sale ↗Oct 9, 2024 | N/A0 sales | $1101 sales | N/A | N/A |
2 DC publishes bestseller announcement ↗Nov 18, 2024 | $1004 sales | $11060 sales | +10.0% | +1400.0% |
3 Issue #9 begins the Bane storyline ↗Jun 11, 2025 | $9555 sales | $11027 sales | +15.8% | -50.9% |
4 Creator interest in an anime reported ↗Oct 28, 2025 | $16544 sales | $21081 sales | +27.3% | +84.1% |
5 Issue #15 puts the Joker in focus ↗Dec 10, 2025 | $311.588 sales | $387110 sales | +24.2% | +25.0% |
6 Animated series in development announced ↗Jun 25, 2026 | $300130 sales | $550186 sales | +83.3% | +43.1% |
Launch has no valid pre-event sample. Early windows reflect the ramp-up of grading and market availability. The October 2025 anime report describes a creator’s wish, not confirmation of a show. These are descriptive comparisons without statistical or causal adjustment.
03 / OTHER NEWS IN THE MIX
Publishing momentum deserves its own dates.
DC announced a third printing on October 11, 2024, just after launch, and a fourth printing on November 20. These are signals of publisher-reported demand across printings, not measurements of the Cover A first-print graded market.
The December 10, 2025 tenth-printing report coincided with the Joker-focused issue #15. Its event window cannot tell us which news mattered more. Reprints themselves remain excluded from every price and transaction count on this page.
Bane and Joker story milestones are plausible attention events, not proven explanations. Social posts, seller behavior, grading supply, and wider comic-market conditions may also matter and are not measured here.
RESEARCH NOTES
One edition.
Defined comparisons.
Actual sale records, transparent exclusions, and dated sources.
Sales & coverage
Source: GPAnalysis ↗. The standard unannotated Universal 9.8 category was captured in full: 100 entries for 2024, 780 for 2025, and 1,358 for 2026, totaling 2,238. All annual counts reconcile. This study targets standard Cover A, first printing; separately listed variants, reprints, special categories, and other grades are excluded. Individual listing images were not independently re-audited.
Three date anomalies
Entries dated September 15 ($60), October 3 ($80), and October 6 ($80), 2024 precede DC’s October 9 on-sale date. They share one certification number. Their dates may reflect presales or listing issues; the reason is unverified. They are preserved in the source capture and excluded from analysis, leaving 2,235 transactions. Other repeated certifications are retained because a copy can sell more than once.
Calculations & limitations
The early baseline pools January–March 2025, after graded trading became established; it is not a pre-comic baseline. Monthly medians use individual recorded dollar prices. Event windows are the 30 days before and 30 days after, excluding the event day; percentage changes compare those medians or counts. August is the latest full calendar month. September has 54 records through September 14 and is partial.
Prices are nominal GPA-displayed dollars. Fees, currency conversion, listing condition details, and market-wide coverage have not been independently audited. Transaction counts measure GPA coverage, not total market demand. Event selection is exploratory and retrospective; overlapping publicity, grading turnaround, supply, and market conditions prevent isolated attribution. No hypothesis test or market-adjusted return is estimated.
Event sources
- DC: Issue #1 goes on saleOct 9, 2024 · Official on-sale date. No valid prelaunch graded-sales baseline; the launch comparison is not a mature market test.
- DC: DC publishes bestseller announcementNov 18, 2024 · Publisher publicity milestone, not an independent measure of demand for first-print CGC 9.8 copies. Fourth-printing news followed November 20.
- AIPT review: Issue #9 begins the Bane storylineJun 11, 2025 · Contemporaneous issue review establishes a dated publishing catalyst; the sales measured remain issue #1.
- ComingSoon: Creator interest in an anime reportedOct 28, 2025 · Reporting date of Nick Dragotta’s stated wish for an adaptation. This was not a series announcement or confirmed deal.
- AIPT review: Issue #15 puts the Joker in focusDec 10, 2025 · A publishing milestone, not the Joker’s first appearance. Tenth-printing news for issue #1 was also reported that day, so the two cannot be isolated here.
- TheWrap: Animated series in development announcedJun 25, 2026 · Contemporaneous report of the Annecy announcement. Development at DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation; no release date or outlet was given in this announcement.
Certified Comic Shop Research · Sales data attributed to GPAnalysis · Snapshot captured September 15, 2026.