Market Spotlight: Captain America # 290!

Once upon a time the Red Skull had a daughter named Synthia Schmidt.  And he was so underwhelmed with her non-maleness that he just about ended her on sight.  Look, nobody said he was a good father, or even particularly balanced.  But she wasn't killed.  Instead,  she was artificially aged, imbued with a host of telepathic powers and became the desperately lame Cap foil Mother Superior.  I think.  These things do get confusing.

It gets even more confusing when she reappears later in Captain America # 355 as a much younger character, now simply known as Sin.  She's part of the Sisters of Sin at this point, and that sounds like a smashing idea.  But it's still in the Gruenwald era, so it's not nearly as naughty as most of you are hoping.  Natch.

Nobody really cared much about her until Brubaker folded her into his legendary run on Cap.  So her first appearance has just a little buzz attached to it, but it's not unmanageable.  That book can be had in very nice condition for $5-$6, maybe less if you're patient and clever.

Why do we care?  Well, maybe we don't.  But maybe we heard a whisper on the wind about how Sin is going to be a key catalyst in the whole "Fear Itself" nonsense coming down the Marvel pipe in April.  The whisper I heard on the wind was Matt Fraction on John Siuntres' Word Balloon Podcast, which is pretty credible as whispers go, since he's writing the damn thing.

Now, I think it's appropriate to experience nausea at the mere mention of yet another Marvel Event Abomination.  And betting on spikes based on events is risky business to be sure.  It's less predictable than chasing movie spikes, if you want my opinion.  And if you're reading this, you just might.

So this is no guarantee.  But it does have a few things going for it.  Much as I loathe any and all events at this point, (the Big Two need to retrain people that the regular books are important) Sin is about to get a lot more eyes on her.  Matt Fraction is an exceptionally good writer, and he's got a flair for characters.  If he's putting her on center stage for his epic piece, the odds are good that she'll be about 83% more cool when he's done, and that translates into buzz, and that tends to drive prices up.

If Cap # 290 was already in the $20 range or something more obscene, I wouldn't touch it.  Too much risk to invest.  But at $5? I might stash a nice copy away with the idea of flipping it in the summer.  Do it quick before Rich Johnston gets hold of it on Bleeding Cool and sends the thing straight to the moon overnight! 

- Ryan