WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 5, "Truth," now streaming on Disney+.
The shocking debut of Julia Louis-Dreyfus as La Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine in the latest episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has led to a price spike in the Contessa's first comic book appearance.
This spike follows a steady pattern in recent months, where a character being prominently feature in a trailer (like Owen Wilson's Mobius in the Loki trailer) leads to a spike in that character's first appearance on the secondary market or when a major plot line in a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) series references a notable comic book moment (like the introduction of the White Vision in WandaVision) that the comic book that inspired the moment also sees a jump in back issues sales. Heck, we are now even seeing that effect occur with non-Marvel comic book series (like Jupiter's Legacy #1 spiking after the Jupiter's Legacy trailer was released).
The rise in the price of 1967's Strange Tales #159, featuring the Contessa's debut, is a bit more obvious than other instances, since it is a lot older than the more modern Marvel comics that have been spiking more recently (as a lot of the modern MCU series on Disney+ seem to be inspired by late 1980s/early 1990s comic books, mixed with even more recent storylines).
The reason why that matters is because with older comic books, there is a greater chance that they will have been graded by a third-party comic book grader like Certified Guaranty Company (CGC), and with CGC grades, you can more easily compare similar comics. In other words, let's say that a comic book that rarely gets graded spikes in back issue price, it is sometimes hard to tell by sale prices what exactly is going on with the valuation, since each issue being sold might be in very different condition.
In this case, we can look at copies of Strange Tales #159 that are the same CGC grade and compare them to each other and the difference is stark.
On April 7th, a 9.6 copy of the issue (which featured a Jim Steranko written and drawn Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. story that memorably introduced the Contessa)...
sold for $565.
After the Contessa appeared on Falcon and Winter Soldier, a 9.6 copy sold for $1,984.50. A 7.5 copy went for $700.
The MCU influence continues to cast a wide shadow over back issue prices.
Created by Malcolm Spellman and directed by Kari Skogland, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier stars Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Emily VanCamp, Wyatt Russell, Erin Kellyman, Adepero Oduye, Florence Kasumba and Daniel Brühl. New episodes debut Fridays on Disney+.
Source: eBay