Brave and the Bold #25

DC Comics - Aug./Sept. 1959

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of Suicide Squad
First appearance of Dr. Hugh Evans
First appearance of Jess Bright
First appearance of Karin Grace
First appearance of Rick Flag Jr.

Before there was a Justice League, DC introduced us to a little group of heroes known as Task Force X, who's also known as The Suicide Squad. The team that appears in this issue isn't the same as the one that is going to appear in the new Suicide Squad movie that's only a couple months away from being released.

Created by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru, the original Suicide Squad consisted of four team members, none of which had any super powers at all, but were put into extraordinary circumstances. The team members included Rick Flag Jr., Karin Grace, Dr. Hugh Evans and Jess Bright.

Rick Flag Jr

The leader of this little group of heroes is Rick Flag Jr. His parents were Rick Flag Sr., obviously, and Sharon Race. They were tragically killed when he was young and was he then raised by a friend of his fathers, Jeb Stuart. After a stint in the military, he was asked by Stuart to become a member of Task Force X.

While Flag was training to be an astronaut, he met space medicine expert Karin Grace. She and Rick Flag bonded over their tragic pasts and eventually fell in love . Rick used his influence with Jeb Stuart to get her on the team.

Karin Grace

Jess Bright and Dr. Hugh Evans are both physicists, and close friends. They were the only two surviving members of their science team after a nuclear bomb test went horribly wrong. They then dedicated their lives to helping others, in honor of those that died.

Right now, there aren't a lot of copies registered in the CGC census. There are only 125 registered. Surprisingly, only 4 of those are Restored copies. Even though there aren't too many already graded copies, it's not too hard to find one on the online market. However, find a high grade copy is a little different. According to the census, there are only two copies graded at 9.2 NM-. That is the highest grade for this issue to date. 

As I stated at the beginning, this isn't the same team that we'll be seeing on the big screen, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming a hot book after the movie was announced. Because there are so few high grade copies out there, find sales data for them is kinda hard to do. The only sales data I could find is from GoCollect, and they only have data for low to mid grade copies.

Values for Brave and the Bold #25 on GoCollect

The best example I can find to show you how much this comic increased in value after the movie was announced is for a 5.0 VG/F copy. The latest sale for a Brave and the Bold #25 dropped for $1,200 on April 25 of this year. When we go all the way back to Oct. 15, 2012, a 5.0 VG/F copy sold for a measly $100. Talk about a jump in value. The reason for this huge jump is easy, no one cared about the Suicide Squad before the movie announcement.

If you were lucky enough to snag one before all the hype, then I congratulate you. If you're looking to snag a copy for yourself, you might want to wait until the hype dies down a little before you do, prices are sure to drop a little.

Find a copy here
eBay - ComicLink - MyComicShop - ComicConnect