I assume the three biggest factors are the shortened career, Gretzky coming in a few years into his career, and completely overshadowing him as the offensive weapon of the generation, and his Topps Rookie card being in a set that was at one time considered to be grossly overproduced, compared to other sets of the era.
I think this was due to a ton of overstock vending cases surfacing sometime in the 80's or so.
Similar to Lemieux, even when he was playing, he was often playing with, or through, serious injuries. As awesome as he was, he could have been even better.
He's always kind of interested me, and I wish I had picked up a bunch of his Rookies when they were cheap (his Topps version anyways, his OPC was always selling at much more of a premium).
As is, all I really have is a Junior League vintage photo I have floating around here somewhere.
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