It is that time of year again: a new edition of our CPV Price Guide has just been published online, which means a fantastic new batch of Market Reports & Articles is now available. Many of my fellow guide collaborators have contributed reports and articles this year, and I felt that others on the team already did a great job of describing the current state of the CPV market. So, for my contribution to our articles section this year, rather than write a “market report” I thought I’d talk about a 1980’s Marvel cover price variant that I’ve been asked about by blog readers and that I think will appeal to all the cover price variant enthusiasts who read our guide: X-Factor #38 (3/1989), $1.00 US cover price variant, featuring Walter Simonson’s stunning Jean Grey vs. Madelyne Pryor cover, the Origin and Death of Goblin Queen (Madelyne Pryor), and Archangel is named for the first time.
X-Factor #38 summary from Key Collectors Comics
I learned of the existence of this variant from a reader, who pointed me to a ComicsPriceGuide page with a very low-resolution image of what is described to be a $1.00 cover price variant version of the issue. Yet, Grand Comics Database did not have a $1.00 variant listed (and still does not as of this writing); Key Collectors Comics makes no mention of a price variant on their page for the issue (as of this writing) despite having a great post about how issue #38 is really the “1st official Archangel” (more on that a bit later); the Overstreet Price Guide doesn’t make any mention of a price variant for #38; neither does Comics Buyers Guide Standard Catalog of Comics.
So: what’s the story with the $1.00 variant for X-Factor #38? After learning of its existence, at first I tried to find one by clicking and reviewing the pictures for every #38 listing on eBay: nope, 100% of the copies I clicked were $1.50 cover price (either direct edition or newsstand). So next I set an eBay alert for “X-Factor 38” and proceeded to spend about a year getting emailed every single new listing of the book by eBay, clicking each one, and always seeing $1.50. I reached a point where I started to wonder if I was wasting my time and whether this variant really existed or if someone photoshopped a $1.00 cover price onto a scan of a #38, shrunk it to a small size, and passed it along to CPG as a prank? I googled, hoping to learn more about whether the variant really did exist. And I found a ten-year-old closed thread on the CGC boards about the X-Factor #38 $1.00 variant where the pictures were too old to still exist, but someone wrote: “I used to look for them all the time, but stopped. I suppose there are several around, but currently only know of four other copies.“
Only four other copies? Reading that, I thought to myself: is it possible this $1.00 variant exists but was just a “test batch” to make sure some equipment configuration was working or something of that nature — like the probable test batch involving hand-numbered “hologram’ed” copies of the X-Men #301 APV that a reader emailed about in January? I.e. could this have been a situation where maybe someone ran off a literal handful of test copies that happened to have the $1.00 cover price on them, but they were never intended for public sale, and they only still exist because a worker then took them home instead of destroying them? Or, is there some other explanation that supports a sold-to-the-public print run batch of these?
Two hypotheses that people had floated in that CGC thread were (1) “Is that the Canadian [Price Variant]?”, and (2) “my guess would be they were made in error (since 1.00 was the normal pricing, and this was a double sized issue at 1.50), inside on the 1st page indicia it is printed as 1.50?“
These are decent guesses, but as far as the possibility of being a Canadian Price Variant, that’s clearly a no: regular copies have a $1.50 US / $2.00 CAN / 50p price box… Therefore, for the X-Factor #38 variant to be a single-price Canadian Price Variant of the issue, we’d expect a single $2.00 price on the variants — but obviously that’s not the case, and furthermore, we can see that the $1.00 price variant for X-Factor #38 has a separate Canadian price listed on it too: $1.00 US / $1.25 CAN / 50p. So although the Canadian price also differs (at $1.25 CAN on the variants versus $2.00 CAN for regular copies), it is the main US price that’s listed at $1.00 for the variants. And all of Marvel’s 1980’s Canadian Price Variants were newsstand copies; the $1.00 X-Factor #38 variant meanwhile has a direct edition logo marking in place of the bar code. So the Canadian Price Variant hypothesis is out.
How about the error batch hypothesis? An error batch is a really decent guess, seeing as how #38 deviated from the norm as a giant-size issue amidst a run where all the close/surrounding issues had $1.00 cover prices:
All the issues immediately before and after X-Factor #38 had $1.00 cover prices…
So could it simply be the case that since they were “used to” printing X-Factor issues with $1.00 US cover prices around this time, that someone simply messed up and printed a batch of #38’s with the “usual” $1.00 price by accident? There are lots of examples of mistakes like this throughout comic history; indeed, Jon McClure categorizes such instances Type 1B variants — readers of this blog are no doubt all too familiar with Type 1A, but I think this may be the first time I’ve ever written the phrase “Type 1B” on this blog so let’s take a look at Jon’s official definition:
Type 1b variants: Cover price reverse variants with regional or otherwise limited distribution, published simultaneously with standard or regular editions. Reverse variants usually exist because material is accidentally printed with a lower price than intended, a mistake not always sufficient for the publisher to destroy otherwise saleable goods. A publisher may also deliberately try a lower price. The indicia and all aspects of the book are identical to regular editions…
One of the requirements to be a Type 1B variant is having identical indicia and interior pages to regular editions. I can confirm that this is the case because I eventually did find one of these cool variants, and I’ll tell you how: after reaching a point of frustration that I was wasting my time reviewing every new #38 listing eBay was sending me and never finding a $1.00 variant, I decided to make one final attempt with a different strategy: I looked through lots/collections of X-Factor comics (which often are listed with an issue range in the title such that “38” isn’t a keyword that would bring up the listing — e.g. “X-Factor #1-50”) and I included international listings. And sure enough, I found one, then two, then three runs of X-Factor books where the #38 in the collection had a $1.00 cover price in the picture. Here’s the indicia — as you can see it is just a normal first print #38 indicia, and states the US price as $1.50 per copy:
But now that I had more than one $1.00 variant in my hands, I noticed a few things that made me question the “error batch hypothesis” — for one thing, there’s a small remnant of black ink to the right of “US” that looks suspiciously like the edge of the letter ‘S’… take a look (circled below in red at left). And when I took a scan of a regular $1.50 cover price copy and lined the two up, then changed the opacity on one of the two so that both scans blend together, take a look at the result:
That’s clearly the right edge of the $1.50 US’s “S” peeking through! Which suggests that when these $1.00 cover price copies were created, they laid down the “$1.00 US / $1.25 CAN / 38 MAR” over the $1.50 US / $2.00 CAN / 38 MAR” — because everything else lines up exactly: the UK 50p, the Approved By The Comics Code Authority box, etc.
To me that suggests Marvel created this $1.00 cover price variant on purpose. Furthermore, among the listings I had actually found, there appeared to be a common pattern as to where the original collector had acquired their X-Factor books (I had found mine only when I scoured international listings — so although this looks to be a Type 1B price variant, I only actually found them when I began to “think Type 1A” in my searches).
Which led me to my own hypothesis: perhaps Marvel had “pre-sold”/contracted-for-sale a year (or more) of comics to a specific partner and that contract laid out specific cover prices… and so to honor the contract they needed any fluke giant-size issues to have a small batch for this one buyer, at the “pre-agreed” $1.00 US / $1.25 CAN / 50p pricing? And I immediately had a thought as to how to test this hypothesis: If I was right, then X-Men #242, also giant-size, also published March of 1989, would very likely have a $1.00 price variant too!
But I was wrong. Or at least I can find no trace of a $1.00 price variant existing for X-Men #242. And even though it may have looked like there was a “Type 1A distribution pattern” among my $1.00 X-Factor #38 finds, the reality is that I’m not approaching the X-Factor #38 landscape as a pristine untouched wilderness… no, by the looks of that CGC Boards thread, at least some number of collectors have been clued-in to the existence of these variants for over a decade now. So the situation might be akin to a delicious apple tree in the middle of your town park: you might approach the tree, observe the distribution of fruit, and think, “aha! I surmise that this tree must only produce apples at the very top branches!” — but in reality the truth of the matter is that all the low-hanging fruit was already picked.
Similarly, while I’m tempted to reach the conclusion that the vast majority of surviving X-Factor #38 cover price variants are beaten-up reader copies, it is possible that I only have that impression because that’s all that had been left behind by the other collectors who regularly hunt for these. Perhaps those other collectors were even sniping any new copy that came onto eBay within hours of their listing, and those sniped copies never even made it to my inbox as eBay alerts?
I’ll keep looking for these until I’ve landed a copy in nice “CGC-worthy” condition, and if I succeed, I’ll post CGC slab pictures here in the comments section at the bottom. But now let’s move on to a different question: is X-Factor #38 an interesting issue to collect?
Is X-Factor #38 worth collecting?
The first thing that stuck me about X-Factor #38 is its gorgeous red-tone Jean Grey vs. Madelyne Pryor cover by superstar Walt Simonson, and that the story is by his wife Louise Simonson; with Al Milgrom art as well. [A multi-signed CGC SS variant copy would make for one helluva desirable collectible in my opinion and that’s going to be my personal collecting goal for this variant!!] Having looked at the cover each time I opened an eBay listing while hunting for it, I’ve grown quite fond of this cover artwork. A strong cover alone can sometimes create great collectability; but ideally we’d want something more, like a first character appearance.
Alas, it doesn’t look like X-Factor #38 features any first appearances. However, there is an interesting Key Comments note on the CGC label: Origin & “death” of the Goblin Queen (Madelyn Pryor). Furthermore, as I was reading the issue — and as was pointed out by Key Collectors Comics [here] — I noticed that Archangel is not actually called Archangel in the beginning of the issue… He’s right there on Page 2 but look what he’s called:
The Dark Angel. Not Archangel. And indeed, as it turns out, even though most collectors point to X-Factor #24 as the first “full” Archangel appearance, he wasn’t actually named Archangel until issue #38! Here’s the relevant panels where Beast names him Archangel for the first time:
So indeed, issue #38 marking the first time Archangel is named could make it appealing for collectors targeting key Archangel books: I can picture someone having collected X-Factor #24 (and perhaps #21 & #23 too) and then learning this fact about issue #38 and wanting one in their collection as well — and then learning of the existence of the X-Factor #38 $1.00 price variant they might want one as their clear preference and go looking for it…
And then of course there’s the Goblin Queen — Madelyne Pryor — whose origin and “Death” take place in issue #38. Here’s a link to a great YouTube review of the issue and I’ll also highlight a few things below. In the story, once Jean Grey and Madelyne Pryor start to go head-to-head, wow, the writing and artwork are both quite amazing in telling the super-emotional tale… I’ve got to highlight a couple of pages that just stood out to me as quite visually stunning in their design:
The drama continues, with Madelyne’s full detailed origin story revealed, and meanwhile the life of Madelyne-and-Scott’s son Nathan Summers (who first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #201 and later becomes Cable) in jeopardy; and in the end Madelyne attempts to destroy both herself and Nathan and everyone else. And Jean might have died too but then at the last minute Jean accepts the Phoenix force from within Madelyne… who then dies (but don’t worry, this is comics, she’ll eventually be resurrected in a future storyline!).
And the emotionally riveting issue ends with Jean Grey carrying away Madelyne Pryor’s dead body in her arms:
Man oh man, that’s some heavy drama! So with this Madelyne Pryor origin and “Death” story being the prominent theme of the entire issue, it is definitely a critically important issue for collectors of other Madelyne Pryor keys — e.g. X-Men #168 (where a 75¢ cover price CPV exists), featuring Madelyne Pryor’s first appearance. In other words, if you’re going to own the X-Men #168 cover price variant as Pryor’s first appearance, and you then learn of the existence of the $1.00 cover price variant of X-Factor #38, then wouldn’t you also want to own the X-Factor #38 cover price variant, marking her “Death” as well in your collection? I know I would!
In summary:
Stunning red-tone Jean Grey vs. Madelyne Pryor cover by Walt Simonson
Riveting story by Louise Simonson
Archangel named Archangel for the first time
Goblin Queen (Madelyne Pryor) Origin and Death
Any time you come across a rare cover price variant, you hope for some compelling reasons to collect the issue number in general — better to have a rare variant of an important book than a book nobody can think of any reason to collect otherwise. And while X-Factor #38 may not rise to the importance-level of other key issues with major 1st appearance credits, it definitely has a lot going for it, so I think the $1.00 cover price variant is well worth the effort to collect! And my advice when hunting: even though this is a Type 1B price variant, “thinking Type 1A” is how I actually found one myself so maybe that strategy will work for you too.
Let’s start with a game: I’ll show you twelve images, and you mentally mark which ones you recognize as John Constantine. From your selections, we’ll learn where you stand on the true first appearance of John Constantine in comics. (Don’t worry, I’ll explain what I mean by that as we go). Ready? Play!
OK! Have you reviewed all twelve and decided which ones you recognize to be John Constantine? The first answer that I want to ask you about, is what you decided for #10. Here is the context: the panel pictured in #10 follows a “horrific accident” where Abby is being harassed by a salesman, just as a car comes along with a swordfish strapped to its roof, and, well, here’s how that ended:
Yeah… the salesman was impaled by the swordfish.
Abby then tries to leave the crowd of onlookers (“Please… I have to come through…”)…
And just over her shoulder, is… someone… He isn’t named and he doesn’t speak, but he’s definitely somebody. Take a look at the full panel in context:
Who? Who is that?!? Well, at this point in time it is June of 1984 — the issue we’ve just been reading is Saga of the Swamp Thing #25, and the name “John Constantine” wouldn’t appear until a year later in issue #37.
So at the time this issue was published, when asked “who is that?,” you were likely to answer, “Sting!” [image 1 from the twelve you looked at in the beginning is Sting in Quadrophenia], or perhaps you might have said “Gordon Sumner!” (which is Sting’s real name)…
Or at least that answer is what the artistic team was apparently going for! [Although I for one was somehow reminded of Dana Carvey from Choppin’ Broccoli… image 3 from the twelve in the beginning]
Because this unnamed non-speaking character was meant to look like Sting, and after drawing him the artists tasked Alan Moore with figuring out who he would become — here’s Stephen Bissette commenting on this:
I love how he put that, “You better do something with him, because we’re not going to stop drawing him” … and just to remind you who Stephen Bissette is, yes, it is that Stephen Bissette, as in the same one in the art credits when you look up Saga of the Swamp Thing #25 on CGC’s census:
So it is very cool to hear John Constantine’s “origin-story-as-a-character from-the-creative-team’s-perspective” straight from the source! How awesome that Steve Bissette and John Totleben effectively decided “we want to draw a character that looks like Sting,” and then straight-up said to writer Alan Moore, “You better do something with him, because we’re not going to stop drawing him!” This was no accidental background character; no: this was somebody. In June of 1984 the world just didn’t know who it would be, quite yet.
Moore remembers it exactly this same way, remarking in a Wizard Magazine interview that his approach as a writer was always to work as closely with the artists as possible, so in the case of Swamp Thing he struck up an immediate friendship with Bissette and Totleben, asking them for notes about things they wanted to do in the series.
“One of those early notes was they both wanted to do a character that looked like Sting. I think DC is terrified that Sting will sue them, although Sting has seen the character and commented in Rolling Stone that he thought it was great. He was very flattered to have a comic character who looked like him, but DC gets nervous about these things. They started to eradicate all traces of references in the introduction of the early Swamp Thing books to John Constantine’s resemblance to Sting. But I can state categorically that the character only existed because Steve and John wanted to do a character that looked like Sting. Having been given that challenge, how could I fit Sting into Swamp Thing? — Alan Moore”
They may have worked to eradicate most traces to Sting in the early Swamp Thing books but definitely not all were removed… Remembering that Sting’s real name is Gordon Sumner, check out the name of John Constantine’s boat in the below panel from Swamp Thing #51:
“The Honorable (?) Gordon Sumner!!“
So from that first drawing of a character physically based upon Sting in Saga of the Swamp Thing #25, and the discussions among the creative team that followed, Alan Moore then developed the character John Constantine…. who would appear by name in issue #37.
“I had an idea that most of the mystics in comics are generally older people, very austere, very proper, very middle class in a lot of ways. They are not at all functional on the street. It struck me that it might be interesting for once to do an almost blue-collar warlock. Somebody who was streetwise, working class, and from a different background than the standard run of comic book mystics. Constantine started to grow out of that. — Alan Moore”
So that’s how Hellblazer “began” — a really neat “creative-team-level origin story” wouldn’t you agree? And lest you think that there’s a possibility that there was an “earlier Sting” drawn prior to Saga of the Swamp Thing #25, for example in DC Sampler #3 (the book which provided image number 4 from the twelve you looked at in the beginning), let’s have Stephen Bissette set you straight on that:
I think the reason some collectors get confused about the timeline of DC Sampler #3 is because CGC only categorizes it with the year 1984 on their census (no month is listed on census, as there is no month mentioned in the indicia page of the book), making it understandable that some collectors might in turn question when in 1984 it was actually published. And inside that issue is the following promotional material, where the character we now know as John Constantine still isn’t named yet but his image appears in this gorgeous promotion:
But this above artwork demonstrably came after issue #25 of Saga of the Swamp Thing (which is cover dated June 1984 and has a Library of Congress Copyright Date of February 28, 1984). Meanwhile DC Database lists DC Sampler #3 under the cover date of November 1984 with a publication date of September 25, 1984; and MAW corroborates this date, showing DC Sampler #3 with a Library of Congress Copyright Date of September 25, 1984. Here’s what Stephen Bissette shared about that ad:
So: Saga of the Swamp Thing #25 came first — where the yet-to-be-named character was drawn for the first time and the artists asked the writer to figure out who he would become — and then by the time the DC Sampler ad appeared later that same year, they already had it “pretty much worked out” (yet fans would have to wait until Saga of the Swamp Thing #37 for more than just an image of who we now know to be John Constantine).
In addition to DC Sampler #3, some collectors have also asked about other issues that could potentially “lay claim” to Constantine’s first appearance — another book I’ve heard discussed is Crisis on Infinite Earths #4 (but why anyone would have questioned that book is a puzzle to me since that’s way out in July of 1985). All of the quotes I’ve been showing you from Bissette are from a conversation that took place in 2018 on Facebook on this very subject in response to the following question posed by Rich Handley, asking this exact John Constantine question (“someone is claiming there was an appearance before #25?”), to which Stephen Bissette then replied to set the record straight and conversations ensued:
Case closed: Bissette says nope, no prior appearances, it all started in that panel from #25, where the character we today know as John Constantine was standing behind Abby, just afterthe salesman and the swordfish “met”!
So: when you looked at those 12 images I showed you in the beginning, what was your answer when you looked at #10? Did you recognize that image as being John Constantine?? And now that you’ve heard the backstory, how do you feel now?
And how does the rest of the hobby answer (currently)? Let’s next take a look at how some of the big names in the hobby answer the same question! OK big names, have a look at #10 and tell us what you think!
First, let’s ask the Overstreet Price Guide. When they look at that panel from #25, they say: yes, that’s John Constantine:
Then there’s my fellow CPV Price Guide collaborator, Doug Sulipa, an absolute encyclopedia of comic book knowledge: his “Advisor Note” for issue #25 of Saga of the Swamp Thing makes crystal clear that when he looks at that panel, he says yes, that’s John Constantine:
How about ComicBase? When they look at that panel, they too say yes, that’s John Constantine:
Next let’s see what MyComicShop thinks… yep, they too say yes, that’s John Constantine:
Over at ComicsPriceGuide, they too cite the 1st cameo appearance of John Constantine in this issue, as well as pointing out the connection to Sting:
And then over at ComicLink we have quite an interestingly-phrased description: “Retroactively determined to be 1st appearance (in cameo) of John Constantine.“
Among the sources we’ve reviewed thus far, the phrase “retroactively determined” gives us the first “hint” that there’s a little bit of “controversy” in the hobby over the first appearance of John Constantine. And indeed, there’s even an article out there entitled, “The debate surrounding John Constantine’s first appearance” which cites DC sources as standing by issue #37 as the “official” first appearance of John Constantine.
Wow: although I give them credit for stating that “John Constantine could have possibly made his first appearance in this issue” and giving an explanation stating their viewpoint, it strikes me as “highly incomplete” to pass off the cameo as simply a character that “shares no other traits … other than physical inspiration” and then saying that “some people” have claimed this to be Constantine’s first appearance.
“Some people”? Don’t take it from “some people”… take it from Stephen Bissette himself!!In the 2018 exchange cited earlier, Bissette taught us the true origin: that he and Totleben drew the “unnamed, non-speaking character” not as some random unimportant background character but rather with deliberate intention that this was “someone”(someone drawn with specific inspiration [Sting] and meant to be a recurring character) and that Alan Moore had better figure out a story for him (“You better do something with him, because we’re not going to stop drawing him!“)
That’s the origin of the creative-team-development of this character that Bissette is describing here, which is a way different situation from the picture painted by DC Database in their commentary. Bissette drew “him” and said he was going to keep on doing so — that’s why Alan Moore came up with a name and a backstory, and ultimately the character we know as John Constantine was developed and “assigned” to “him.” I suppose you could argue that this assignment was done “retroactively”… but that doesn’t do full justice to the backstory behind the creation of John Constantine because via the behind-the-scenes creative process among the creative team you can draw a direct line from that one-panel cameo in #25, to the character we came to know in issue #37.
But did DC Database actually know all of that before their commentary was written? Have others in the hobby who dismiss issue #25 actually heard what Stephen Bissette and Alan Moore had to say on the subject? Given that the Bissette conversation is buried in a 2018 Facebook thread, I have to wonder if the #25 detractors are operating with incomplete information (or wrote their views a very long time ago)?
I only added issue #25 to my collection within the last year (and naturally, as a collector who cares about rarity, I went after the 95¢ cover price variant), and at the time I started my hunt I wasn’t actually aware that there was any debate over John Constantine’s appearance in this issue… Given what appears in the Overstreet guide I had assumed it was a settled fact. It wasn’t until my copy returned from CGC grading and I looked at what they placed on the label, that I realized that this first appearance must be one of those fun situations that falls under the category of “it’s complicated”… because CGC mentions nothing about John Constantine whatsover on their label (currently) for issue #25! Can you believe it? I was shocked to see that the only Key Comments note they place is “Jason Blood appearance”:
Among all of the “big names” in the hobby, arguably CGC is the one whose stance has the biggest result on market value… So given their current stance of completely ignoring the 1st cameo appearance of John Constantine (perhaps siding with the view currently held by DC Database), no wonder Saga of the Swamp Thing #25 has such a lower market value versus what we might expect!
And CBCS gives the book the exact same treatment as CGC does, merely stating “Jason Blood appearance” on their label as well:
I propose that it is time for CGC and CBCS to study this situation further, to learn from what Stephen Bissette shared in 2018 about the true behind-the-scenes “origin story” of John Constantine’s creation as a character, and then to update their labels! This cameo truly deserves mention. And to completely ignore it, as CGC and CBCS currently do, is truly an unfortunate situation that needs a fix. Readers: please bombard CGC and CBCS with requests to update their key comments notes for issue #25 and share the facts with them, won’t you?
Keanu Reeves Interview
Keanu Reeves has been giving interviews recently, to promote the new Matrix film (side note: did you know that Reeves is Canadian and was raised in Toronto?), and you probably know that he played John Constantine in the 2005 film.
So I found it quite noteworthy during this Colbert interview, when he was asked, “Is there a character you’ve played before you’d like to play again, that noone is asking you to? And keep in mind, when you say this, someone will then ask you to!”
Keanu answered “that’s not true” to the “someone will then ask you” part, but then said: “I would love to play John Constantine again.”
Stephen Colbert then followed up, “Great film! Love that! Are you saying right now, on national television, that you are willing to play John Constantine again — with the prospect that Stephen Colbert might have a guest-starring role — that noone will make that movie?!?“
Keanu answered, “I’ve tried. I’ve tried, Stephen.” Listen to the crowd’s reaction when he says this… It is in this clip, and the exchange starts about 25 seconds in: I’d say the people want another John Constantine movie. And importantly, so does Keanu — to the point where he states that he’s tried, actively to get one made! Might it help that he’s now discussed this on national television, and that Colbert only-half-jokingly wants a role in it as a “reluctant demon”?
Happy Collecting! 🙂
Whether we ever get another Constantine movie (or not), I find the comics surrounding his 1st appearance to be very highly collectible, especially Saga of the Swamp Thing #25 given that it is currently “overlooked” by CGC, and of course his “full” first appearance in #37 is incredibly appealing as a collectible (and yes, there’s a 95¢ cover price variant of that one too, and that most-rare Canadian Price Variant type is exceedingly difficult to find in high grade, so set your expectations low: as of this writing on 12/21/2021 there is still not a single 9.8 price variant copy on CGC’s census for issue #37).
Happy Collecting!
– Ben p.s. The twelve pictures from the beginning are (1) Sting in Quadrophenia, (2) Keanu Reeves in Constantine, (3) Dana Carvey from Choppin’ Broccoli, (4) Constantine in the ad in DC Sampler #3, and (5) through (12) are all from Saga of the Swamp Thing #37 & #38, with the exception of (10) from #25.
Earlier this year, I updated my lists of key comics by year with updated census counts/rankings and with CGC label notes included. For those who have explored the 1992 page, you may have noticed three books mentioning Spider-Man 2099 on the CGC label made the toplist (here they are in the order of how they ranked by highest census count):
â—‰ Amazing Spider-Man #365, published 8/1992, has this CGC label note: 1st appearance of Spider-Man 2099. Gatefold Venom/Carnage poster by Mark Bagley. Hologram cover.
The CGC label for Amazing Spider-Man #365 credits this 8/1992 issue as containing the first appearance of Spider-Man 2099.
◉ Spider-Man 2099 #1, published 11/1992, has this CGC label note: Origin Spider-Man 2099 (Miguel O’Hara). Red foil cover.
Published three months after Amazing Spider-Man #365, Spider-Man 2099 #1 is credited only as the Origin of Spider-Man 2099, but not his first appearance.
â—‰ Web of Spider-Man #90, published 7/1992, has this CGC label note: Gatefold Spider-Man 2099 poster by Rick Leonardi. Hologram cover. Mysterio appearance.
Note that Web of Spider-Man #90 PRE-DATES Amazing Spider-Man #365 by a month, and contains a Spider-Man 2099 poster!
Interestingly, as circled on the above labels, you can see that Web of Spider-Man #90 actually pre-dates Amazing Spider-Man #365 by a full month, and inside its pages we see Spider-Man 2099 appearing on a large 3 page gatefold poster! Let’s have a look at that poster, shall we? Here it is:
Three page poster inside of Web of Spider-Man #90 featuring Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099!
That’s a huge poster — spanning 3 glossy pages — and the sheer size of the Spider-Man 2099 artwork (overlapping 2 of those 3 pages) is thus quite “satisfying” in the sense that this isn’t just some small one-panel cameo on newsprint, this appearance spans multiple glossy pages within some extraordinary (and physically large) artwork!!
Here’s a question for you: would you consider that poster you just saw to be an advertisement? The thought that this could be possibly considered an ad hadn’t even occurred to me; yet, when Googling the first appearance of Spider-Man 2099 one of the first results (and the #1 result for the search shown below) is a page on keycollectorscomics.com which credits Spider-Man 2099 #1 with the first appearance and then mentions the 5-page preview in ASM #365 and finally says “and an advertisement in Web of Spider-Man #90″:
So apparently keycollectorscomics.com is taking a stance that deviates from that of CGC and instead considers Spider-Man 2099 #1 to be the 1st appearance of the character; and that view “demotes” Amazing Spider-Man #365 to being a “5 page preview” (versus a 1st appearance credit) and meanwhile they apparently consider the Web #90 poster appearance to be merely an ad.
Certainly the poster is included to promote the upcoming Spider-Man 2099 #1 release (and we could say the exact same thing about the preview/mini-comic inside of ASM #365 being promotional…). But, I completely disagree with the stance that this is an ad; there aren’t even any words on it! No, I consider this Web of Spider-Man #90 poster to be an appearance inside a comic book of the Spider-Man 2099 character; and if you see things the same way I do then it is quite interesting indeed that this poster’s publication actually pre-dates Amazing Spider-Man #365 by a full month, making it a book to definitely add to your list of early Spider-Man 2099 keys to collect (and your list of books where the industry is not giving the book its due credit)!
The Overstreet guide does point out the existence of this Spider-Man 2099 poster within Web #90 (and the guide does not refer to it as an ad but rather as a gatefold poster), but does not state that the book contains the 1st appearance (or 1st cameo appearance) of the character. However, Overstreet’s listing does give us some additional interesting information including that issue #90 went to a second printing (with a gold hologram instead of silver), and, that the first printing was distributed in polybags:
While Overstreet points out the Spider-Man 2099 poster, the guide does not specifically point out that Web of Spider-Man #90 pre-dates Amazing Spider-Man #365.
First Spider-Man 2099 Appearance: “It’s Complicated”
Looking at the 1st appearance credits across the hobby, we can already see that there is disagreement — keycollectorscomics.com having a different view from CGC for example.
First appearance credits can often fall under the category of “it’s complicated” — and this Spider-Man 2099 situation reminds me a lot of the 1st appearance of Invincible in that there is also a “preview” / mini-comic involved. In the case of Savage Dragon #102 though, the Invincible mini-comic was not advertised on the cover; yet sure enough, that book contains an Invincible preview inside and pre-dates Invincible #1.
However, in that case the preview is not credited by CGC with a “first appearance” label note the way ASM #365 is credited with Spidey 2099’s first appearance — it is Invincible #1 that is given the first appearance credit by CGC. Had Spider-Man 2099’s previews been treated the same way, then it would be Spider-Man 2099 #1 treated as the 1st appearance of Spider-Man 2099.
Are there any differences between the Invincible/Savage Dragon #102 preview comic situation and the Spider-Man 2099/ASM #365 preview comic situation? One major contrast I notice immediately is that whereas the preview comic inside of Savage Dragon #102 is not advertised on the cover, meanwhile Amazing Spider-Man #365 does advertise the Spider-Man 2099 preview comic on the cover:
In contrast to Savage Dragon #102, where the cover does NOT mention the Invincible Preview mini-comic inside, over at ASM #365, the cover DOES advertise the preview of Spider-Man 2099.
Perhaps this added visibility helped to set the industry’s current 1st appearance credits for Spider-Man 2099; and perhaps like in many other situations it was the influence of the Overstreet guide that led to CGC and much of the hobby at large crediting the book this way. Here is how Overstreet lists Amazing Spider-Man #365:
The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide credits Amazing Spider-Man #365 with the 1st appearance of Spider-Man 2099, saying: “30th anniversary issue w/silver hologram on cover; Spidey/Venom/Carnage pull-out poster; contains 5 page preview of Spider-Man 2099 (1st app.); Spidey’s origin retold; Lizard app; reintro Peter’s parents in Stan Lee 3 page text w/illo (story continues thru #370).”
As you can see above, Overstreet notes “5 page preview of Spider-Man 2099 (1st app.)” in its description. (And by the way, like CGC, Overstreet’s note for Spider-Man 2099 #1 only credits that later book with his Origin).
So let’s take a look at that Spider-Man 2099 “first” appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #365, shall we? Here’s the initial page of the preview comic inside of ASM #365 — where we see there are flying cars in 2099 — with the heading, Here it is! A Sneak Preview of the first Marvel Futureverse title! Spider-Man 2099!
“Here it is! A Sneak Preview of the first Marvel Futureverse title! Spider-Man 2099!”
The preview continues: Stan Lee Presents Spider-Man 2099!
Stan Lee Presents Spider-Man 2099
And here are the final two pages of the Spider-Man 2099 preview:
“Like what you see? Intrigued? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Spider-Man 2099: on sale in September! You saw it here FIRST!”
Earlier I used the word “satisfying” to describe the Web of Spider-Man #90 poster, and I’ll use that word again here — this preview comic indeed gives a satisfying glimpse/teaser, and I can definitely see why much of the hobby has elected to ascribe the all-important “first appearance of Spider-Man 2099” credit to Amazing Spider-Man #365 instead of Spider-Man 2099 #1.
In addition to Overstreet and CGC, CBCS also credits Amazing Spider-Man #365 with the first appearance of Spider-Man 2099:
Newsstand Edition label shown — unlike CGC which currently “lumps together” newsstand and direct edition copies as if they were one and the same (which they are decidedly not), CBCS meanwhile differentiates the types on their census and on their labels! Way To Go CBCS! 🙂
As does GoCollect (and note that their 9.8 market value for the newsstand edition is ~2.5x that of the direct edition)…
For comparison, here’s GoCollect’s view on first print copies of Spider-Man 2099 #1, where no 1st appearance credit is given (interestingly, while their direct edition 9.8 value is much much lower compared to ASM 365, their newsstand 9.8 value for Spider-Man 2099 #1 edges out ASM 365 by $100 currently):
And as far as ASM #365 getting the 1st appearance credit for Spider-Man 2099 throughout most of the hobby, in addition to GoCollect, ComicBase also agrees with that stance as well…
As does ComicLink…
And I could go on and on with examples of this agreement (here’s two more — MyComicShop: “80-page giant 30th Anniversary issue, with the first appearance of Spider-Man 2099!” … ComicsPriceGuide: “30th Anniversary Special, (Silver Hologram). 1st Appearance of Spider-Man 2099. Fold out poster by Mark Bagley.”)…
Point being: the consensus across the vast majority of the hobby currently is to treat Amazing Spider-Man #365 as containing the first appearance of Spider-Man 2099 — almost everyone is overlooking Web of Spider-Man #90 as Spider-Man 2099’s true first appearance.
Don’t Forget Web of Spider-Man #90!
Almost the entire hobby overlooks Web #90 as Spider-Man 2099’s true first appearance… but not everyone!! My fellow CPV Price Guide collaborator Doug Sulipa is one of the few who gives Web #90 its due credit. Here’s what Doug Sulipa’s Comic World has to say about the issue:
WEB OF SPIDER-MAN (Marvel Comics Pub; 1985-1995) #90 (7/1992; FIRST PRINTING; Three Page TRI-FOLD Gatefold Centerfold Poster of SPIDER-MAN 2099 by Rick Leonardi and Al Williamson; TRUE FIRST appearance of SPIDER-MAN 2099, Pre-Dates Amazing Spider-Man #365 (8/1992) by One Month; HOLOGRAM cover; Mysterio appearance; GIANT 30th Anniversary issue; Spider-Man Prelude: The Spider’s Thread; Spider-Man vs MYSTERIO in Sleight of Mind! Appearances by; Max Schiffman; Mary Jane Watson Parker; Cameo illusions of; Galactus, Venom, Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, Demogoblin, X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four; Howard Mackie story; Alex Saviuk and Sam de la Rosa art; John Romita cover; ——————————————– TRUE FIRST appearance of Miguel O’Hara aka SPIDER-MAN 2099, Pre-Dates Amazing Spider-Man #365 (8/1992) by One Month; *** Miguel O’Hara is the first LATINO character to assume the identity of Spider-Man; ** Spider-Man 2099 appears in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018 Animated Movie), voiced by Oscar Isaac. (Fans Speculate he might appear in Spider-Verse Movie #2); He makes an appearance in the film’s post-credits scene, along with his A.I. Lyla, where he learns from her about the events that have transpired during the film. He then decides to use his new device he has been working on: a watch that allows him to travel to different dimensions on a whim. He decides to use it to “go back to the beginning” (Earth-67), which is revealed to be a universe based on the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon and immediately gets into an argument with that universe’s Spider-Man, the style and topic of the argument referencing a popular meme.
As you can see, Doug calls Web of Spider-Man #90 the TRUE FIRST appearance of Spider-Man 2099. Doug is spot on with this call in my view, and based upon what we’ve reviewed thus far in this post I hope you’ll agree too!
Thus, I feel that the Spider-Man 2099 poster appearance in Web #90 — pre-dating ASM #365 by a month — deserves way more attention than it is currently getting across the hobby… While we do see mentions of the existence of the poster, none of the primary “authorities” in the hobby are specifically pointing out the July 1992 publication month, vs. ASM #365 at August 1992; in other words the typical collector is not being informed that Web #90 pre-dates the book currently the most widely credited as containing Spider-Man 2099’s first appearance!
A “first cameo appearance” credit on grading company labels would arguably be warranted here; or at the very least I feel the grading company labels should be noting that this poster pre-dates the book currently credited by the hobby as Spider-Man 2099’s 1st appearance. (CGC does a version of a “predates” note like this for Gambit, so I picture the possibility of something similar here for Spider-Man 2099).
Collectors themselves seem to be paying much less attention to Web #90 currently, versus ASM #365 and Spider-Man 2099 #1, judging by the fact that a still-sealed polybagged 1st print newsstand copy of Web #90 can currently be acquired for under $10 shipped which strikes me as a bargain given the book’s importance (this recent example below went for $8.99 with free shipping):
Even the gold hologram (2nd print) newsstand copies of the issue are going for a song, despite being dramatically harder to actually find out there (regardless of grade) than the 1st print newsstand copies:
GoCollect, meanwhile, has seen so few newsstand sales in 9.8 that their newsstand fair market value is still “pending” for 1st print copies of Web of Spider-Man #90:
And arguably, the low 9.8 newsstand sales volume in the marketplace is due in part to the fact that Web #90 isn’t currently getting the credit it deserves with regards to Spider-Man 2099, by the authorities in the hobby — and in turn collectors aren’t sending their copies in to be graded to the degree they would be if the labels were properly crediting the Spider-Man 2099 appearance. (And another part of the low 9.8 newsstand sales volume puzzle arguably has to do with the polybags themselves making newsstand 9.8’s incredibly difficult — more on that in a bit). But turning to ComicLink’s presentation of Web #90, we actually find something cool and unexpected (it surprised me anyway when I saw it)…
Bonus Galactus Venomization!
With all the focus on Spider-Man 2099, ComicLink, meanwhile, has noticed a 1st appearance within Web of Spider-Man #90 which others in the hobby seem to have overlooked. Remember Doug Sulipa’s listing earlier? It had included a note about “cameo illusions of Galactus, Venom” (etc.). ComicLink has studied these illusions and noticed the following:
Let’s take a look at that Venomized Galactus character, shall we? The scene opens with Spidey battling Venom:
Although in the story above while what we saw may all have just been an illusion, it is still very cool indeed to have seen this “Venomized Galactus” portrayal introduced into comics, marking another reason beyond the Spider-Man 2099 poster to find Web of Spider-Man #90 appealing!
Web #90 vs. Marvel Age #114
But there’s another “competing” July 1992 book which Overstreet Advisor Bill Alexander brought to my attention, that also pre-dates Amazing Spider-Man #365 and also contains a Spider-Man 2099 appearance: Marvel Age #114:
Presently, the CGC label has a “blank” key comments note for Marvel Age #114.
Marvel Age is a title that was published by Marvel Comics that was essentially a “preview publication” — in that the entire point of the title was to preview upcoming content. In that sense, even though they produced it in comic book size, it is more akin to preview magazines (like those from Fantagraphics) as its peer set. Here’s how Standard Catalog of Comic Books referred to the title:
In the view of Standard Catalog of Comic Books: “Marvel Age – Not a comic book…”
But ultimately it is a Marvel publication and many collectors are paying attention to this title (see Marvel Age #97 as one prominent example). And as we saw circled on the CGC label example, just like Web of Spider-Man #90, issue #114 of Marvel Age also shows a July 1992 publication date on its label (but with no current mention in the CGC key comments of anything special or important). And inside, the following glimpse of Spidey 2099 appears:
“Everywhere the original Spidey zigs, Spider-Man 2099 zags.”
So: do Web of Spider-Man #90 and Marvel Age #114 “tie” in publication order? Or did one come out demonstrably before the other? For many collectors the July 1992 “tie” for publication month will be enough to want to collect both books… similar to how many collectors will collect both Amazing Spider-Man #252 and Marvel Team-Up #141 (which carries the same 5/1984 publication month and CGC labels with the note, “Ties with Amazing Spider-Man #252 for first appearance of the black costume.“). [See Spectacular Spider-Man #90 as well, from the same month].
However, I’ve also seen some collectors debate those two books and try to “break the tie” by pointing to shipping dates listed in preview publications such as Amazing Heroes, Comic Reader, and indeed Marvel Age itself. In issue #11 of Marvel Age, the shipping date for Marvel Team-Up #141 is shown as January 24, 1984, while ASM #252’s shipping date is shown as January 10, 1984… two weeks earlier.
To some, that small shipping difference matters a lot to their collecting decisions. Some collectors even go after all the various preview publications themselves — including Marvel Age #12 which previews the black costume [and incidentally MyComicShop has chronicled that book as only the 6th “preview appearance” of the black costume overall — here’s a link to their great page on the subject (where Comics Journal #85 is cited as the “winner”/earliest among the preview publications).]
So for those who would prefer to see a true “winner” declared between the pair of Web of Spider-Man #90 and Marvel Age #114 based upon shipping dates, then let’s have a look at the “Coming Attractions” page inside of the previous issue of Marvel Age, issue #113:
Web of Spider-Man #90 shipped May 5th, whereas Marvel Age #114 shipped May 19th.
As you can see, Web of Spider-Man #90 shipped first. However, personally, I feel that there is no “right way” or “wrong way” to decide which comic book issues to collect and each collector should go after the issues they are most drawn to for their own reasons. For me, when it comes to the black costume I happen to own both the 75 cent variant of ASM #252and MTU #141 … and similarly, when it comes to Spider-Man 2099 I wouldn’t hesitate to collect all of the issues I’ve mentioned thus far — Spider-Man 2099 #1, Amazing Spider-Man #365, Web of Spider-Man #90, and Marvel Age #114. Why limit yourself to just one issue important to a character when you can collect them all? That’s the way I see it anyway! 🙂
Collecting Web 90, ASM 365, Spider-Man 2099 #1, & MA 114
Each collector should figure out on their own which of these issues appeals to them (maybe one, maybe more, maybe all). But, when collecting any of these, I do want to make sure to encourage everyone who cares about rarity and collectible value to approach each of these issues with a newsstand-focused mindset, because the direct editions are just way too prevalent out there to interest me at all, and I know that with all the growing newsstand awareness out there, more and more collectors feel the same way I do and now prize only the more-rare high grade newsstand copies, while panning their prevalent direct edition counterparts.
To get a sense of how many copies Marvel sold for issues of this time period, I’m going to turn to the Standard Catalog of Comic Books which helpfully lists circulation statement numbers — for instance Marvel Age #114 at 81,567 — and also lists order levels made by direct market distributor Capital City (a competitor to Diamond which Diamond eventually acquired in 1996), which can be used to extrapolate a total. That’s possible to do because the authors also researched the market share Capital City represented for each publisher by year, i.e. what percentage of Marvel’s comics were sold through Capital City in 1992? And the answer, according to the Standard Catalog of Comic Books, is 19.9% for Marvel in 1992. Let’s round that to an even 20% for easier math: that means for example that for every 20,000 copies we know were ordered by Capital City, we can estimate that an additional 80,000 copies were sold elsewhere — for a total of 100,000.
Looking up these numbers in the Standard Catalog of Comic Books, for ASM #365, Capital City orders are shown at 221,700. If that number represented 20% of the pie, then the total pie would have been a whopping 1,108,500 copies for Amazing Spider-Man #365! For Spider-Man 2099 #1, the numbers are even higher: Capital City alone is shown to have ordered 300,000 copies… which extrapolates to a total of 1,500,000 copies for Spider-Man 2099 #1! With sales numbers like these, it is all the more important to say “pass” to the prevalent direct editions, and instead zero in on the more-rare newsstand copies.
By contrast to ASM #365 and Spider-Man 2099 #1, Web of Spider-Man #90’s sales numbers — while still “impressively high” — were more modest by comparison. Capital City is shown to have ordered 114,000 first print copies (silver hologram) and 44,600 second print copies (gold hologram)… which extrapolates out to 570,000 1st print copies and 223,000 2nd print copies in total for Web #90.
With these big-picture sales numbers in mind, let’s now take a look at the newsstand:direct disparity. For that, the CBCS census really helps to illustrate the massive disparity in high grade survivorship, because CBCS has helpfully been “breaking out” newsstand from direct edition since 2017. Although their total census numbers are much smaller than larger competitor CGC, we can still learn a lot by looking at the ratios within the books that have passed through CBCS’s doors, so let’s take a look into CBCS’s census (aka “population report”). For Marvel Age #114 they’ve only graded two grand-total copies to date, and both of them have been direct editions, so there’s not enough data to explore a ratio for that one. But newsstand editions are indeed out there; here’s what they look like:
Turning to Spider-Man 2099 #1, for that issue CBCS has graded 175 total copies in the 9.4-and-up grade tiers to date since 2017 when they started differentiating the types, 12 of which — just 6.9% as a percentage — have been newsstand copies, with just 5 of those newsstand examples in the coveted 9.8 grade tier:
CBCS has also graded 21 second printing / “Toybiz” copies of Spider-Man 2099 #1 from 2001. CGC has a distinct census entry for the 2nd print copies as well, and as of this writing has graded 233 of them:
‘”Included with Toy Biz Spider-Man 2099 action figure. Indicia reads “Second Printing”‘
Here’s an example CGC-graded copy to show what these second print 2001 versions look like slabbed — the cover has a white background with black border instead of the red foil that 1st print copies have, and there is a newsstand barcode at the bottom left corner:
Here’s an example of how such copies were originally distributed — the KB Toys price tag on this one reveals that its buyer paid $7.99 for it initially:
Turning next to the CBCS census for Web of Spider-Man #90, CBCS has graded just 38 total broken-out copies in the 9.4-and-up grade tiers to date, only 2 of which — about 5.3% as a percentage — have been newsstand copies, with the highest newsstand grade to date being 9.4:
While the (false) default expectation/perception for polybagged issues might tend to be that the polybag would help preserve the condition of the book inside (and that’s certainly true for some kinds of condition damage — hard to imagine a dog-eared corner for example, for a comic still sealed in a plastic bag), something we saw with poly-bagged copies of Spider-Man #1 (1990) was that the plastic “ridge” in the back actually presses a bend into the paper over time. And along that ridge there can even be spots where the variations in the plastic seal formed larger/heavier points which press even deeper into the paper and can even cause color breaks.
This “polybag bend” phenomenon, combined with the rough handling that the newsstand distribution channel was notorious for, actually caused newsstand-distributed polybagged copies of Spider-Man #1 to have a dramatically lower CBCS census percentage in 9.6-up, compared to both the direct-distributed Silver “no cover price” polybagged copies, and the “regular” Silver copies. See that past post for a more detailed discussion, but here’s a chart to illustrate this phenomenon, showing the percentage of copies within each census entry that received a grade of 9.6 or higher, for Spider-Man #1:
So essentially, what this chart is showing, is that if you’re a polybagged UPC copy of Spider-Man #1 (originally distributed on newsstands) that was sent in to CBCS, then you have only a 13.5% chance of being a 9.6 or higher; if you’re a Silver polybagged (“no cover price”) copy of Spider-Man #1 (also distributed in polybags but via direct sales to comic shops) sent in to CBCS then your odds of being a 9.6 or higher copy almost double, to 25%; while finally, if you’re a “regular” Silver copy (direct-sold to comic shops but not originally distributed in polybags) sent in to CBCS then you’ve got a whopping 75% chance of being a 9.6 or higher copy — that’s triple the odds of the polybagged no-cover-price Silver copies, and over 5 times the odds compared to the polybagged UPC edition!
So not only do we need to think about the stark difference in sales numbers between the direct edition and newsstand types (where by one industry insider’s estimate, Marvel’s newsstand percentage was just 15% by 1990 — see newsstand rarity discussions and estimates), we also need to think about what percentage of the newsstand copies originally sold are actually still surviving today in the top grades!
And just like the the polybagged UPC copies of Spider-Man #1, the back of the Web #90 polybags have this same exact “ridge” feature where the plastic forms a seam down the middle and presses a bend into the paper over time:
And if stacked one on top of another, this ridge then also presses into the front of the copy underneath it too… which in this case means bending the hologram itself:
Ouch! Thus, this polybag-exclusivity in turn should make top graded newsstand copies all the more difficult to find out there for Web of Spider-Man #90 — which adds to their appeal as collectibles (especially those newsstand copies that manage to grade in the coveted 9.8 tier — and perhaps this is the other piece of the puzzle to explain why GoCollect has seen so few NM/MT newsstand sales).
Indeed, the CBCS census presently shows zero newsstand copies on record there to date in 9.6 or 9.8, just two in Near Mint 9.4, and fully 74% of the census copies within the newsstand census entry for Web #90 are below 9.0 in grade. Stop and think about that for a moment… nearly three quarters of the census copies (which were presumably already selected by submitters as their top grading candidates) for newsstand Web #90 are VF+ or lower!
The second print (gold hologram) copies of Web #90 do not have the polybag problem, but CBCS does not appear to have graded any newsstand 2nd print copies yet (I could not find any broken out on their census), just direct edition. But the gold hologram newsstand copies do indeed exist out there, and if your experience matches mine you’ll find that they are a far more challenging find than the 1st print newsstand copies. The 2nd print copies can be identified by the Gold background hologram (instead of Silver) but also by the November cover month; here is a second print newsstand example — or dare I call it, with a wink and a nod to Spider-Man #1, the “UPC Gold Edition”?:
Why November, when the first printing was published in July? Well, I suspect that before putting 2nd printings into the market of their hologram issues, Marvel wanted to wait until after they had finished selling the first printings for all four Spider-Man scheduled titles with holograms that were set to come out: Spectacular Spider-Man #189 had come first in June, followed by Web #90 in July, ASM #365 in August, and Spider-Man #26 in September. Only then did Marvel subsequently put out second printings with gold holograms (instead of silver) for Spectacular #189, and for Web #90… but for some reason they stopped there… I.e. there are no 2nd print / gold hologram versions of ASM #365 nor Spider-Man #26. Could that be an indication that the 2nd printings for Spectacular #189 and Web #90 didn’t sell as well as Marvel had hoped? Perhaps the market was already fully satiated by four first print hologram issues plus two second print hologram issues??
And finally here’s the CBCS census result for Amazing Spider-Man #365, where to date they have graded a grand total of 160 copies in 9.4-and-up, of which 9 — or about 5.6% — have been newsstand copies:
So I say “skip over” the direct editions when collecting any of these issues, as they’re just far too prevalent; instead, concentrate on collecting the highest grade newsstand copies you can find. (And you may need to be more patient & ambitious to find that 2nd print Gold hologram newsstand version of Web #90, or the toy store 2001 bar coded version of Spider-Man 2099 #1, in highest grades).
And if you’re feeling really ambitious, then I have a further challenge for you. Notice in the census screenshot above for ASM #365 that CBCS has an “Australian Edition” census entry with 1 copy on it — that’s actually an entry left over from before they updated to the “price variant” nomenclature for Type 1A cover price variants in 2018 [so apparently they haven’t been submitted any further Australian Price Variant (“APV” for short) newsstand copies since then for #365]. But while the old census name may give off the false impression that it is a foreign reprint, in actuality, that single book on their census is a first print original newsstand comic, published right here in the USA, at the same time and on the same equipment as the other types they produced, by Marvel as the publisher… but distributed in Australia.
APVs: “The Even Rarer 1990’s Newsstand”
Have you heard of Australian Price Variant newsstand comics, aka APVs? Here’s why I for one am the most drawn to them as my preferred variants to collect for Spider-Man 2099 #1, ASM #365, and Web #90:
Within the newsstand “pie slice” published by Marvel here in the US for each book, during a short “price variant window” in the 90’s, a small batch was printed with subtle differences (the biggest of which was a higher cover price and cover month advanced to account for shipping time to actually reach the Australian newsstands) and loaded onto the slow boat to Australia. See my prior posts on these awesome variants for more background info: Part I, Part II, and most recently Part III where I discuss the 2019 article published by Alternate Worlds revealing the print run for APVs was 2000-4000 per issue, that they were collated and shipped first — before the other editions — so that they could be rushed off to the boat; and the confirmation that unsold newsstand copies were pulped… Leaving precious few APV survivors out there in high grade.
Like CBCS, CGC “breaks out” these higher-cover-priced copies printed for Australian newsstands too, i.e. gives them their own unique census entries, and as of this writing CGC has seen 4 grand-total APVs for Spider-Man 2099 #1, has seen 2 grand-total APVs for Web of Spider-Man #90, and has seen 9 grand-total APVs for Amazing Spider-Man #365, as screen-captured below. Now that is the kind of census rarity that gets me excited as a collector!
Some collectors out there, when they get a “collecting idea” for a given Modern Age issue they want, have told me they will go after 10 or more CGC 9.8 copies of the issue and really make it “an investment” if they have the conviction. Which makes some sense given how prevalent Modern Age comics tend to be generally — someone who is used to paying thousands for a single Bronze or Silver Age key might think “why bother” about a Modern book that costs a small fraction of that sum… so it makes some sense that they might start thinking in multiples (10x of a given Modern at $100 each would be an equivalent dollar investment compared to 1 older key at $1000). And in the world of direct editions that’s certainly possible to do… (indeed when you have an issue where a MILLION direct edition copies were sold, it should be quite easy to find near-unlimited availability of CGC 9.8’s or “9.8 contenders” raw).
But things change when you enter the world of newsstand Modern Age comics, and especially when you delve into the Type 1A price variant newsstand books: I find it incredible to think, that if someone wanted to accumulate 10 CGC-graded APVs for ASM #365 as their goal, they could buy every single census copy that presently exists and still be one short of ten. And in 9.6-and up there are just three… and in 9.8 only one!
Something else to ponder is the super-high cover price on the copies printed for Australian newsstands, for these hologram issues, and what that may have meant for actual newsstand sales. For ASM #365, as an 84-page anniversary issue, even the regular (North American) newsstand copies were pricey, at $3.95 US each. That compares to prior issue #364 at just $1.25 US… So kids in the USA were asked to pay more than 3x the price they were “used to paying” for the typical ASM comic of the time, for #365. For a “casual newsstand reader” that’s a big price difference! And over in Australia it was even more stark. At ASM #364 the regular price kids were used to paying was $1.80 (notice the price box below):
And then at issue #365, the cover price for the APVs come in at a whopping $5.95! How many kids in 1992 in Australia could actually find the pocket money for that purchase? Did the super-high cover price in turn keep newsstand sales lower than normal? Or did the appeal of the 30th anniversary and the hologram counter-balance sales by generating higher demand? The answer is in the survivorship of the variants and I for one can only observe that from the time I began hunting for an ASM #365 variant in nice enough shape to clear a hurdle of 9.0, checking eBay at least weekly and using eBay alerts, it literally took me over five years before I had actually landed a suitable APV copy into my collection. I found that they hardly ever appear for sale — and when they do, typically they are in beaten-up shape, and often with price stickers affixed by the retailer.
Over at Web of Spider-Man #90, the APV cover price was a bit less but still a very big ask for 1992, at $4.50. And the APVs did apparently get distributed in polybags just like their North American newsstand counterparts, which means they too have that polybag ridge problem; as of this writing the CGC census shows there are zero APVs in the top grades of 9.6-up, with both of the current census copies coming in at 9.2. (By the way, I’ve yet to see a Gold / 2nd print APV, so I’d be shocked if they exist [if you’ve seen one please let me know]).
And finally, here’s an example of what the Spider-Man 2099 #1 APV looks like, with $2.65 cover price:
As shown earlier on the census screenshot, there are just four of these on record at CGC to date, with two lucky 9.8’s!
I realize that in general, collecting high grade APVs would test the patience of a saint. So most collectors reading this will probably stick to the highest grade North American newsstand copies they can find… But definitely “keep an eye out” for these Type 1A Price Variants, set those eBay alerts (near the top of the eBay page click where it says “♡ Save this search”), and who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky?
Happy Collecting! 🙂
I hope this post has helped you to explore the collecting opportunities among the comics associated with Spider-Man 2099’s first appearance. For me, Web of Spider-Man #90 newsstand copies in the highest grades — and especially those “Gold UPC” (wink and a nod to Spider-Man #1) 2nd print newsstand copies with gold holograms, and those rare APVs if you can find them — stand out as a great relative value, on account of the Spider-Man 2099 appearance on that 3-page poster pre-dating Amazing Spider-Man #365 by a month, and with the “added bonus” of the 1st appearance of a “Venomized Galactus” (or as ComicLink put it, “a Venom/Galactus Character.”) Special thanks to Bill Alexander for encouraging me to write this up, helping with research, and helping to proofread.
Happy Collecting! 🙂
– Ben p.s. I find the four Spider-Man 30th Anniversary 1992 hologram issues (the other two being Spectacular Spider-Man #189 and Spider-Man #26) in general to be a really neat part of 1990’s comics memorabilia. They marked the very first time holograms were ever incorporated into Marvel comic books — a really big deal at the time (which in turn means that Spectacular #189 from June 1992 gets the trophy for the “1st appearance of a Marvel hologram”). 🙂 So to see how these holograms were discussed / promoted back in 1992 within the pages of Marvel Age 114 was a fun read for me and I wanted to share the below article with you too:
“Marvel is celebrating Spider-Man’s 30th anniversary with state-of-the-art holograms scheduled to appear on each of the character’s four regular titles. This is the first time that holograms have been incorporated into a Marvel book. They will appear on Spectacular Spider-Man #189, Web of Spider-Man #90, Amazing Spider-Man #365, and Spider-Man #26. No effort has been spared in making Marvel’s hologram debut a major success.”
By Benjamin Nobel; NOTE: my original plan was to chronicle mis-listed variant opportunities here as I spot them over time, but unfortunately I’ve had to discontinue that plan and will not be appending new updates.
Hi everyone, from time to time I spot an eBay listing for a book on my watchlist, where the seller has pictured what is clearly a price variant (or other type of variant)… but where the title and description of their listing make no mention whatsoever of this fact — making their listing unfindable in refined searches (in other words, the usual buying competition may not find it!).
For example, here was a mis-listed $1.50 cover price variant copy of Amazing Spider-Man #275 which was recently auctioned for a starting bid of one dollar (plus shipping) on eBay.ca and sold for the opening bid:
The same seller also mis-listed a 75 cent variant copy of Amazing Spider-Man #265 which ended on the same day:
There are basically two possibilities to explain such situations:
(1) [Typical] The seller simply had no clue that the cover price of the book they owned is any different from the rest, hence they didn’t know to include those relevant keywords in their title; or,
(2) [Atypical] There is a purposeful bait-and-switch happening.
Fortunately, in my own experience anyway, most mis-listed variant situations are the former (where the owner simply has no clue they own a variant), and the latter can be guarded against by (a) messaging the seller before you bid and asking “hello, can you let me know if the winner will receive the *exact* comic pictured?” and if you receive this assurance, then, upon package arrival (b) making a cell phone recording at the time you open the package, just in case.
This way, if you don’t receive the variant in the picture, you can let the seller know that unfortunately the pictured comic was not the one you received, and that you recorded the package opening (you could include one screenshot/still showing the book you received). Chances are, you’ll find they simply made an honest mistake, such as having multiple copies available and pulling a different one from inventory than the intended one, by accident.
But, if they’ve purposefully teased a variant only to send you a plain ole direct edition as a bait-and-switch, then your video showing what was in the package should prove to eBay that you are due a refund or return, i.e. should you receive something other than the picture and the seller is not cooperative in resolving the problem, then you can open a case with eBay together with your documentation.
Going after mis-listed variants in this way does require more work on the part of the bidder, but can also be a great opportunity, because such listings don’t come up in a refined search (i.e. since the seller left out the variant keywords and went with a plain-vanilla [Title Issue#] style title, any competing bidders searching on keywords like “Canadian” or “Variant” or “CPV” or “Newsstand” etc. will not find it).
Less competition means better chances you’ll be able to win for a better price at auction, or negotiate a better price on a best-offer listing! Just the other day I myself won a book at auction for under $10 that has recently been going for $30, simply because the seller “mis-listed” it!
I strongly recommend giving mis-listed variant hunting a try! 🙂
Stan Lee will live forever through his incredible creations and stories. He gave so many gifts to comic collectors; and one of those gifts was the way he embraced the CGC Signature Series. CGC first announced the launch of the Signature Series back in May of 2001 as a solution to the problem of how to authenticate an autographed copy of a comic book.
The advent of the Signature Series was, in my opinion, brilliant — because prior to its existence the best a collector could do was rely on a Certificate of Authenticity (COA for short) as evidence that the signature on a given comic was authentic and not a forgery; another form of “proof” you would often see offered was a photograph of the creator at the signing.
But photographs and COA’s are far from an ideal solution to authenticate an autograph, because even the fanciest/”least-photocopiable” COA’s are still physically separate from the signed comic book itself — therefore making it possible for a forged copy to be “swapped” for the real copy even if the COA itself is original.
But what if there was a trusted authority would both (a) witness the signing, and then (b) immediately take the signed comic into their possession and seal it into a tamper-evident plastic holder together with a COA? That way, to the extent the trusted authority has people’s trust, every collector going forward will now be certain the comic in question sealed inside that plastic holder wasn’t swapped with a forgery!
That’s essentially what the Signature Series does: the Yellow Label is the COA, and it is encapsulated together with the witnessed-signed comic, for permanent signature authentication. As CGC itself has promoted the service, quote, “Having pioneered witnessed signature authentication, CGC Signature Series is a certification service that assures celebrity signatures are 100% authentic.”
And what is the most desirable signature on a CGC Signature Series book? Ask any group of collectors today and the most popular answer is bound to be Stan Lee — and between the advent of the Signature Series in 2001, and November 12, 2018, Stan Lee Signature Series books (and Signature Series books signed by other creators as well) were created in a steady stream. By 2011, CGC announced it had reached 100,000 certified CGC Signature Series books.
How Many Stan Lee CGC Signature Series Books Exist?
Each CGC Signature Series book is counted distinctly on CGC’s census — in other words, they come right out and tell us how many CGC SS copies exist out there, for any given census entry for a given issue (or variant of that issue). What they do not tell us on their census, is who signed each Signature Series comic listed. So for the past 17 years worth of accumulated census data, we unfortunately cannot see how many of each issue were signed by Stan Lee specifically — but, we can say with certainty that Stan Lee cannot have signed any more than all of the CGC SS copies on record for any given census entry! Thus, by referring to the CGC census data we can get a good handle on an upper boundary across issues and titles, for how many Stan Lee CGC Signature Series copies there are out there. While that’s not the ideal answer to the question of how many Stan Lee CGC Signature Series books exist, it does still help us by giving us an idea of the absolute maximums.
And as it turns out, the at-maximum numbers are not particularly large… Back in August of 2018, prompted by the news that Stan Lee was no longer going to be participating in public signings, I took a look at how many CGC Signature Series books there were across every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, a title that many a Marvel collector would certainly name if asked for their favorite title. I thought given the news, it marked an important snapshot in time to look at the data, because it appeared that there was only going to be a comparable “trickle” of new CGC SS copies carrying Stan Lee’s signature from that point forward, while meanwhile the flow of signed books from other creators would continue to hit the census unabated. Back at that point in time, the answer for the Amazing Spider-Man title was no more than 60,000 Stan Lee Signature Series copies. And doing the same exercise today, as of 11/27/2018, with all of the additional issues added to the census since then plus the stream of CGC Signature Series copies signed by other creators, we now see a maximum Stan Lee CGC SS count for Amazing Spider-Man at 66,838 copies; and if you include all issues with “Amazing Spider-Man” anywhere at all in the title/census name, the maximum count is 68,006 [I made use of Greg Holland’s indispensable research website to assemble the information].
A range of 60,000-68,000 maximum copies of Amazing Spider-Man ever signed by Stan Lee under the Signature Series strikes me as a low number in the scheme of things! Imagine for sake of argument that “Amazing Spider-Man CGC Signature Series” was actually one issue. If we learned it had a print run of 60K that would strike us as a fairly small print run in the context of the average paid circulation numbers for the title (for example in 1970 the average total paid circulation is shown at 322,195 copies; for 1980, 296,712 copies; for 1990, 334,893 copies…). One way to think about Stan Lee Signature Series copies is that Stan Lee was, in effect, the printing press for such copies, but a printing press that was churning out Signature Series copies for these past 17 years instead of a one-time batch. And now, the number of Stan Lee CGC Signature Series copies can no longer increase.
Let’s look now beyond the Amazing Spider-Man title, at some other key titles across the Marvel universe — note that I’m not intending what follows to be a comprehensive look at all Marvel / Atlas / Timely titles that Stan Lee may have signed. You won’t find Marvel Comics #1 in the tables (but zero Signature Series copies are on record anyway for that issue). Instead, I have focused on Silver-Age-and-onward Marvel titles that correlate to the major Stan-Lee-created comic book characters that come to mind: Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and Ant Man, to list some of the bigger names. If your favorite title (or the one you were looking for) is not listed in the reference guide below, then I’d encourage you to make use of Greg Holland’s research website yourself to research those titles.
I believe that using the 11/27/2018 census snapshot for maximum Stan Lee CGC SS counts should be highly conservative given the August news mentioned previously — because since then, Signature Series books from other creators have meanwhile been flowing onto the census unabated — but it is of course still possible that there are some books that were signed by Stan Lee earlier in the year that for one reason or another have not yet left CGC (maybe waiting on CCS services or something of that nature and thus still in the queue months later; but I have to imagine such instances would be relatively very small in number). So with that caveat stated, here’s how to use the tables that follow.
To illustrate how to use the tables that follow, suppose for example you wish to look up the maximum number of Stan Lee CGC Signature Series comics in existence for Amazing Spider-Man #300: First, click the Amazing Spider-Man hyperlink in the table to jump down in the page to that table, then scroll until you get to issue #300, and in that line you will see that there are 3,157 total CGC Signature Series copies of issue #300 on record as of the 11/27/2018 census. Thus, it is safe to say that Stan Lee did not sign any more than all of those 3,157 copies. [If you own a Stan Lee CGC Signature Series copy of Amazing Spider-Man #300, then because we have that separate Yellow Label census count, it is therefore almost as if you own a distinct Yellow-Label-variant of the issue where at most 3,157 Stan Lee CGC SS copies of that “variant” were created!]
Note that each of the tables below presents every unique census entry found where the name of the census entry starts with the name of the title searched for — in this way similarly-named titles such as “Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows” for example are included in the Amazing Spider-Man table; this search method also automatically includes any Volume 2 issues, any Type 1A cover price variants, any foreign editions, any retailer incentive variants, etc. etc.
My fellow collaborators have done a fine job presenting discussions about the state of the market for 1980’s price variants, including example sale highlights, and so for my report I decided to approach a discussion from a different angle: to give you an update on the “two ways to win” strategy that I’ve been advocating for so long on this blog.
What is the strategy? For newer readers, let me describe it by painting a scenario. Suppose it is the mid 1990’s and you decide you want to collect a copy of Star Wars #1 (Marvel Comics, 7/1977). Before embarking on your collecting quest, it would be very useful for you to know that there exist both 30¢ cover price 1st print types as well as 35¢ cover price 1st print types of that issue, and that the higher cover price type is actually dramatically more rare than the lower cover price type.
Star Wars #1 35¢ Variant
Suppose at the time you embark on your collecting quest, the relative rarity of the 35¢ type versus the 30¢ type is not very widely known in the hobby: it might be possible for you to pay “regular price” (or close to it) for the more-rare 35¢ version! If you can accomplish that feat of landing the 35¢ version for a cost basis close to regular market value, you’ve just given yourself two ways to win instead of one: (1) the issue number itself may rise in value, and (2) collectors of the future may be willing to ascribe a hefty premium to the more rare type, as its rarity becomes better known throughout the hobby.
Had you executed such a strategy back in the early days of 35¢ variant awareness, today you’d be grinning from ear to ear — because look where the Overstreet price guide values the two different types today in its most recently released guide (OPG #48):
The regular 30¢ 1st print type is given a $215 value in 9.2 by Overstreet, while meanwhile the more-rare 35¢ type is given an $11,000 value in 9.2 — that’s a premium of ~51x for the price variant over its regular counter-part!
But that ~51x premium didn’t happen overnight… it built over the years, even after the rarity difference was widely known throughout the hobby. For example, check out how that premium has grown over the last eight years — here’s the same Overstreet guide page from back in 2010 (from OPG #40):
As you can see above, back then the regular 30¢ 1st print type was given a $95 value in 9.2 by Overstreet, while meanwhile the more-rare 35¢ type was given an $2,500 value in 9.2… for a premium of ~26x for the cover price variant.
With 20/20 hindsight, Star Wars #1 clearly would have been a good pick for a key issue to collect back in 2010, as its “base value” (the 9.2 Overstreet guide value for the regular 30¢ type) has grown at a +10.7% annualized rate of return during these past eight years.
But what about the 35¢ type? Even at a monster premium of 26x back in 2010, you were still better off collecting the cover price variant: because in the ensuing years, the 35¢ type would increase in value by +20.3% annualized!
Looking at this result, it is clear that those who had the choice but decided to collect the regular 30¢ type instead of the more-rare 35¢ variant lost out on all that additional upside. To illustrate this, suppose in 2010 you had invested $10,000 in each of the two types. At the 9.2 guide values back then, that would have resulted in a box of about 106 copies of the 30¢ type (rounding up a smidge) versus 4 copies of the 35¢ type. Fast-forward to today and here are what the two $10K investments would be worth at today’s 9.2 guide values:
“You won in two ways with the cover price variant.”
So in the above hypothetical scenario, had you invested your $10K into the plain old 30¢ type and ignored the cover price variants, you missed out on roughly $21,210 of upside! And that’s from a starting point where the 35¢ variant already had a guide value twenty six times higher than the regular cover price copies! With 20/20 hindsight, clearly you did dramatically better going with the 35¢ variant — because you “won” in two ways: (1) the issue number itself grew in value, and (2) the cover price variant premium over regular copies expanded in multiple. You won in two ways with the cover price variant.
Let’s keep that result in mind, as we fast-forward to a 1980’s key: Suppose you now decide you want to collect a copy of Amazing Spider-Man (ASM) #238 (Marvel Comics, 3/1983). Is there a “Two Ways To Win” collecting strategy?
You bet there is!!!
Before embarking on your ASM #238 collecting quest, it would be very useful for you to know that there were two distinct distribution channels through which comics of that era were sold: (1) newsstand sales, and (2) direct edition sales. The prevalent direct editions have a Spider-Man logo in place of a bar code, and were ordered by comic shops at a discounted but non-returnable basis — that Spidey Head logo was a way for the publisher to identify a direct-sold copy and be able to refuse refund and say “sorry comic shops: you’re stuck with any unsold copies!”
Newsstand editions meanwhile have a bar code, such copies were treated/handled by newsstand staff like magazines (i.e. something to read) and sat on newsstands waiting for a buyer… any unsold copies were returned to the publisher and typically pulped/recycled forward. The newsstand copies that sold tended to be purchased by readers (as an “entertainment purchase”) instead of by collectors (who instead were over in comic shops loading up on direct editions and carefully placing them in plastic bags), and thus newsstand copies saw a notoriously high destruction rate as compared to their well-preserved direct edition counter-parts.
So: collectible-condition surviving newsstand copies of the 1980’s are considerably harder to find versus collectible-condition direct edition copies… That already gives us a second way to win: to go for the more-rare collectible-condition newsstand survivor, versus settling for a prevalent direct edition copy…
Conclusion: going after that dramatically-more-rare 75¢ cover price variant type gives us our strongest “Two Ways To Win” when collecting our ASM #238.
Back when I began this blog, it was widely possible to collect the cover price variant (CPV) for any given 1980’s key published during the price variant window, and pay “regular price” for it: awareness throughout the hobby about this type of variant was historically sparse back then, so there were many people who owned variants in their collections without realizing it, i.e. they knew they owned Amazing Spider-Man #238, but did not realize there was anything different or special about their copy, with its 75¢ cover price.
“I refer to such listings with generic titles but pictured variants as “mis-listed” variants.”
Such a person, when looking to sell, might look up the recent OPG guide value or the recent market price that the issue number in general was selling for, and then list their rare variant on a buy-it-now asking “regular market price” for it (or auction it off). Since they did not realize their copy was anything special, they would choose a “generic” listing title (e.g. “Amazing Spider-Man #238, Marvel Comics, 1983”) as opposed to a title that would allow CPV collectors to find it in a refined search — no “Variant” in the title, no “Canadian”, no “Newsstand”, no “CPV”, nothing you might search for when looking for this type of variant. But zoom in on the picture to see the cover price, and it would clearly show the variant. I refer to such listings with generic titles but pictured variants as “mis-listed” variants. Many of us have been successfully hunting down such opportunities for years (high five, fellow hunters!).
And that brings me to my Update on the Two Ways To Win Strategy. Applying this strategy to my own collecting of 1980’s CPVs, my approach over the years can be described by the below “decision tree” [it is a general representation of the approach but some things are “assumed” such as, for example, that there is a “grade hurdle” in mind for the variant in advance of hunting for it — personally I aim for “9 out of 10” on the grade scale (VF/NM) and if I can exceed that goal I’m thrilled]:
For years, my collecting of these variants mostly ran along two paths down the branches — often, I could hunt through listings and either find myself a “mis-listed” variant to collect…
… or I felt confident that with enough patience — which I should make clear was often measured in months or even years of waiting — I would eventually see a mis-listed variant come onto the market:
I’m not the only one who has pursued this collecting approach, and here’s why the approach is important to understand when considering the current state of the CPV marketplace: for many years, given the state of collector awareness (unawareness) of these cover price variants, I was reluctant to traverse down the branches towards that “pay a premium” box for a given issue. I was so confident that with the passage of enough time I’d eventually land myself a mis-listed variant copy of the issue I was looking for, that I was very reluctant to pony up a premium price.
That may sound hard to understand when at the same time (1) I’d mentioned before that it could be months or even years between mis-listed variant sightings for given issues, and (2) clearly I am someone who has studied the rarity of these variants and I know very well that they are deserving of a hefty premium. So why was I so reluctant to pony up a well-deserved premium? Consider this: suppose hypothetically that you have a given issue where you tend to see a mis-listed variant hit the market once a year. Waiting around for that opportunity might sound nearly futile. But suppose for sake of argument that you have 365 different variants you are hunting for, each of which tends to produce a mis-listed variant opportunity once a year? Well my friends, on any given day you should expect that an opportunity would come your way! You just wouldn’t know which opportunity. [By the way, this was the inspiration for this year’s Top 365 / A Variant A Day list].
So picture yourself executing this strategy of hunting for mis-listed variants over the years… As the years progress, and more and more collectors learn about the variants, more collectors then recognize when they own variants and in turn more often list them properly. Thus, over time, you begin seeing fewer and fewer mis-listed variant opportunities. Instead of an opportunity per day among your hunt list of issues, you’re seeing an opportunity per week… then every couple of weeks… then even longer… Now suppose a new key issue catches your attention to collect, one which you do not already own in any grade — i.e. something you have not been trying to collect or upgrade, until today, so that you do not even own one single starter copy of the variant. How are you going to approach the decision tree? In today’s marketplace of rapidly increasing variant awareness, you are probably going to be increasingly willing to traverse down that “pay a premium” path:
And speaking for myself, that above path down the tree is where I have been finding myself these days. For example, one of the issues I collected in the past year was Detective Comics #583 (February 1988, first appearances of Ventriloquist and Scarface, and a gorgeous Mike Mignola cover). It was during one of the proof-reads of our 2018 guide that decided I wanted to own this variant. Let’s go down the tree: Were newsstand copies published for the issue? Yes. Do Type 1A cover price variant newsstand copies exist? Yes! Was I able to find a “mis-listed” variant for sale at “regular” price? No. Not a mis-listed copy in sight, at any price. I decided very quickly that I’d be willing to pay a premium for a properly-listed copy. But there were zero properly-listed copies available. I found myself waiting for one. And waiting for one. And waiting for one…
Detective Comics #583 $1.00 Price Variant
Eventually, a variant appeared on the market! It was properly listed, with the listing title identifying it as the variant, reading: “Detective Comics – 583 – Rare 1.00 Price Variant! – DC Comics – NM- 1988″… The buy-it-now cost with shipping was $58.12, representing a premium price over the going rate for direct editions in the same grade. Friends, I didn’t even hesitate: I slammed that buy button. And I’m so glad I did — I have yet to see its equal come onto the market since. In fact, I sent my copy to CGC, and as of today the CGC census still shows only one variant copy on record for the issue… my copy. I tell this anecdote to illustrate how my own behavior has changed over the years, as the hobby’s awareness of this type of cover price variant has grown. How many others like me fit this description, and how are we impacting the CPV marketplace in the aggregate?
I do still see mis-listed variants out there as well — those opportunities certainly haven’t yet “dried up” completely (here’s a mis-listed variant I landed recently) — but nowadays I do find myself time and again traversing the tree down towards that “pay a premium for a properly listed copy” box. If other market participants are behaving like me, then mis-listed-variant-hunters are increasingly losing their patience to wait for mis-listed opportunities and are realizing that the best move, if we actually want to land that variant we’re looking for, is to be willing to pony up that hefty premium (especially in the highest grades where supply is so very limited). This marketplace behavior change which I observe in myself — and then potentially multiplied across other mis-listed variant hunters out there if their behavior has similarly changed — certainly would argue for a continued shift towards higher marketplace premiums paid for properly listed variants. How much of a variant premium is reasonable these days? Each collector will need to find their own answer to the question of what a reasonable premium is, for them, for any given issue in a given grade at a given point in time. (Hopefully our guide is a useful tool to help in that decision).
What kinds of premiums have informed collectors been observed paying lately for properly listed variants? Looking at the new Noteworthy Sales section of the guide and looking at the sales prices for variants compared to where the prevalent direct editions in the same grades have been selling lately, I can confidently say that those cover price variant premiums being paid these days still seem very reasonable to me in relation to the underlying rarity. Still “early innings” is a good way to describe it — and actually, fellow guide collaborator Angelo Virone recently gave a baseball analogy himself (quoted in this post), i.e. what “inning” are we in as far as awareness in the hobby about this type of cover price variant, its extreme relative rarity, and incredible collecting appeal?
Angelo placed us in the second inning as of that day; but as those who have been following my blog already know, there has recently been a major milestone for Type 1A 75¢ variants like our ASM #238 example: CBCS has begun to dignify them with a price variant label, e.g. “75¢ Canadian Price Variant”. That will make for a huge leap forward in collector awareness: The proverbial snowball of growing awareness was already rolling down the mountain at unstoppable speed, but now just got a huge step-up in mass. This is a leap forward for Type 1A price variants.
How much of a leap? Angelo described it as skipping the third inning and jumping straight into the 4th. I have to agree, that this milestone is going to result in a huge step-up of collector awareness about Type 1A price variants (my blog’s “stats page” was on fire with hits when that news broke) — in fact, I have to wonder to myself just how quickly our guided values in our 2019 guide edition will slip woefully out of date? As an example, at the time we conducted our annual value survey for the 2019 guide, our median advisor value for the ASM #238 cover price variant in 9.2 came in at $425… Meanwhile, in between that survey and today, we have seen more record-breaking sales for ASM #238 including a CGC 8.0 (VF) copy selling on the marketplace for north of $600 (fully +44% higher than our 9.2 guided value, for a CGC 8.0)!
And this continued rise in the variant premium over time is our second way to win by targeting the dramatically-more-rare 1980’s newsstand cover price variants: The first way we can win, is by making a strong selection for which keys to collect — looking issue by issue at the collecting merits, and selecting wisely; the second way we can win is the potential for the variant premium to widen over the upcoming years as awareness continues to grow in the hobby and as other comic book “authorities” follow in the footsteps of CBCS in properly recognizing Type 1A price variants for the true 1st print US-published cover price variants they are!
Happy CPV Collecting Everyone! And now please read more Market Reports & Articles from our 2019 guide! 🙂
Every Marvel collector has a “favorite” comic book title within the Marvel universe — and for many, that top title is Amazing Spider-Man. Here’s a thought experiment: Pick any issue number out of the Amazing Spider-Man title that you wish to collect. Let’s pretend that you tell me the issue number and I then reach behind my back and pull out two slabbed copies of that very issue; in my left hand I offer you a CGC Universal (Blue Label) copy of the issue number you picked out, while in my right hand I offer you a CGC Signature Series (“CGC SS” — Yellow Label) copy in identical grade which has been Signed by Stan Lee: in this hypothetical scenario, which copy do you think is “the more rare” of the two choices?
Let’s think about the answer.
For these many years since the advent of the Signature Series, it has been possible to attend a comic con and participate in a Stan Lee signing. There has effectively been a “floating upper limit” to how many copies of any given Amazing Spider-Man issue could be signed by Stan Lee, if desired. Because getting yourself one was just a matter of securing a nice raw unsigned copy, and then transforming that copy into a Stan Lee CGC SS copy, by bringing it to the convention (or hiring a facilitator to wait in line on your behalf), getting it signed by Stan Lee in the presence of a CGC witness, and then handing it over to CGC to be graded and given a Yellow Label, thereby permanently authenticating the legendary signature of this true icon of the comic book world, and increasing the grand total Stan Lee CGC SS copies of that issue in existence.
So any answer to the question of “rarity” of a Stan Lee CGC SS copy of any given issue number of Amazing Spider-Man has historically always been more of a derivative of the answer to how rare the issue number itself is, and then the cost and availability of the next Stan Lee signing. Said another way: the cost of a slabbed Stan Lee CGC SS copy has historically always had to be “weighed against” the cost and ease of creating a new Stan Lee CGC SS copy of that same issue.
A top collecting “theme” I talked about here in my Rare Comics to Collect themes discussion, is the notion that this situation was always destined to one day change: i.e. that some day in the future, there will be a finite number of comics that have been signed by Stan Lee under the CGC Signature Series and that will be it… At that point, there are bound to be many attempted forgeries of Stan Lee’s iconic signature, and so the trust in the CGC Signature Series will become so important that this unique class of certification will put Stan Lee CGC SS books into a class of their own — becoming thought of as a sort of “variant” if you will.
In the articles, someone close to Stan was cited as follows (my emphasis added in bold):
“To be very clear, Stan is 100% not doing any conventions / public signings. … His private signings had also been paused … Stan is signing a very small amount of items per week at his discretion, some for Desert Wind.”
The “Desert Wind” cited above is parent of Celestial Comics, and as of this writing they are still advertising a Stan Lee private signing on their events page which I’ve also screen-captured below for posterity:
The page states: “As many of you know, Stan Lee has been getting older and as such signing opportunities are getting more rare. And getting books signed that are eligible for CGC Signature Series Grading is becoming more difficult. The exact date and location of this signings will not be announced for security reasons. So we are simply authorized to announce accepting books early and will accept books up to the deadline, so submit early so you don’t get caught by surprise and miss the signing. Prices may change at any moment but currently the price to get a modern tier book signed and graded is $205.00. That price includes grading of a modern tier book, our witnessing and handling fee and Stan’s signing fee. It does NOT include return shipping or the CGC $5.00 form fee. “
So it seems from the above, that there still will be new Stan Lee CGC SS books created from this point forward, but that we may see the numbers grow at a comparable trickle compared to the huge flow of new Stan Lee CGC SS books that were created historically in years past.
9/14/2018 update — Desert Wind has changed the description on their website with new and important details. Here is the full updated message screencaptured below:
The updated info reads as follows: “As many of you know Stan Lee’s signing opportunities are getting more rare. Stan has retired from and is no longer making appearances at conventions and has limited getting items signed by him to private signings arranged through authorized agents. Stan is only signing a limited number of items a day (currently 15-20 items) and as a result, getting your item(s) signed by Stan has now created a huge demand. Desert Wind Enterprises, who is an authorized agent, has been informed by the Stan Lee Management team that signings with Stan will continue to take place BUT the signings will be limited to a specific number of items signed for each authorized agent during a signing. The signing that was scheduled to take place from May until July was postponed and is currently taking place right now beginning in September. Due to the change in Stan’s signing ability, this signing is considered full. The Stan Lee Management team is currently working to get all items for the current signing signed for all agents. It is anticipated this signing will take until the end of 2018 to complete. Once the present signing is completed, the Stan Lee Management team will announce the next signing to take place and the signing price. The next signing is not expected until approximately the beginning of 2019. In response to this situation and high demand to get items signed by Stan, Desert Wind Enterprises has a new procedure for customers requesting to get their memorabilia signed by Stan. Due to the time it may take to get an item(s) signed by Stan, we have created a reservation system for getting onto the signing list. … SIGNATURE QUALITY: Due to Stan’s age and physical stature, his signature may vary and both Stan Lee and Desert Wind Enterprises can not be responsible for the quality/clarity of Stan’s signature.”
If you’re like me, one question you may have wondered about is: just how many Stan Lee CGC Signature Series books are there anyway? [We could also ask how many Yellow Label copies exist at other grading companies like CBCS but for this post I am focusing solely on CGC.]
How many are there?
I asked around to several CGC Signature Series facilitators — what I’d been hoping is that they all might be willing to actually make a guess, much like guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar. [There’s a really neat “wisdom of crowds” phenomenon with jelly bean jar guessing, where the average of the guesses of a large crowd invariably comes close to nailing the answer.] But unfortunately the facilitators I asked were not willing to play the guessing game. I also asked CGC if they had ever published a number of Signature Series books that have been signed by Stan Lee — or in the alternative if that information could be looked up in their system somehow — but unfortunately the answer I got in reply was, “No, I don’t think we would have the numbers for those. Sorry about that.”
So how might we collectors try and get a handle on the numbers? Can we come up with some number that gives us at least a clue as to how many Stan Lee CGC Signature Series books exist in total? How about how many Amazing Spider-Man Stan Lee CGC SS Books Exist in particular?
When we consider one individual title like Amazing Spider-Man, how about we turn to one of the great tools that collectors of today have at our fingertips — a tool collectors of the past (or ourselves as kids) probably would never have even dreamed of: The CGC Census!
The CGC census comes right out and tells us the number of signature series copies that exist for any given issue! Unfortunately it does not tell us who signed the books… However, this census data does still give us excellent information as an upper boundary: i.e. if there are, say, 50 Signature Series copies of a given issue of Amazing Spider-Man, then at most Stan Lee would have signed all of those. [In actuality he would have only signed some percentage; problem is we can’t know that percentage — but we do know for a fact that he cannot have signed any more than the grand total shown on the census!]
I wanted to learn the answer (and I wanted to share the answer with you) to the question: if we look up each individual issue of Amazing Spider-Man on census today one by one, how does the Signature Series count tally up? (And looking at the data now marks an important snapshot in time because given the recent news shared earlier, from now on it seems clear that there is only going to be a comparable “trickle” of new CGC SS copies that carry Stan Lee’s signature, while meanwhile the flow of signed books from other creators will continue to hit the census unabated from here — so it should interest us to know what the census numbers look like now).
So I checked! Here’s what I found.
[By the way, some day down the line I intend to examine lots of different Marvel titles and I’ll share what I learn here on the blog at that time; but for today I’m just going to look at the Amazing Spider-Man title; I made use of Greg Holland’s indispensable research website to assemble the information].
The Answer (for Amazing Spider-Man): No More Than 60,000
If we add up the number of Signature Series copies on census for every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, the grand total across the entire title comes in at just under the 60,000 mark. Below I’ll show the CGC SS count for each individual issue — the census data shown will be as of the 8/21/2018 snapshot — but starting with the “big picture” grand-total, it strikes me that 60,000 is a fairly low number in the scheme of things! Imagine for sake of argument that “Amazing Spider-Man CGC Signature Series” was actually one issue… if we learned it had a print run of 60K that would strike us as fairly small in the context of the average paid circulation numbers for the title (for example in 1970 the average total paid circulation is shown at 322,195 copies; for 1980, 296,712 copies; for 1990, 334,893 copies…)
But that ~60K number is spread across 1,324 different census entries (all of the issues and census variants of those issues); so on average there are roughly 44 Signature Series copies per Amazing Spider-Man census entry. And of course some of those census entries have quite a lot more and others have precious few (for more obscure variants, it is even possible to have in your collection the one and only copy of the issue ever signed under the Signature Series… as far as the idea of “rarity” is concerned, this is quite incredible to ponder!). We don’t know how these numbers will look in the future at the point when Stan Lee puts down his signing pen completely, but this snapshot in time is informative in the context of the recent news.
Here below is a table of each census entry for Amazing Spider-Man on census [thanks again to Greg Holland for your fantastic census research tool!], sorted by publication date, and showing how many CGC Signature Series copies were found on record (as of 8/21/2018) — which tells us that, as of this date, it isn’t possible that Stan Lee has signed any more than this number of copies of each issue to date:
Amazing Spider-Man — Maximum Stan Lee CGC SS Count As of 8/21/2018:
Issue Number / Census Variant
Publication Date
CGC SS Count
Amazing Spider-Man 1
3/63
393
Amazing Spider-Man 2
5/63
138
Amazing Spider-Man 3
7/63
165
Amazing Spider-Man 4
9/63
132
Amazing Spider-Man 5
10/63
131
Amazing Spider-Man 6
11/63
153
Amazing Spider-Man 7
12/63
79
Amazing Spider-Man 8
1/64
83
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1
1964
126
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1 Canadian Edition
1964
7
Amazing Spider-Man 9
2/64
151
Amazing Spider-Man 9 U.K. Edition
2/64
2
Amazing Spider-Man 10
3/64
91
Amazing Spider-Man 11
4/64
66
Amazing Spider-Man 11 United Kingdom
4/64
1
Amazing Spider-Man 12
5/64
61
Amazing Spider-Man 13
6/64
152
Amazing Spider-Man 14
7/64
316
Amazing Spider-Man 15
8/64
134
Amazing Spider-Man 16
9/64
124
Amazing Spider-Man 17
10/64
91
Amazing Spider-Man 18
11/64
89
Amazing Spider-Man 19
12/64
94
Amazing Spider-Man 20
1/65
138
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2
1965
31
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2 Canadian Edition
1965
3
Amazing Spider-Man 21
2/65
52
Amazing Spider-Man 22
3/65
42
Amazing Spider-Man 23
4/65
71
Amazing Spider-Man 24
5/65
44
Amazing Spider-Man 25
6/65
111
Amazing Spider-Man 26
7/65
52
Amazing Spider-Man 27
8/65
49
Amazing Spider-Man 28
9/65
79
Amazing Spider-Man 29
10/65
46
Amazing Spider-Man 30
11/65
43
Amazing Spider-Man 30 U.K. Edition
11/65
1
Amazing Spider-Man 31
12/65
237
Amazing Spider-Man 1 Golden Record Reprint
1966
142
Amazing Spider-Man 32
1/66
32
Amazing Spider-Man 33
2/66
171
Amazing Spider-Man 34
3/66
61
Amazing Spider-Man 35
4/66
42
Amazing Spider-Man 36
5/66
49
Amazing Spider-Man 37
6/66
61
Amazing Spider-Man 38
7/66
80
Amazing Spider-Man 39
8/66
402
Amazing Spider-Man 39 U.K. Edition
8/66
1
Amazing Spider-Man 40
9/66
296
Amazing Spider-Man 41
10/66
262
Amazing Spider-Man 42
11/66
176
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 3
11/66
32
Amazing Spider-Man 43
12/66
95
Amazing Spider-Man 44
1/67
66
Amazing Spider-Man 45
2/67
121
Amazing Spider-Man 46
3/67
148
Amazing Spider-Man 47
4/67
103
Amazing Spider-Man 48
5/67
56
Amazing Spider-Man 48 United Kingdom
5/67
1
Amazing Spider-Man 49
6/67
48
Amazing Spider-Man 50
7/67
635
Amazing Spider-Man 51
8/67
90
Amazing Spider-Man 52
9/67
43
Amazing Spider-Man 53
10/67
76
Amazing Spider-Man 54
11/67
47
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 4
11/67
19
Amazing Spider-Man 55
12/67
68
Amazing Spider-Man 56
1/68
91
Amazing Spider-Man 57
2/68
46
Amazing Spider-Man 58
3/68
58
Amazing Spider-Man 59
4/68
141
Amazing Spider-Man 60
5/68
38
Amazing Spider-Man 61
6/68
49
Amazing Spider-Man 62
7/68
105
Amazing Spider-Man 63
8/68
43
Amazing Spider-Man 64
9/68
117
Amazing Spider-Man 65
10/68
52
Amazing Spider-Man 66
11/68
98
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 5
11/68
40
Amazing Spider-Man 67
12/68
71
Amazing Spider-Man 68
1/69
52
Amazing Spider-Man 69
2/69
66
Amazing Spider-Man nn
2/69
1
Amazing Spider-Man 70
3/69
76
Amazing Spider-Man 71
4/69
54
Amazing Spider-Man 72
5/69
42
Amazing Spider-Man 73
6/69
31
Amazing Spider-Man 74
7/69
47
Amazing Spider-Man 75
8/69
57
Amazing Spider-Man 76
9/69
49
Amazing Spider-Man 77
10/69
49
Amazing Spider-Man 78
11/69
59
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 6
11/69
19
Amazing Spider-Man 79
12/69
20
Amazing Spider-Man 80
1/70
26
Amazing Spider-Man 81
2/70
25
Amazing Spider-Man 82
3/70
32
Amazing Spider-Man 83
4/70
14
Amazing Spider-Man 84
5/70
37
Amazing Spider-Man 85
6/70
24
Amazing Spider-Man 86
7/70
58
Amazing Spider-Man 87
8/70
29
Amazing Spider-Man 87 United Kingdom
8/70
1
Amazing Spider-Man 88
9/70
33
Amazing Spider-Man 89
10/70
28
Amazing Spider-Man 90
11/70
78
Amazing Spider-Man 91
12/70
31
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 7
12/70
7
Amazing Spider-Man 92
1/71
31
Amazing Spider-Man 93
2/71
35
Amazing Spider-Man 94
3/71
41
Amazing Spider-Man 95
4/71
32
Amazing Spider-Man 96
5/71
97
Amazing Spider-Man 97
6/71
135
Amazing Spider-Man 97 U.K. Edition
6/71
1
Amazing Spider-Man 98
7/71
99
Amazing Spider-Man 99
8/71
25
Amazing Spider-Man 100
9/71
372
Amazing Spider-Man 100 U.K. Edition
9/71
2
Amazing Spider-Man 101
10/71
160
Amazing Spider-Man 102
11/71
29
Amazing Spider-Man 103
12/71
7
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 8
12/71
6
Amazing Spider-Man 104
1/72
8
Amazing Spider-Man 105
2/72
23
Amazing Spider-Man 106
3/72
15
Amazing Spider-Man 107
4/72
22
Amazing Spider-Man 108
5/72
11
Amazing Spider-Man 109
6/72
30
Amazing Spider-Man 110
7/72
51
Amazing Spider-Man 111
8/72
15
Amazing Spider-Man 112
9/72
27
Amazing Spider-Man 113
10/72
30
Amazing Spider-Man 114
11/72
9
Amazing Spider-Man 115
12/72
14
Amazing Spider-Man 116
1/73
18
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 9
1973
9
Amazing Spider-Man 117
2/73
13
Amazing Spider-Man 118
3/73
9
Amazing Spider-Man 119
4/73
86
Amazing Spider-Man 120
5/73
43
Amazing Spider-Man 121
6/73
606
Amazing Spider-Man 122
7/73
420
Amazing Spider-Man 123
8/73
29
Amazing Spider-Man 124
9/73
31
Amazing Spider-Man 125
10/73
24
Amazing Spider-Man 126
11/73
21
Amazing Spider-Man 127
12/73
28
Amazing Spider-Man 128
1/74
24
Amazing Spider-Man 129
2/74
1211
Amazing Spider-Man 130
3/74
17
Amazing Spider-Man 131
4/74
9
Amazing Spider-Man 132
5/74
10
Amazing Spider-Man 133
6/74
9
Amazing Spider-Man 134
7/74
36
Amazing Spider-Man 135
8/74
81
Amazing Spider-Man 136
9/74
97
Amazing Spider-Man 137
10/74
14
Amazing Spider-Man 138
11/74
8
Amazing Spider-Man 139
12/74
8
Amazing Spider-Man 140
1/75
6
Amazing Spider-Man 141
2/75
19
Amazing Spider-Man 142
3/75
5
Amazing Spider-Man 143
4/75
3
Amazing Spider-Man 144
5/75
12
Amazing Spider-Man 145
6/75
7
Amazing Spider-Man 146
7/75
5
Amazing Spider-Man 147
8/75
17
Amazing Spider-Man 148
9/75
11
Amazing Spider-Man 149
10/75
57
Amazing Spider-Man 150
11/75
15
Amazing Spider-Man 151
12/75
18
Amazing Spider-Man 152
1/76
20
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 10
1976
5
Amazing Spider-Man 153
2/76
1
Amazing Spider-Man 154
3/76
9
Amazing Spider-Man 155
4/76
12
Amazing Spider-Man 155 30 Cent Price Variant
4/76
4
Amazing Spider-Man 156
5/76
5
Amazing Spider-Man 156 30 Cent Price Variant
5/76
1
Amazing Spider-Man 157
6/76
15
Amazing Spider-Man 157 30 Cent Price Variant
6/76
1
Amazing Spider-Man 158
7/76
6
Amazing Spider-Man 159
8/76
8
Amazing Spider-Man 160
9/76
4
Amazing Spider-Man 161
10/76
24
Amazing Spider-Man 162
11/76
23
Amazing Spider-Man 163
12/76
7
Amazing Spider-Man 164
1/77
9
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 11
1977
24
Amazing Spider-Man 165
2/77
4
Amazing Spider-Man 166
3/77
5
Amazing Spider-Man 167
4/77
11
Amazing Spider-Man 168
5/77
10
Amazing Spider-Man 169
6/77
4
Amazing Spider-Man 169 35 Cent Price Variant
6/77
1
Amazing Spider-Man 170
7/77
3
Amazing Spider-Man 170 35 Cent Price Variant
7/77
1
Amazing Spider-Man 171
8/77
6
Amazing Spider-Man 171 35 Cent Price Variant
8/77
1
Amazing Spider-Man 172
9/77
5
Amazing Spider-Man 172 35 Cent Price Variant
9/77
3
Amazing Spider-Man 173
10/77
8
Amazing Spider-Man 173 35 Cent Price Variant
10/77
1
Amazing Spider-Man 174
11/77
10
Amazing Spider-Man 175
12/77
12
Amazing Spider-Man 176
1/78
11
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 12
1978
5
Amazing Spider-Man 177
2/78
18
Amazing Spider-Man 178
3/78
6
Amazing Spider-Man 179
4/78
8
Amazing Spider-Man 180
5/78
7
Amazing Spider-Man 181
6/78
6
Amazing Spider-Man 182
7/78
3
Amazing Spider-Man 183
8/78
8
Amazing Spider-Man 184
9/78
4
Amazing Spider-Man 185
10/78
12
Amazing Spider-Man 186
11/78
10
Amazing Spider-Man 187
12/78
18
Amazing Spider-Man 188
1/79
5
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 13
1979
3
Amazing Spider-Man nn All Detergent Giveaway
1979
3
Amazing Spider-Man 189
2/79
17
Amazing Spider-Man 190
3/79
20
Amazing Spider-Man 191
4/79
11
Amazing Spider-Man 192
5/79
9
Amazing Spider-Man 193
6/79
13
Amazing Spider-Man 194
7/79
450
Amazing Spider-Man 195
8/79
38
Amazing Spider-Man 196
9/79
12
Amazing Spider-Man 197
10/79
8
Amazing Spider-Man 198
11/79
11
Amazing Spider-Man 199
12/79
11
Amazing Spider-Man 200
1/80
199
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 14
1980
20
Amazing Spider-Man nn Aim Toothpaste 32 pg Giveaway
1980
9
Amazing Spider-Man 201
2/80
36
Amazing Spider-Man 202
3/80
15
Amazing Spider-Man 203
4/80
6
Amazing Spider-Man 204
5/80
22
Amazing Spider-Man 205
6/80
16
Amazing Spider-Man 206
7/80
2
Amazing Spider-Man 207
8/80
1
Amazing Spider-Man 208
9/80
11
Amazing Spider-Man 209
10/80
18
Amazing Spider-Man 210
11/80
35
Amazing Spider-Man 211
12/80
3
Amazing Spider-Man 212
1/81
21
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 15
1981
26
Amazing Spider-Man 213
2/81
10
Amazing Spider-Man 214
3/81
7
Amazing Spider-Man 215
4/81
5
Amazing Spider-Man 217
6/81
6
Amazing Spider-Man 218
7/81
7
Amazing Spider-Man 219
8/81
9
Amazing Spider-Man 220
9/81
17
Amazing Spider-Man 221
10/81
4
Amazing Spider-Man 222
11/81
9
Amazing Spider-Man 223
12/81
3
Amazing Spider-Man 224
1/82
3
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 16
1982
18
Amazing Spider-Man nn
1982
3
Amazing Spider-Man 225
2/82
6
Amazing Spider-Man 226
3/82
9
Amazing Spider-Man 227
4/82
8
Amazing Spider-Man 228
5/82
5
Amazing Spider-Man 229
6/82
14
Amazing Spider-Man 230
7/82
16
Amazing Spider-Man 231
8/82
5
Amazing Spider-Man 232
9/82
5
Amazing Spider-Man 233
10/82
12
Amazing Spider-Man 234
11/82
10
Amazing Spider-Man 235
12/82
11
Amazing Spider-Man 236
1/83
11
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 17
1983
3
Amazing Spider-Man 237
2/83
8
Amazing Spider-Man 238
3/83
470
Amazing Spider-Man 238 Canadian Edition
3/83
11
Amazing Spider-Man 239
4/83
82
Amazing Spider-Man 239 Canadian Edition
4/83
2
Amazing Spider-Man 240
5/83
13
Amazing Spider-Man 241
6/83
16
Amazing Spider-Man 242
7/83
9
Amazing Spider-Man 243
8/83
6
Amazing Spider-Man 244
9/83
19
Amazing Spider-Man 244 Canadian Edition
9/83
2
Amazing Spider-Man 245
10/83
25
Amazing Spider-Man 246
11/83
9
Amazing Spider-Man 247
12/83
7
Amazing Spider-Man 248
1/84
21
Amazing Spider-Man 249
2/84
8
Amazing Spider-Man 250
3/84
30
Amazing Spider-Man 251
4/84
21
Amazing Spider-Man 252
5/84
1079
Amazing Spider-Man 252 Canadian Edition
5/84
20
Amazing Spider-Man 253
6/84
14
Amazing Spider-Man 254
7/84
14
Amazing Spider-Man 255
8/84
10
Amazing Spider-Man 256
9/84
28
Amazing Spider-Man 257
10/84
6
Amazing Spider-Man 258
11/84
18
Amazing Spider-Man 258 Canadian Edition
11/84
1
Amazing Spider-Man 259
12/84
18
Amazing Spider-Man 259 Canadian Edition
12/84
1
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 18
12/84
12
Amazing Spider-Man 260
1/85
20
Amazing Spider-Man 260 Canadian Edition
1/85
1
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 19
1985
9
Amazing Spider-Man 261
2/85
28
Amazing Spider-Man 261 Canadian Edition
2/85
1
Amazing Spider-Man 262
3/85
9
Amazing Spider-Man 263
4/85
8
Amazing Spider-Man 264
5/85
7
Amazing Spider-Man 265
6/85
49
Amazing Spider-Man 266
7/85
9
Amazing Spider-Man 267
8/85
8
Amazing Spider-Man 268
9/85
16
Amazing Spider-Man 269
10/85
7
Amazing Spider-Man 270
11/85
10
Amazing Spider-Man 271
12/85
4
Amazing Spider-Man 272
1/86
11
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 20
1986
3
Amazing Spider-Man 273
2/86
6
Amazing Spider-Man 274
3/86
27
Amazing Spider-Man 275
4/86
29
Amazing Spider-Man 276
5/86
17
Amazing Spider-Man 277
6/86
12
Amazing Spider-Man 278
7/86
16
Amazing Spider-Man 279
8/86
5
Amazing Spider-Man 280
9/86
10
Amazing Spider-Man 281
10/86
6
Amazing Spider-Man 282
11/86
28
Amazing Spider-Man 283
12/86
16
Amazing Spider-Man 284
1/87
12
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 21
1987
272
Amazing Spider-Man 285
2/87
48
Amazing Spider-Man 286
3/87
8
Amazing Spider-Man 287
4/87
5
Amazing Spider-Man 288
5/87
1
Amazing Spider-Man 289
6/87
46
Amazing Spider-Man 290
7/87
18
Amazing Spider-Man 291
8/87
4
Amazing Spider-Man 292
9/87
18
Amazing Spider-Man 292 Second Printing
9/87
4
Amazing Spider-Man 293
10/87
144
Amazing Spider-Man 294
11/87
111
Amazing Spider-Man 295
12/87
13
Amazing Spider-Man 296
1/88
14
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 22
1988
20
Amazing Spider-Man 297
2/88
17
Amazing Spider-Man 298
3/88
485
Amazing Spider-Man 299
4/88
358
Amazing Spider-Man 300
5/88
3044
Amazing Spider-Man 301
6/88
265
Amazing Spider-Man 302
7/88
48
Amazing Spider-Man 303
8/88
63
Amazing Spider-Man 304
9/88
46
Amazing Spider-Man 305
9/88
52
Amazing Spider-Man 306
10/88
115
Amazing Spider-Man 307
10/88
41
Amazing Spider-Man 308
11/88
51
Amazing Spider-Man 309
11/88
42
Amazing Spider-Man 310
12/88
40
Amazing Spider-Man 311
1/89
90
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 23
1989
1
Amazing Spider-Man 312
2/89
171
Amazing Spider-Man 313
3/89
109
Amazing Spider-Man 314
4/89
65
Amazing Spider-Man 315
5/89
94
Amazing Spider-Man Parallel Lives nn
5/89
2
Amazing Spider-Man 316
6/89
461
Amazing Spider-Man 317
7/89
113
Amazing Spider-Man 318
8/89
51
Amazing Spider-Man 319
9/89
47
Amazing Spider-Man 320
9/89
30
Amazing Spider-Man 321
10/89
37
Amazing Spider-Man 322
10/89
49
Amazing Spider-Man 323
11/89
110
Amazing Spider-Man 324
11/89
55
Amazing Spider-Man 325
11/89
48
Amazing Spider-Man 326
12/89
12
Amazing Spider-Man 327
12/89
13
Amazing Spider-Man 1
1990
2
Amazing Spider-Man 328
1/90
209
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 24
1990
3
Amazing Spider-Man MPI Audio Edition nn
1990
4
Amazing Spider-Man 329
2/90
14
Amazing Spider-Man 330
3/90
29
Amazing Spider-Man 331
4/90
16
Amazing Spider-Man 332
5/90
22
Amazing Spider-Man 333
6/90
20
Amazing Spider-Man 334
7/90
13
Amazing Spider-Man 335
7/90
13
Amazing Spider-Man 336
8/90
15
Amazing Spider-Man 337
8/90
20
Amazing Spider-Man 338
9/90
14
Amazing Spider-Man 339
9/90
17
Amazing Spider-Man 340
10/90
13
Amazing Spider-Man 341
11/90
18
Amazing Spider-Man 342
12/90
15
Amazing Spider-Man 3 Polish Edition
1991
2
Amazing Spider-Man 343
1/91
16
Amazing Spider-Man 4 Polish Edition
1991
1
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 25
1991
1
Amazing Spider-Man 344
2/91
98
Amazing Spider-Man 345
3/91
48
Amazing Spider-Man 346
4/91
59
Amazing Spider-Man 347
5/91
56
Amazing Spider-Man 348
6/91
14
Amazing Spider-Man 349
7/91
17
Amazing Spider-Man 350
8/91
33
Amazing Spider-Man 351
9/91
17
Amazing Spider-Man 352
10/91
15
Amazing Spider-Man 353
11/91
24
Amazing Spider-Man 354
11/91
19
Amazing Spider-Man 355
12/91
19
Amazing Spider-Man 356
12/91
23
Amazing Spider-Man 357
1/92
23
Amazing Spider-Man 358
1/92
51
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 26
1992
5
Amazing Spider-Man 359
2/92
21
Amazing Spider-Man 360
3/92
58
Amazing Spider-Man 361
4/92
1378
Amazing Spider-Man 361 Second Printing
4/92
96
Amazing Spider-Man 362
5/92
744
Amazing Spider-Man 362 Second Printing
5/92
12
Amazing Spider-Man 265 Second Printing
6/92
1
Amazing Spider-Man 363
6/92
414
Amazing Spider-Man 364
7/92
10
Amazing Spider-Man 365
8/92
347
Amazing Spider-Man 101 Second Printing
9/92
8
Amazing Spider-Man 366
9/92
6
Amazing Spider-Man 367
10/92
8
Amazing Spider-Man 368
11/92
10
Amazing Spider-Man 369
11/92
4
Amazing Spider-Man 370
12/92
6
Amazing Spider-Man 371
12/92
4
Amazing Spider-Man 372
1/93
10
Amazing Spider-Man 373
1/93
6
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 27
1993
2
Amazing Spider-Man 374
2/93
20
Amazing Spider-Man 375
3/93
320
Amazing Spider-Man 376
4/93
6
Amazing Spider-Man 377
5/93
5
Amazing Spider-Man 378
6/93
60
Amazing Spider-Man 379
7/93
12
Amazing Spider-Man 380
8/93
13
Amazing Spider-Man 381
9/93
15
Amazing Spider-Man 382
10/93
38
Amazing Spider-Man 383
11/93
10
Amazing Spider-Man 384
12/93
8
Amazing Spider-Man 129 Finnish Edition
1994
4
Amazing Spider-Man 385
1/94
7
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 28
1994
1
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 5
1994
1
Amazing Spider-Man Ashcan Edition nn
1994
1
Amazing Spider-Man 386
2/94
4
Amazing Spider-Man 387
3/94
6
Amazing Spider-Man 388
4/94
11
Amazing Spider-Man 388 Collector’s Edition
4/94
28
Amazing Spider-Man 389
5/94
14
Amazing Spider-Man 390
6/94
1
Amazing Spider-Man 390 Collector’s Edition
6/94
2
Amazing Spider-Man 391
7/94
5
Amazing Spider-Man 392
8/94
29
Amazing Spider-Man 393
9/94
2
Amazing Spider-Man 394 Collector’s Edition
10/94
6
Amazing Spider-Man 395
11/94
3
Amazing Spider-Man 396
12/94
2
Amazing Spider-Man 397
1/95
5
Amazing Spider-Man Super Special 1
1995
7
Amazing Spider-Man 398
2/95
2
Amazing Spider-Man 399
3/95
2
Amazing Spider-Man 400
4/95
25
Amazing Spider-Man 400 Die-Cut Cover
4/95
134
Amazing Spider-Man 400 Die-Cut Variant Cover
4/95
38
Amazing Spider-Man 401
5/95
5
Amazing Spider-Man 402
6/95
4
Amazing Spider-Man 403
7/95
10
Amazing Spider-Man 404
8/95
8
Amazing Spider-Man 405
9/95
2
Amazing Spider-Man 406
10/95
5
Amazing Spider-Man 407
1/96
2
Amazing Spider-Man 75 Polish Edition
1996
1
Amazing Spider-Man 408
2/96
7
Amazing Spider-Man 408 Variant Cover
2/96
11
Amazing Spider-Man 409
3/96
1
Amazing Spider-Man 410
4/96
26
Amazing Spider-Man 414
8/96
4
Amazing Spider-Man 415
9/96
3
Amazing Spider-Man 416
10/96
8
Amazing Spider-Man 417
11/96
3
Amazing Spider-Man ’97 nn
1997
1
Amazing Spider-Man 420
2/97
1
Amazing Spider-Man 421
3/97
1
Amazing Spider-Man 422
4/97
1
Amazing Spider-Man -1
7/97
1
Amazing Spider-Man 425
8/97
2
Amazing Spider-Man 427
10/97
1
Amazing Spider-Man 430
1/98
6
Amazing Spider-Man 431
2/98
8
Amazing Spider-Man 432
3/98
3
Amazing Spider-Man 432 Variant Cover
3/98
6
Amazing Spider-Man 438
9/98
1
Amazing Spider-Man 439
9/98
2
Amazing Spider-Man 440
10/98
7
Amazing Spider-Man 441
11/98
3
Amazing Spider-Man 1 German Edition
1999
8
Amazing Spider-Man 14 German Edition
1999
1
Amazing Spider-Man 2 German Edition
1999
1
Amazing Spider-Man 3 German Edition
1999
1
Amazing Spider-Man 4 German Edition
1999
2
Amazing Spider-Man 5 German Edition
1999
1
Amazing Spider-Man 6 German Edition
1999
1
Amazing Spider-Man 7 German Edition
1999
1
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1 German Edition
1999
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #1
1/99
37
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #1 Dynamic Forces Edition
1/99
46
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #1 Sunburst Variant Cover
1/99
36
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #2
2/99
2
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #2 Variant Cover
2/99
3
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #3
3/99
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #4
4/99
4
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #5
5/99
2
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #6
6/99
3
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #7
7/99
2
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #8
8/99
2
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #9
9/99
4
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #10
10/99
3
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #11
11/99
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #12
12/99
3
Amazing Spider-Man 129 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 39 German Edition
2000
3
Amazing Spider-Man 40 German Edition
2000
3
Amazing Spider-Man 41 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 42 German Edition
2000
3
Amazing Spider-Man 43 German Edition
2000
1
Amazing Spider-Man 44 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 45 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 46 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 47 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 48 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 49 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 50 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 51 German Edition
2000
1
Amazing Spider-Man 52 German Edition
2000
1
Amazing Spider-Man 53 German Edition
2000
2
Amazing Spider-Man 54 German Edition
2000
1
Amazing Spider-Man 55 German Edition
2000
1
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 3 German Edition
2000
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #13
1/00
2
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #14
2/00
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #15
3/00
2
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #16
4/00
3
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #17
5/00
3
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #18
6/00
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #19
7/00
12
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #20
8/00
5
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #21
9/00
4
Amazing Spider-Man 252
10/00
7
Amazing Spider-Man 301 REPRINT
10/00
5
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #22
10/00
3
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #23
11/00
2
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #24
12/00
2
Amazing Spider-Man 2001 nn
2001
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #25
1/01
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #25 Speckle Foil Edition
1/01
11
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #26
2/01
3
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #27
3/01
4
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #28
4/01
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #29
5/01
7
Amazing Spider-Man 41
6/01
1
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #30
6/01
108
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #31
7/01
27
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #32
8/01
27
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #33
9/01
15
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #34
10/01
36
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #35
11/01
17
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #36
12/01
963
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #37
1/02
10
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #38
2/02
9
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #39
5/02
16
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #40
6/02
18
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #41
7/02
11
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #42
8/02
7
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #43
9/02
17
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #44
10/02
3
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #45
11/02
4
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #46
12/02
18
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #47
1/03
15
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #48
2/03
17
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #49
3/03
6
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #50
4/03
93
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #51
5/03
44
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #52
6/03
67
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #53
7/03
5
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #54
8/03
6
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #55
9/03
5
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #56
10/03
4
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #57
10/03
6
Amazing Spider-Man v2 #58
11/03
7
Amazing Spider-Man 500
12/03
294
Amazing Spider-Man 501
1/04
2
Amazing Spider-Man 509 Director’s Cut Edition
2004
1
Amazing Spider-Man 129
2/04
56
Amazing Spider-Man 502
2/04
2
Amazing Spider-Man 503
3/04
2
Amazing Spider-Man 504
4/04
3
Amazing Spider-Man 505
5/04
2
Amazing Spider-Man 506
6/04
2
Amazing Spider-Man 507
7/04
1
Amazing Spider-Man 508
7/04
3
Amazing Spider-Man 50 Sony Pictures Edition
8/04
2
Amazing Spider-Man 509
8/04
9
Amazing Spider-Man 510
9/04
1
Amazing Spider-Man 511
10/04
1
Amazing Spider-Man 513
12/04
4
Amazing Spider-Man 514
1/05
2
Amazing Spider-Man 515
2/05
4
Amazing Spider-Man 516
3/05
3
Amazing Spider-Man 517
4/05
5
Amazing Spider-Man 518
5/05
8
Amazing Spider-Man 519
6/05
12
Amazing Spider-Man 520
7/05
3
Amazing Spider-Man 521
8/05
2
Amazing Spider-Man 522
9/05
1
Amazing Spider-Man 523
10/05
1
Amazing Spider-Man 122
11/05
2
Amazing Spider-Man 524
11/05
1
Amazing Spider-Man 525
12/05
2
Amazing Spider-Man 525 Variant Edition
12/05
1
Amazing Spider-Man 527
2/06
5
Amazing Spider-Man 527 Variant Edition
2/06
1
Amazing Spider-Man 528 Retailer Incentive Edition
3/06
14
Amazing Spider-Man 528 Variant Edition
3/06
3
Amazing Spider-Man 529
4/06
158
Amazing Spider-Man 529 $2.99 Newsstand Edition
4/06
1
Amazing Spider-Man 529 Second Printing
4/06
4
Amazing Spider-Man 530
5/06
26
Amazing Spider-Man 529 Third Printing
6/06
5
Amazing Spider-Man 531
6/06
12
Amazing Spider-Man 129
7/06
2
Amazing Spider-Man 300
7/06
26
Amazing Spider-Man 532
7/06
4
Amazing Spider-Man 533
8/06
13
Amazing Spider-Man 533 Convention Edition
8/06
4
Amazing Spider-Man 533 Limited Edition
8/06
6
Amazing Spider-Man 532 Second Printing
9/06
1
Amazing Spider-Man 534
9/06
7
Amazing Spider-Man 535
11/06
6
Amazing Spider-Man 536
11/06
13
Amazing Spider-Man 538
1/07
20
Amazing Spider-Man 538 Midtown Comics Edition
1/07
23
Amazing Spider-Man 538 Variant Cover
1/07
32
Amazing Spider-Man 537
2/07
5
Amazing Spider-Man 537 Second Printing
2/07
2
Amazing Spider-Man 539
4/07
126
Amazing Spider-Man 539 Comic Oasis Edition
4/07
34
Amazing Spider-Man 539 Second Printing
4/07
8
Amazing Spider-Man 541
6/07
3
Amazing Spider-Man 542
8/07
1
Amazing Spider-Man 543
10/07
18
Amazing Spider-Man 252 Niagara Falls Edition
11/07
34
Amazing Spider-Man 300 Niagara Falls Edition
11/07
56
Amazing Spider-Man 544
11/07
81
Amazing Spider-Man 545
12/07
49
Amazing Spider-Man 546
2/08
23
Amazing Spider-Man 546 Book Market Variant
2/08
1
Amazing Spider-Man 546 Second Printing
2/08
2
Amazing Spider-Man 546 Sketch Cover
2/08
33
Amazing Spider-Man 546 Variant Edition
2/08
22
Amazing Spider-Man 547
3/08
9
Amazing Spider-Man 548
3/08
6
Amazing Spider-Man 549
3/08
7
Amazing Spider-Man 549 Dynamic Forces Edition
3/08
9
Amazing Spider-Man 549 Variant Edition
3/08
19
Amazing Spider-Man 551
3/08
1
Amazing Spider-Man 550
4/08
2
Amazing Spider-Man 552
5/08
19
Amazing Spider-Man 552 Variant Cover
5/08
10
Amazing Spider-Man 553
5/08
4
Amazing Spider-Man 555
6/08
7
Amazing Spider-Man 555 Variant Cover
6/08
12
Amazing Spider-Man 556
6/08
4
Amazing Spider-Man 557
6/08
2
Amazing Spider-Man 558
7/08
5
Amazing Spider-Man 562
8/08
1
Amazing Spider-Man 563
8/08
1
Amazing Spider-Man 564
9/08
2
Amazing Spider-Man 566
9/08
1
Amazing Spider-Man 568
10/08
13
Amazing Spider-Man 568 Negative Edition
10/08
45
Amazing Spider-Man 568 Second Printing
10/08
4
Amazing Spider-Man 568 Sketch Cover
10/08
94
Amazing Spider-Man 568 Variant Edition
10/08
52
Amazing Spider-Man 569
10/08
14
Amazing Spider-Man 569 $3.99 Newsstand Edition
10/08
5
Amazing Spider-Man 569 Second Printing
10/08
10
Amazing Spider-Man 569 Variant Edition
10/08
129
Amazing Spider-Man Family 1
10/08
2
Amazing Spider-Man 570
11/08
6
Amazing Spider-Man 570 Monkey Variant
11/08
8
Amazing Spider-Man 570 Second Printing
11/08
7
Amazing Spider-Man 570 Variant Edition
11/08
18
Amazing Spider-Man 571
11/08
2
Amazing Spider-Man 571 Second Printing
11/08
2
Amazing Spider-Man 571 Variant Edition
11/08
9
Amazing Spider-Man 572
11/08
2
Amazing Spider-Man 572 Second Printing
11/08
5
Amazing Spider-Man 572 Variant Edition
11/08
15
Amazing Spider-Man 573
12/08
6
Amazing Spider-Man 573 Colbert Variant Edition
12/08
43
Amazing Spider-Man 573 Variant Edition
12/08
20
Amazing Spider-Man 574
12/08
1
Amazing Spider-Man 575
12/08
2
Amazing Spider-Man 576
1/09
3
Amazing Spider-Man 577
1/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 577 Variant Edition
1/09
6
Amazing Spider-Man 578
1/09
4
Amazing Spider-Man 579
2/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 579 Variant Edition
2/09
5
Amazing Spider-Man 580
2/09
3
Amazing Spider-Man 581
2/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 581 Variant Edition
2/09
2
Amazing Spider-Man 582
3/09
2
Amazing Spider-Man 583
3/09
61
Amazing Spider-Man 583 Fifth Printing
3/09
12
Amazing Spider-Man 583 Fourth Printing
3/09
45
Amazing Spider-Man 583 Second Printing
3/09
80
Amazing Spider-Man 583 Third Printing
3/09
47
Amazing Spider-Man 583 Variant Edition
3/09
298
Amazing Spider-Man 584
3/09
7
Amazing Spider-Man 585
4/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 588
5/09
2
Amazing Spider-Man 590
6/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 590 Variant Edition
6/09
9
Amazing Spider-Man 592
6/09
11
Amazing Spider-Man 592 Variant Edition
6/09
17
Amazing Spider-Man 593
7/09
6
Amazing Spider-Man 594
7/09
2
Amazing Spider-Man 595
7/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 595 Variant Edition
7/09
2
Amazing Spider-Man 596
8/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 599
9/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 599 Variant Edition
9/09
5
Amazing Spider-Man 600
9/09
192
Amazing Spider-Man 600 Dynamic Forces Edition
9/09
31
Amazing Spider-Man 600 Quesada Variant Cover
9/09
55
Amazing Spider-Man 600 Romita Variant Cover
9/09
82
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 36
9/09
2
Amazing Spider-Man 601
10/09
245
Amazing Spider-Man 601 Second Printing
10/09
7
Amazing Spider-Man 601 Variant Edition
10/09
9
Amazing Spider-Man 602
10/09
32
Amazing Spider-Man 602 Variant Edition
10/09
14
Amazing Spider-Man 603
10/09
4
Amazing Spider-Man 603 Variant Edition
10/09
10
Amazing Spider-Man 604
11/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 605
11/09
5
Amazing Spider-Man 606
11/09
206
Amazing Spider-Man 606 $3.99 Newsstand Edition
11/09
3
Amazing Spider-Man 606 Atomic Comics/Golden Apple Edi
11/09
234
Amazing Spider-Man 606 Variant Edition
11/09
86
Amazing Spider-Man 607
11/09
273
Amazing Spider-Man 608 Variant Cover
12/09
24
Amazing Spider-Man 609
12/09
1
Amazing Spider-Man 49 Mexican Edition
2010
1
Amazing Spider-Man 610
1/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 611
1/10
66
Amazing Spider-Man 612
1/10
1
Amazing Spider-Man 612 McGuinness Variant Cover
1/10
8
Amazing Spider-Man 612 Variant Edition
1/10
6
Amazing Spider-Man 613
1/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 613 Variant Edition
1/10
3
Amazing Spider-Man 611 Second Printing
2/10
8
Amazing Spider-Man 615 Variant Edition
2/10
5
Amazing Spider-Man 617
3/10
13
Amazing Spider-Man 617 Variant Cover C
3/10
6
Amazing Spider-Man 617 Variant Edition
3/10
4
Amazing Spider-Man 618 Variant Edition
3/10
4
Amazing Spider-Man 619
3/10
1
Amazing Spider-Man 620
4/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 620 Variant Edition
4/10
11
Amazing Spider-Man 622
4/10
3
Amazing Spider-Man 623
5/10
1
Amazing Spider-Man 623 Jusko Variant Cover
5/10
22
Amazing Spider-Man 623 Planet Comicon Edition
5/10
55
Amazing Spider-Man 623 Variant Edition
5/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 624 Variant Edition
5/10
3
Amazing Spider-Man 626
5/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 628
6/10
3
Amazing Spider-Man 628 Variant Cover
6/10
1
Amazing Spider-Man 630
7/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 630 Variant Edition
7/10
1
Amazing Spider-Man 631
7/10
3
Amazing Spider-Man 631 Variant Cover
7/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 632
7/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 632 Variant Cover
7/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 633
7/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 633 Variant Cover
7/10
5
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 37
7/10
1
Amazing Spider-Man 634
8/10
2
Amazing Spider-Man 634 Variant Edition
8/10
5
Amazing Spider-Man 635
8/10
3
Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Black Cat 1
8/10
4
Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Black Cat 1 Variant Edition
