January 13, 2017
1990
[ Note: a newsstand rarity estimate of 15% exists for this year for Marvel. If you are not already in-the-know about the difference between newsstand and direct edition versions see the following: Comic Book Newsstand Editions: Understanding The Difference ]
There are two main ways I’ve seen online lists of key comics presented by year: (1) personalized lists based upon judgment calls of what is “key” (thereby omitting any comics the particular writer doesn’t happen to consider key — or doesn’t know about), and (2) lists based upon high sales price data (also a flawed method because high prices can just as easily be caused by a non-key book happening to grade a 10 at CGC).
The top 50 list you’re about to see is neither of those other types.
Instead, to briefly repeat the introduction I gave on the main 1990’s page, the list I’m about to present is essentially “crowd-sourced”… by the crowd of collectors sending comics to CGC. All I’ve done here is to rank the universe of comic books published in 1990, according to how many copies of each issue have passed through CGC’s doors to date to reveal the comics with the highest census counts — that’s it!
This exercise should “tease out” a very interesting list of important and/or key comics from 1990, but this will not necessarily be an all-encompassing list (if very few copies were created for a given key, for example, that restricted supply could keep the count of CGC submissions low even though the comic is very important — this exercise will unfortunately see such comics sort themselves off of the bottom through no fault of their own). So essentially, you should think of this list as just one more tool in your tool-belt of researching key comics from 1990. You can also drill down and see the top 50 Marvel comics of 1990, top 50 D.C. comics of 1990, and more key comic books of 1990 from other publishers.
Key Comics From 1990:
(Census data as of year-end 2016)
| Rank | CGC Count | Issue | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 8,475 | Uncanny X-Men #266 | 8/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 2. | 5,199 | Spider-Man 1 Silver Edition | 8/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 3. | 5,043 | New Mutants #87 | 3/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 4. | 3,510 | Spider-Man #1 | 8/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 5. | 1,925 | Spider-Man 1 Gold Edition | 8/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 6. | 1,294 | Spider-Man 1 Platinum Edition | 8/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 7. | 1,251 | Amazing Spider-Man #328 | 1/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 8. | 1,131 | Uncanny X-Men #268 | 9/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 9. | 1,087 | X-Men Annual #14 | 1990 | Marvel Comics |
| 10. | 693 | Spider-Man 1 Poly-Bagged Silver Edition | 8/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 11. | 579 | New Mutants 87 Second Printing | 3/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 12. | 566 | Ghost Rider v2 #1 | 5/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 13. | 546 | Thanos Quest #1 | 1990 | Marvel Comics |
| 14. | 534 | Uncanny X-Men #267 | 9/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 15. | 457 | Spider-Man 1 UPC Gold Edition | 8/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 16. | 449 | Spider-Man 1 Poly-Bagged Edition | 8/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 17. | 447 | Guardians of the Galaxy #1 | 6/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 18. | 367 | Green Lantern v3 #1 | 6/90 | D.C. Comics |
| 19. | 338 | Spider-Man #2 | 9/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 20. | 333 | Uncanny X-Men #257 | 1/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 21. | 307 | Amazing Spider-Man #330 | 3/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 22. | 300 | Silver Surfer v3 #44 | 12/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 23. | 299 | Batman #457 | 12/90 | D.C. Comics |
| 24. | 297 | Thanos Quest #2 | 1990 | Marvel Comics |
| 25. | 291 | Lobo #1 | 11/90 | D.C. Comics |
| 26. | 261 | Sandman 19 Error Version | 9/90 | D.C./Vertigo Comics |
| 27. | 232 | Silver Surfer v3 #34 | 2/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 28. | 209 | Amazing Spider-Man #333 | 6/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 29. | 197 | Amazing Spider-Man #331 | 4/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 30. | 195 | Spider-Man #4 | 11/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 31. | 189 | Uncanny X-Men #258 | 2/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 32. | 186 | Spider-Man #3 | 10/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 33. | 179 | Uncanny X-Men #270 | 11/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 34. | 174 | New Mutants #93 | 9/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 35. | 172 | Aliens vs. Predator #1 | 6/90 | Dark Horse Comics |
| 36. | 166 | New Warriors #1 | 7/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 37. | 165 | Amazing Spider-Man #332 | 5/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 38. | 157 | Uncanny X-Men #271 | 12/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 39. | 153 | Spider-Man #5 | 12/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 40. | 148 | Uncanny X-Men #269 | 10/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 41. | 144 | New Mutants #86 | 2/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 42. | 136 | Amazing Spider-Man #336 | 8/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 43. | 127 | Uncanny X-Men #259 | 3/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 44. | 125 | Uncanny X-Men #261 | 5/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 45. | 120 | New Mutants #88 | 4/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 46. | 119 | Uncanny X-Men #260 | 4/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 47. | 114 | Fantastic Four #347 | 12/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 48. | 114 | Amazing Spider-Man #340 | 10/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 49. | 106 | Amazing Spider-Man #334 | 7/90 | Marvel Comics |
| 50. | 106 | Silver Surfer v3 #35 | 3/90 | Marvel Comics |
| « 1989 | 1991 » | |||
More Key Comics From 1990
Also see: top 50 Marvel comics of 1990, top 50 D.C. comics of 1990, more key comic books of 1990 outside of Marvel and DC, all key comics from 1990, or jump to this list of important comics from the 1990s. Or explore Lists of Key Comic Books by Year. Or jump to my blog’s home page.
Happy Collecting! 🙂
