Spider-Man’s Debut Is Officially the World’s Most Expensive Comic

Back in 1962, only a hair shy of fifty years in the past, a duplicate of Amazing Fantasy #15 price a fairly penny—12 of them, to be actual. In 2021, the value has gone up simply the teensiest bit, having elevated $3,599,999.88 during the last half-century. That’s inflation for you!

The comedian, which incorporates the primary look of Marvel Comics’ hottest (and profitable) superhero Spider-Man, was purchased for a cool $3.6 mil earlier this morning at a Heritage Auctions. To be truthful, this was a difficulty in extremely nice form for its age—it was rated Near Mint+ 9.6 by the Certified Guaranty Company, certainly one of solely 4 copies of the comedian to succeed in this rating, and there aren’t any identified copies in higher situation.

Still, $3,600,000 is a lot, particularly for those who contemplate different main comedian public sale costs during the last decade or so. The earlier record-holder was Detective Comics #27, which was launched in 1939 and featured the primary look of Batman—Batman—however was purchased this previous November for a relatively meager $1.5 million. And the record-holder earlier than that was a 9.4-rated difficulty of Marvel Comics #1, additionally from 1939, which offered for $1.26 million in November 2019.

Even wilder, there was one other copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, rated NM 9.4, that was purchased this morning for a paltry $264,000. And again in November of 2016, a kind of different 9.6 Amazing Fantasy #15s was offered by Heritage Auctions for less than $262,900!

It’s tempting to chalk up the value enhance to how in style Spider-Man at the moment is, and that’s certainly a part of it. But it’s not like Spidey was unpopular in 2016. Not solely had the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield films come out, however Tom Holland’s immediately beloved tackle the character additionally premiered earlier within the yr in Captain America: Civil War. He nonetheless had oodles of cartoons and toys and merchandise out there. It’s simply form of mind-blowing.

But maybe not as mind-blowing as how Heritage Auctions describes the occasions of Amazing Fantasy #15 and Peter Parker within the press launch asserting the sale:

“In Lee and Ditko’s story, the embittered, selfish wallflower is bitten by that radioactive spider, climbs on walls and into the wrestling ring, then bears the responsibility when his beloved Uncle Ben is killed as a result of his willful inaction.”

I’ve by no means considered the character as an “embittered, selfish wallflower” earlier than. It seems like an outline that’s been handed by means of Google Translate… or possibly J. Jonah Jameson is moonlighting in PR in the mean time?

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