Since he first swung onto the scene in 1962's Amazing Fantasy #15, Spider-Man has become one of the most iconic superheroes across comic books, movies, and the entire entertainment industry. With the recent Spider-Man: No Way Home smashing several box office records and quickly climbing to the eighth-highest grossing film of all-time, the friendly neighborhood web-slinger has seen sustained massive popularity through nearly six decades. Now, a recent auction held in Dallas, Texas has shown just how passionate fans of Spider-Man can be for rare and unusual pieces of the character's history.
Spider-Man's massive popularity over the sixty years since he debuted has stretched across nearly every form of modern media. The character has seen several big-budget action films since Tobey Maguire first donned the red-and-blue suit in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in 2002 up to the recent Spider-Man: No Way Home starring Tom Holland as the web-slinging superhero, as well as a litany of video games based on the character. However, many fans of Peter Parker look to the character's earliest days in comic books as some of the most valuable pieces of Spider-Man merchandise.
The BBC reported on Friday that a page from the 1984 Spider-Man comic recently sold at an auction in Dallas, Texas for $3.36 million. The page, taken from Marvel's "Secret Wars no. 8", debuts the character's iconic black 'symbiote' costume for the first time and nearly matched a similar record set by another Spider-Man comic from 1962, becoming the most expensive comic ever sold last year. The sale also smashed a record previously held by another Marvel comic page in X-Men with Wolverine's debut previously holding the record for the most expensive single page ever sold.
Spider-Man's black 'symbiote' suit has become a staple of the franchise and one of the most recognizable parts of the character's history, however it also spawned one of the franchise's most iconic villains. The creation of the black suit would eventually lead to the introduction of the popular Spider-Man villain Venom with the same species of alien 'symbiote' spawning the memorable villain. The suit has become an iconic part of Spider-Man lore, so it should serve as little surprise that the series' most passionate fans would pay big bucks to own such an iconic part of Spider-Man history.
The Spider-Man franchise has become one of the most iconic franchises in pop culture and gaming has been no stranger to the web-slinger's adventures. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales was nominated for several awards following its highly publicized release in 2020 and the game has sold over 6.5 million copies as of July. Insomniac's previous Spider-Man game also saw nominations for a multitude of accolades following its release in 2018. Spider-Man has cemented itself as one of the most widely-known franchises in the world and its success will only continue to grow into the future.
Source: BBC