Spider-Man #1

Name: Spider-Man #1
Brand: Marvel
Availability: InStock

Aug 1990 · Marvel · 1.75 USD; 2.25 CAD; 1.00 GBP

📊 ~99,951 copies sold its debut month

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“Torment Part 1”

About this Issue

Spider-Man #1 (August 1990) launched what became the web-slinger's fourth concurrent monthly title and marked the first time a single creator — Todd McFarlane — served as both sole writer and artist on a flagship Spider-Man series, a creative arrangement that was itself the product of hard-won negotiation. The issue's aggressive multi-variant publication strategy, deploying silver, platinum, and polybagged editions simultaneously, crystallized the collector-speculation mentality that would define and ultimately destabilize the direct-market industry for the rest of the decade. Narratively, the 'Torment' arc it opens pushed Spider-Man into horror-inflected territory — a more savage, magically controlled Lizard and the revenge-driven voodoo priestess Calypso — introducing a darker tonal register to the character that influenced the grim-and-gritty aesthetic of 1990s superhero comics broadly. The series' runaway success gave McFarlane the platform and commercial leverage that led directly to the founding of Image Comics in 1992, reshaping the creator-rights landscape of the entire American comics industry.

writer, artist, inker Todd McFarlane · colorist Bob Sharen · letterer Rick Parker · cover Todd McFarlane

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (VF) $187

CGC 9.8 · 25057 in census $442*

CGC 9.6 · 7557 in census $442*

CGC 9.4 · 3944 in census $442*

CGC 9.2 · 2619 in census $416

CGC 9.0 · 2109 in census $386

CGC 8.5 · 1681 in census $355

Show all 17 grades ▾

CGC 8.0 · 946 in census $355

CGC 7.5 · 410 in census $196

CGC 7.0 · 244 in census $196

CGC 6.5 · 109 in census $196

CGC 6.0 · 82 in census $189*

CGC 5.5 · 35 in census $162*

CGC 5.0 · 17 in census $137

CGC 4.5 · 14 in census $122*

CGC 4.0 · 8 in census $102*

CGC 3.5 · 7 in census $85*

CGC 3.0 · 2 in census $62*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

This exact issue on ebay

CGC 9.8 ▾ $89.99–$350 2 listings

CGC 9.8 · Variant $89.99 CGC 9.8 · Signed $350

CGC $49.95 1 listing Raw — MINT $14.99 1 listing

Raw — NM ▾ $4.95–$42.24 4 listings

NM · Variant $4.95 NM $9.99 NM · Variant $16.99 NM $42.24

Raw / ungraded ▾ $4.89–$79.99 21 listings

Verified matches for Spider-Man #1 · eBay asking prices, seen 22 days ago

More listings for this title

Blank $4.99 Sketch · 4th print $24.54 NM+ · 1:25 variant · 3rd print $39.99 1:100 variant $79.99 CGC 9.8 $110 CGC 9.4 $1100 Spider-Man: Long Way Home #1 - Pick Your Cover $5.51

Related listings we couldn't confirm as this exact issue · 7 total · seen 22 days ago

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History

After a roughly 28-issue run on The Amazing Spider-Man, McFarlane told editor Jim Salicrup he wanted to write his own material and would leave that title; Salicrup countered by offering him a brand-new, adjective-free Spider-Man series where he would have full writer-artist control — an offer McFarlane later admitted surprised him, since he had expected to cut his writing teeth on a lower-profile book. The series was conceived partly with trade-paperback collection in mind, structured around self-contained arcs rather than the open-ended soap-opera continuity of existing titles, and Marvel also used it as a vehicle to experiment with higher paper quality and premium-priced polybagged editions. Colorist Bob Sharen and letterer Rick Parker rounded out the production team, with Salicrup editing and Tom DeFalco serving as editor-in-chief; the letters page of issue #1 was replaced by an editorial essay co-written by McFarlane with interjected comments by Salicrup. Growing friction over editorial control of story content — most famously a disputed panel in issue #16 — ultimately drove McFarlane to leave Marvel entirely, after which he co-founded Image Comics.

Trivia · 8 facts

First issue of the adjectiveless Spider-Man ongoing series (Vol. 1), which ran 98 issues from August 1990 to September 1998 before being retitled Peter Parker: Spider-Man with #75.
Todd McFarlane served as sole writer, penciler, and inker — his debut as a series writer — with colors by Bob Sharen and lettering by Rick Parker; Jim Salicrup edited, Tom DeFalco was editor-in-chief.
Opens 'Torment' Part 1 of 5, in which Calypso uses voodoo drums and black magic to strip the Lizard (Curt Connors) of his remaining humanity and weaponize him against Spider-Man as revenge for the death of Kraven the Hunter.
Calypso appears in this issue (pages 7 and 16) unnamed and not fully visible — her role as the hidden puppetmaster is the central mystery of the five-part arc.
The series became the fourth simultaneous monthly Spider-Man title, joining Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Web of Spider-Man.
At least seven distinct cover editions exist: the standard green direct edition, the green newsstand edition (polybagged), a silver direct edition, a no-price silver polybagged edition, a platinum edition (cardstock cover, silver ink logo, distributed to retailers), a gold second-printing direct edition, and a gold second-printing edition with UPC — making it one of the earliest and most elaborate multi-variant launches in Marvel history.
The platinum variant, identifiable by its cardstock cover and absence of a cover price, was produced in an estimated run of approximately 10,000 copies and distributed as a retailer gift.
The story has been reprinted in numerous collections including the Spider-Man: Torment trade paperback (first collected 1992), Marvel Collectible Classics: Spider-Man #2 (1998), Marvel Premiere Classic #27 (2009), a facsimile edition (October 2020), the Spider-Man by Todd McFarlane Omnibus (2016), and Spider-Man by Todd McFarlane: The Complete Collection (2021).