Spider-Woman #40
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSpider-Woman #40 is the first appearance of Flying Tiger, a powered-armor mercenary introduced by Chris Claremont and Steve Leialoha who would go on to recur across the Marvel Universe for decades — turning up in Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, and Captain America storylines. The issue also marks a meaningful moment of character growth for Jessica Drew: after being beaten to within an inch of her life and hurled into San Francisco Bay, she regroups by learning martial arts, then returns to defeat her attacker on her own terms. That narrative beat — hero suffers a humiliating loss, adapts, and earns a rematch victory — was very much in keeping with the grounded, character-driven storytelling Chris Claremont was simultaneously honing on Uncanny X-Men. The issue also plants Morgan Le Fay's ominous promise of a future reckoning, threading the long-term villainy that would carry the series toward its conclusion.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 8 grades ▾
This exact issue on ebay
CGC 9.6 ▾ $39.99–$59.99 2 listings
Raw — MINT ▾ $14.99–$19.99 2 listings
Raw — FN ▾ $4.19–$13.99 7 listings
Raw / ungraded ▾ $3.29–$22.99 20 listings
More listings for this title
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Chris Claremont took over Spider-Woman with issue #34 (January 1981), retooling what had been a struggling, frequently-relaunched title by relocating Jessica Drew to San Francisco, installing her as a private investigator, and bringing back Lindsay McCabe as her core supporting friend — a deliberate move away from earlier writers' more exploitative tendencies. Issue #40 falls near the midpoint of Claremont's roughly thirteen-issue tenure, a run he shared throughout with artist Steve Leialoha; by this point the book had already gone bimonthly as Marvel responded to slipping sales, a trajectory that would end in cancellation at issue #50. Denny O'Neil served as the issue's editor under Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Flying Tiger (real name unrevealed), an armored mercenary assassin and former professional football player, created by Chris Claremont, Steve Leialoha, and Bob Wiacek.
- First appearance of Captain Paul Morrel, the submarine commander of the U.S.S. Alaska who rescues the near-dead Spider-Woman from San Francisco Bay.
- First appearance of the Dragon Clan and Kelly Chou Shan-Liu.
- Story title: 'Flying Tiger — Kills!' Cover date: October 1981; release date: June 23, 1981.
- Full creative team: Writer Chris Claremont, Penciler Steve Leialoha, Inker Bob Wiacek, Colorist Carl Gafford, Letterer Joe Rosen, Editor Denny O'Neil, Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter.
- General Nguyen Ngoc Coy — the San Francisco crime lord recurring throughout the Claremont run — is established as Flying Tiger's employer, hiring him to assassinate Spider-Woman.
- Flying Tiger went on to appear in over two dozen Marvel titles across subsequent decades, including Iron Man #177, Fantastic Four #335, Thunderbolts, and Captain America, and received an entry in the All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z: Update #2 (2007).
- The issue is collected in Marvel Masterworks: Spider-Woman Vol. 4, which covers the final stretch of the original 1978–1983 series (#39–50) alongside related Avengers issues.
Cast · 7 characters
Full credits
Reprints
↩ Reprints [Marvel Hostess Ads] #63 (1981)
Reprinted in Spiderwoman #19 (1983), Nova #69 (1983), Marvel Masterworks: Spider-Woman #4 (2024), Essential Spider-Woman #2, Spiderwoman #18
Key issues in Spider-Woman
Variants (2)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.