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Cover: Al Milgrom

The Amazing Spider-Man #194

Name: The Amazing Spider-Man #194
Brand: Marvel
Availability: InStock

Jul 1979 · Marvel · 0.40 USD

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“Never Let the Black Cat Cross Your Path!”

★ 1st appearance — Felicia Hardy★ 1st appearance — Black Cat★ 1st appearance — Walter Hardy★ 1st appearance — Boris Korpse★ 1st appearance — Bruno Grainger

About this Issue

The Amazing Spider-Man #194 marks the debut of Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat — one of the most enduring characters to enter Spider-Man's world during the Bronze Age. Where most of Spider-Man's rogues gallery was built around physical menace or scientific gimmicks, Black Cat introduced a morally slippery cat burglar whose romantic tension with Peter Parker gave the title a dynamic it had rarely explored before. Over the decades that followed, she evolved from antagonist to on-again, off-again ally and love interest, becoming one of the few characters from the Wolfman era on Amazing Spider-Man to remain a permanent fixture of the Spider-Man mythos across comics, animation, and video games. The issue also stands as a textbook Bronze Age example of how a single well-executed character debut can reframe a long-running series.

writer Marv Wolfman · artist Keith Pollard · artist, inker Frank Giacoia · colorist B. Sean · letterer J. Costanza · cover Al Milgrom

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (Fine) $88

CGC 9.8 · 613 in census $1,583

CGC 9.6 · 1338 in census $664

CGC 9.4 · 1474 in census $440

CGC 9.2 · 1248 in census $375

CGC 9.0 · 1208 in census $306

CGC 8.5 · 1292 in census $276

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CGC 8.0 · 1108 in census $258

CGC 7.5 · 955 in census $187

CGC 7.0 · 804 in census $187

CGC 6.5 · 639 in census $180

CGC 6.0 · 575 in census $96

CGC 5.5 · 386 in census $93

CGC 5.0 · 341 in census $88

CGC 4.5 · 256 in census $88

CGC 4.0 · 201 in census $88

CGC 3.5 · 118 in census $44

CGC 3.0 · 87 in census $34

CGC 2.5 · 40 in census $34

CGC 2.0 · 14 in census $34*

CGC 1.5 · 6 in census $33*

CGC 1.0 none in existence

CGC 0.5 · 6 in census $23*

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History

Writer-editor Marv Wolfman originally conceived Black Cat not for Spider-Man at all, but as a foil for Spider-Woman — a character he had co-launched in 1978. Drawing on a Tex Avery cartoon called Bad Luck Blackie, Wolfman built the concept of a costumed thief whose proximity brought misfortune to those around her, and enlisted artist Dave Cockrum to design her distinctive costume. When Wolfman left Spider-Woman and took over Amazing Spider-Man, he brought the character with him, reworking her considerably alongside Cockrum before handing interior art duties to Keith Pollard, the title's regular penciller. The letters page of the issue itself serves as a small historical document: it reproduces the never-published intended cover for Spider-Woman #9 where Black Cat was originally to have appeared, alongside a rejected cover for ASM #194 drawn by Pollard, making the tortured road to publication unusually transparent for a 1970s Marvel comic.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of Felicia Hardy / Black Cat (Earth-616), one of the most prominent recurring characters in Spider-Man's supporting cast.
Story title: 'Never Let the Black Cat Cross Your Path!' — Part 1 of a two-part arc concluded in Amazing Spider-Man #195.
Creative team: written and edited by Marv Wolfman; pencils (breakdowns) by Keith Pollard; inks (finishes) by Frank Giacoia; cover by Al Milgrom; colors by Ben Sean; letters by John Costanza. Editor-in-Chief was Jim Shooter.
Black Cat's costume was designed by Dave Cockrum, who also collaborated with Wolfman on the original Spider-Woman version of the character before it was retooled for ASM.
Wolfman confirmed in interviews that the character's conceptual inspiration was the Tex Avery cartoon Bad Luck Blackie — not DC's Catwoman, despite the superficial similarities.
The issue's letters page reprints an original Dave Cockrum pencil sketch of Black Cat's design and a rejected alternate cover by Keith Pollard, offering an unusually candid look at the creative process.
Also features a cameo of the original Burglar (the man who shot Uncle Ben in Amazing Fantasy #15), whose subplot runs through the Wolfman era and resolves in ASM #200; Mysterio appears in civilian guise as 'Dr. Rinehart.'
The two-part introductory story was collected in the 2005 trade paperback Spider-Man vs. the Black Cat, and ASM #194 was later reprinted as a standalone issue in the True Believers: King in Black — Black Cat #1 one-shot (2021). Black Cat subsequently appeared across multiple animated series — including the 1981 Spider-Man cartoon and the 2008 Spectacular Spider-Man — as well as numerous video games.