The Spectacular Spider-Man #145

Name: The Spectacular Spider-Man #145
Brand: Marvel
Availability: InStock

Dec 1988 · Marvel · 1.00 USD; 1.25 CAD; 0.50 GBP

☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join free

“The Boomerang Return”

★ 1st appearance — Kristy Watson

About this Issue

Spectacular Spider-Man #145 earns its place in the collector's canon primarily as the debut of Kristy Watson, Mary Jane's teenage cousin, whose introduction quietly seeds one of the more socially conscious supporting-character arcs of the Copper Age — a sustained, multi-issue examination of bulimia that played out across Gerry Conway's entire run on the title. The issue also advances the slow-burn Robbie Robertson courtroom drama, with Robertson making the pivotal decision to plead guilty rather than fight the charges stemming from his decades-long silence about Tombstone's crimes — a moment of moral weight unusual for a Spider-Man satellite book of the era. Both threads together illustrate Conway's ambition to use Spectacular as a soap-opera canvas for the Parker supporting cast, not merely as a second venue for action set-pieces. The issue sits within a run that many fans and critics now regard as among the most underappreciated extended Spider-Man narratives of its decade.

writer Gerry Conway · artist, inker Sal Buscema · colorist Bob Sharen · letterer Rick Parker · cover Sal Buscema

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Key issuekey — insufficient data

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

This exact issue on ebay

CGC 9.8 $169 1 listing Raw — MINT $2.99 1 listing

Raw — NM ▾ $5–$5.99 4 listings

NM $5 NM $5 NM $5.4 NM $5.99

Raw — NM- $7.49 1 listing Raw — VF/NM $3.99 1 listing

Raw — VF+ ▾ $3.89–$8 4 listings

VF+ $3.89 VF+ $4 VF+ $5.51 VF+ · Newsstand $8

Raw — VF ▾ $2.49–$28.99 7 listings

VF $2.49 VF $3.99 VF $5 VF $5.19 VF $5.87 VF $10.98 VF · Variant $28.99

Raw — FN/VF $4 1 listing Raw — FN+ $6.49 1 listing Raw — FN $1.8 1 listing Raw — VERY GOOD $3.49 1 listing

Raw / ungraded ▾ $2.9–$50 40 listings

Verified matches for The Spectacular Spider-Man #145 · eBay asking prices, seen 23 days ago

More listings for this title

2nd print $4.99 2nd print $5.24 FN $7.3

Related listings we couldn't confirm as this exact issue · 3 total · seen 23 days ago

Read it digitally

Marvel Unlimited Marvel’s subscription reader ▸ Amazon Kindle Buy the digital edition ▸

Opens a search on each platform — digital availability varies by title.

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 ▸

Fast, fair offers · we handle grading & shipping

History

Gerry Conway returned to Spectacular Spider-Man with issue #137 in the spring of 1988, reuniting with Sal Buscema — the same creative team that had launched the title twelve years earlier — after Conway spent roughly eleven years writing for DC Comics. Conway and Buscema worked in the traditional Marvel Method, periodically hashing out plot details by phone rather than from a full script, which gave their collaboration a fluid, serial quality across both Spectacular and Web of Spider-Man, titles Conway wrote in tandem to weave interconnected storylines. Issue #145 falls in the middle of this renewed partnership, with Tom DeFalco as editor-in-chief, Jim Salicrup as series editor, and Glenn Herdling as assistant editor overseeing the issue.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of Kristy Watson (Kristine Watson, Earth-616), Mary Jane's thirteen-year-old cousin, who arrives at Bedford Towers unannounced in this issue and whose subsequent bulimia storyline unfolds across Conway's run.
First appearance of Cynthia Bernhammer, Joe Robertson's defense attorney, introduced at Robertson's initial court appearance in this issue.
Story title: 'The Boomerang Return,' Part 2 of 2; Spider-Man battles Boomerang in San Diego, ultimately recovering Louis Baxter but failing to capture Boomerang.
Written by Gerry Conway; pencils, inks, and cover by Sal Buscema; lettered by Rick Parker; colored by Bob Sharen; edited by Jim Salicrup with Tom DeFalco as editor-in-chief.
Cover date December 1988; on-sale date August 30, 1988; published under the shortened title The Spectacular Spider-Man (the 'Peter Parker' prefix was dropped with issue #134 in January 1988).
Robbie Robertson formally decides to plead guilty to charges related to his decades of silence about Tombstone's murders, a narrative turning point that leads directly to his imprisonment in subsequent issues.
The issue was later collected in Spider-Man: Tombstone (Marvel, 2016 series) #1, and was also reprinted internationally in Brazilian, Turkish, Dutch, and Italian editions.
A low-print-run 1992 reprint edition of this issue was produced exclusively for a JC Penney Catalog 'Marvel Vintage Pack' containing twenty different Marvel reprints.