A Single Page of Original Spider-Man Art Just Sold for $3.36 Million—More Than Action Comics #1

Spidey's black costume change from 1984 suddenly got very expensive.
Spidey's black costume change from 1984 suddenly got very expensive. | Heritage Auctions // HA.com

It’s been a good month for Peter Parker.

Following the success of Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has become the biggest hit of the box office during the pandemic and now the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time, the iconic comic character scored another seven-figure payday this week. A single page of original art depicting a major moment in Spidey’s life sold for an amazing $3.36 million—a record for comic art and more than a copy of Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics #1 fetched during the same auction.

The piece, which was presented by Heritage Auctions, comes from Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 from 1984. That 12-issue limited series, in which many of Marvel’s heroes are transported to an alien planet to fight one another for the amusement of the Beyonder, resulted in Spider-Man getting a costume change. After an alien symbiote attaches itself to him, it takes on the appearance of a new black costume—one that would later move over to a new human host in Eddie Brock, a.k.a. Venom.

Spider-Man gets a makeover in Secret Wars #8 (1984).
Spider-Man gets a makeover in Secret Wars #8 (1984). | Heritage Auctions // HA.com

The page was drawn by Mike Zeck, though it’s not clear who inked it: John Beatty, Jack Abel, and Mike Esposito are all credited as working on the issue.

In addition to realizing the highest sale price of any single page of comic art, the Secret Wars pencils also outpaced the highly coveted Action Comics #1, the 1938 comic that introduced Superman. A graded 6.0 copy sold for $3.18 million in the same Heritage auction. The all-time comic sales record belongs to Amazing Fantasy #15, the 1962 debut of Spider-Man, which fetched $3.6 million in 2020.