Set Description:
Synopsis: This is a set containing all 26 books with a minimum grade of 9.4. The set includes seven highest graded copies.
Background: The Amazing Spider-Man began publication in 1963 as a bimonthly periodical (as Amazing Fantasy had been), but was changed in mid-1963 to a monthly publication, which continued, with a brief interruption in 1995, until its second volume with a new numbering order in 1999. In 2003, the series reverted to the numbering order of the first volume. The title has occasionally been published biweekly, and was published three times a month from 2008 to 2010. The title ended its 50-year run as a continuously published comic with the landmark Issue #700 in December 2012.
Writer-editor Stan Lee and artist and co-plotter Steve Ditko created the character of Spider-Man, and the pair produced 38 issues from March 1963 to July 1966. Ditko left after the 38th issue, while Lee remained as writer until Issue #100. Since then, many writers and artists have taken over the monthly comic through the years, chronicling the adventures of Marvel's most identifiable hero.
The Amazing Spider-Man has been the character's flagship series for his first fifty years in publication, and was the only monthly series to star Spider-Man until Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, in 1976, although 1972 saw the debut of Marvel Team-Up, with the vast majority of issues featuring Spider-Man along with a rotating cast of other Marvel characters. Most of the major characters and villains of the Spider-Man saga have been introduced in Amazing, and with few exceptions, it is where most key events in the character's history have occurred. The title was published continuously until No. 441 (Nov. 1998), when Marvel Comics relaunched it as vol. 2 No. 1 (Jan. 1999). But on Spider-Man's 40th anniversary, this new title reverted to using the numbering of the original series, beginning again with issue No. 500 (Dec. 2003) and lasting until the final issue, No. 700 (Feb. 2013).
Due to strong sales on the character's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, Marvel gave Spider-Man his own ongoing series in March 1963. The initial years of the series, under Lee and Ditko, chronicled Spider-Man's nascent career as a masked super-human vigilante with his civilian life as hard-luck yet perpetually good-humored and well-meaning teenager Peter Parker. Peter balanced his career as Spider-Man with his job as a freelance photographer for The Daily Bugle under the bombastic editor-publisher J. Jonah Jameson to support himself and his frail Aunt May. At the same time, Peter dealt with public hostility towards Spider-Man and the antagonism of his classmates Flash Thompson and Liz Allan at Midtown High School, while embarking on a tentative, ill-fated romance with Jameson's secretary, Betty Brant.
By focusing on Parker's everyday problems, Lee and Ditko created a groundbreakingly flawed, self-doubting superhero, and the first major teenaged superhero to be a protagonist and not a sidekick. Ditko's quirky art provided a stark contrast to the more cleanly dynamic stylings of Marvel's most prominent artist, Jack Kirby, and combined with the humor and pathos of Lee's writing to lay the foundation for what became an enduring mythos.
Most of Spider-Man's key villains and supporting characters were introduced during this time. Issue #1 (Mar. 1963) featured the first appearances of J. Jonah Jameson and his astronaut son John Jameson, and the supervillain the Chameleon. It also included the hero's first encounter with the superhero team the Fantastic Four. Issue #2 (May 1963) featured the first appearance of the Vulture and the Tinkerer, as well as the beginning of Parker's freelance photography career at the newspaper The Daily Bugle.
The Lee-Ditko era continued to usher in a significant number of villains and supporting characters, including Doctor Octopus in No. 3 (July 1963); the Sandman and Betty Brant in No. 4 (Sept. 1963); the Lizard in No. 6 (Nov. 1963); the Living Brain in No. 8 (Jan. 1964); Electro in No. 9 (Mar. 1964); Mysterio in No. 13 (June 1964); the Green Goblin in No. 14 (July 1964); Kraven The Hunter in No. 15 (Aug. 1964); reporter Ned Leeds in No. 18 (Nov. 1964); and the Scorpion in No. 20 (Jan. 1965).
Of course, Spider-Man is also probably the most popular superhero ever in TV and movies with nine featured films starring three different actors already released.
Our Collection: This set features the earliest ASMs from 1963-1965, which are some of the most coveted and iconic issues in all Comicdom. Consequently, these books when available have always been expensive in high grade, which has forced us to lower the bar on census standing for these books, as a number of our books are third highest graded copies.
To date, this is our only completed set that does not top the registry, although that statement is only true because a few collectors, like the legendary Tom Brulato, have never registered their collections. Our immediate goal with respect to ASM is to compile a set with 9.4s or better of Issues #1-5, and 9.6s or better for the remaining books in this and the #1-100 set. Currently, we need only a 9.6 copy of Issue #9 to achieve that intermediate goal. Long-term, we would like to upgrade as many books as possible to 9.8s, but right now that goal falls down our list of priorities.
Current Stats:
26/26 Books
7 9.8s-6 Highest Graded
14 9.6s-1 Highest Graded
5 9.4s
3 WP
21 OW/W
2 OW
7 Highest Graded
15 Second Highest Graded
4 Third Highest Graded
3 Pedigrees
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