Amazing Fantasy #15 — which features the first-ever appearance of Spider-Man — has sold for a record-breaking $3.6 million in a new auction, making it the most expensive comic book ever sold.
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the $3.6 million sale occurred during Heritage Auctions’ Signature Comics & Comics Art auction. The price tag has now beaten the record for the most expensive comic book sale which was previously held by Action Comics #1, featuring the first appearance of Superman.
An Action Comics #1 sold earlier this year took the record after selling privately for $3.25 million, but Amazing Fantasy #15's $3.6 million sale now takes the top spot.
This $3.6 million comic is graded at CGC 9.6 and is one of four of these comics that exist at such a near-mint condition. THR's report states that no CGC 9.8 copies exist and considering that CGC 9.8 is the next condition grade above CGC 9.6, no better-condition copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 will ever be sold.
Amazing Fantasy #15 was written by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, who also penciled and inked the comic. Stan Goldberg was the colorist for the comic and Artie Simek was the letterer. If you're familiar at all with the origins of Spider-Man in movies, games, and the like, you're already basically familiar with the origin of Spider-Man in this comic.
Peter Parker is bitten by a highly radioactive spider while visiting General Techtronics Laboratories East. This gives him the Spider-Man strength and agility seen in movies, games, and elsewhere. He fights a wrestler to win some money and then later creates a proper Spider-Man costume (the classic red and blue suit), his spider web fluid, and two web-slinger wrist attachments that he can use to sling around New York City.
This record-breaking comic book sale comes at a time when another form of entertainment media, video games, is also breaking similar records. Just last month, a rare copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for $2 million, making it the most valuable video game collectible ever. That Super Mario Bros. sale occurred just months after a similar copy of the game sold for $660,000.
In between that $660,000 sale and the $2 million sale, a copy of The Legend of Zelda sold for $870,000, briefly holding the record for the most expensive game ever sold. Less than a week after that, a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 sold for $1.56 million.
It seems for now, though, that rare comics are more valuable than rare video games. Who knows though? A $4 million sale of SSX Tricky could be just around the corner in this day and age — ok, not really, but that game is really good.
Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.