Description

Spiderman # 01 Silver Variant

Date: August, 1990

Creative Team: Todd McFarlane (Artist/Writer)

Condition Notes: Mint condition.

Story Notes: This is premier issue the fourth Spiderman series which gave Todd McFarlane more creative control of his stories. Spiderman #01 is the first part in a 5 part series called “Torment.” The story focuses on Calypso’s revenge on Spiderman following the suicide of Kraven the Hunter. She uses a mindless Lizard (last seen in Amazing Spiderman # 311) as she tortures Spiderman both physically and mentally. Spiderman #01 was released in three major variants: Colored, Silver, and Gold. Poly-bagged versions exist for colored and silver versions as well. There is also a much rarer store incentive Platinum edition.

This Spiderman series was originally fashioned after DC’s successful Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight series which focused on longer multipart stories. McFarlanes work on this series was a direct precursor to his Spawn comic book, which focused on darker stories.

This comic was released as an effort by Marvel to reinvigorate their main brands by adding new ongoing series with their hottest artists. These included Todd McFarlane on Spiderman, Jim Lee on X-Men, and Rob Liefeld on X-Force. They resulted in the highest sales in the comic industry of all time. The inclusion of variants as part of the sales campaign was so successful that it became a hallmark of ’90’s comics and is still used today. The books were so popular that it lead to the artists leaving Marvel in less than 2 years to form their own company, Image.