FLOAT 100 · Comics · No. 94
The Amazing Spider-Man #3
Stan Lee wanted a villain with "a couple of extra arms just for fun"; the result beat Spider-Man so badly in his first story that Peter Parker thought about quitting, and a near-perfect copy of that 1963 issue once brought $144,000.
- Year
- 1963
- Maker
- Marvel Comics
- By price in comics
- 31 of 100
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- April 9, 1963 (cover date July 1963)
- Publisher
- Marvel, edited by Stan Lee
- Creators
- Writer Stan Lee, cover and interior art by Steve Ditko; colors Stan Goldberg, story lettered by John Duffy
- Cover price
- 12 cents, 36 pages
- Story
- "Spider-Man Versus Doctor Octopus," 21 pages, the first full-length Spider-Man story
- Key
- Origin and first appearance of Doctor Octopus; Human Torch appearance; Spider-Man pin-up
- Census at CGC 9.6
- 6 copies with 1 higher (November 2015); 9 with 2 higher (September 2021 and March 2023)
- Top 9.6 sale
- $144,000, September 2021
"I want to call somebody Octopus"
In 1963 The Amazing Spider-Man was a new series, following the hero's debut in Amazing Fantasy #15 the year before. For the third issue Stan Lee went looking for a new kind of enemy. "I thought of an octopus," he explained. "I thought, 'I want to call somebody Octopus. And I want him to have a couple of extra arms just for fun.'"
The issue went on sale on April 9, 1963, with a July cover date. It cost 12 cents and ran 36 pages. Its 21-page story, "Spider-Man Versus Doctor Octopus," was the first time Spider-Man carried a full-length adventure rather than several shorter ones. The cover's tagline promised "America's most exciting super-hero captured by the world's most dreaded super-villain!"
In the story the nuclear physicist Otto Octavius is caught in a radiation accident that fuses a harness of mechanical arms to his body and lets him control them with his mind. He tries to take over an atomic research facility, and Spider-Man has to stop him. The first fight goes so badly for Spider-Man that Peter Parker spends part of the issue considering whether to quit. The Human Torch makes a guest appearance.
Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
Lee wrote the story and Steve Ditko drew the cover, the interior and a bonus Spider-Man pin-up page. Ditko, born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on November 2, 1927, had designed Spider-Man's costume and web-shooters for the character's 1962 debut. He drew the first 38 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man before leaving Marvel in 1966.
The issue also marks a few small firsts for the series. It carried the first letters section, with a letter that opens, "The Amazing Spider-Man #1 was quite good as first issues go." The letters page promoted Marvel's new corner trademark showing Spider-Man's face, the same one used on this cover, an idea later credited to Ditko. On page 8 the hero is mistakenly called "Super-Man," an error corrected in later reprintings.
One of Spider-Man's three great enemies
Doctor Octopus became one of Spider-Man's three archenemies, alongside the Green Goblin and Venom. In The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 in 1964 he founded the Sinister Six, the first villain team built to fight Spider-Man.
Alfred Molina played him in the 2004 film Spider-Man 2 and returned to the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021. The film raised the book's profile: a July 2004 auction description of a CGC 9.6 copy predicted that Ock "may well be the best-known Marvel villain of all before the summer's through."
The 9.6 copies
Plenty of copies survived, and lower grades trade often. Near-perfect ones do not. In July 2004 a CGC 9.6 was described as the highest-graded copy known to CGC. By November 2015 the census showed six at 9.6 and one higher; by November 2017, eight at 9.6 and one higher; and by September 2021, nine at 9.6 with two higher. The count was unchanged in March 2023.
Auction catalogers noted how rarely the grade appears: a copy offered in November 2015 was the first 9.6 one house had seen in more than a decade, and one offered in November 2017 was only the third in 15 years. The 2017 copy came from the Douglas Schmell collection.
The record arrived during the market peak of September 2021, when a 9.6 from a top-ranked Amazing Spider-Man registry set sold at auction for $144,000. The same auction sold an Amazing Fantasy #15 for $3.6 million. Later 9.6 results came in well below that: $58,000 in November 2023 and $50,000 in March 2024.
How to recognize it
The original has a 12-cent cover price, a July 1963 date, the new Spider-Man face corner symbol and the cover line "America's most exciting super-hero captured by the world's most dreaded super-villain!" Inside, look for the 21-page story, the Spider-Man pin-up and the first "Spider's Web" letters page.
A quick check for originals versus reprints: the "Super-Man" slip on page 8 appears in the 1963 printing and was fixed when the story was reprinted.
The numbers
- Cover price
- 12 cents
- Pages
- 36; lead story 21
- Print run
- Not documented in the sources consulted
- Census, November 2015
- 6 in CGC 9.6, 1 higher
- Census, November 2017
- 8 in CGC 9.6, 1 higher
- Census, September 2021
- 9 in CGC 9.6, 2 higher
- Census, March 2023
- 9 in CGC 9.6, 2 higher
Timeline
Spider-Man debuts in Amazing Fantasy #15 (cover date).
The Amazing Spider-Man #3 goes on sale for 12 cents with a July 1963 cover date.
Doctor Octopus forms the Sinister Six in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1.
Steve Ditko leaves Marvel after 38 issues of the series.
Alfred Molina plays Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2.
A CGC 9.6 copy, then the highest graded known to CGC, sells at auction.
A CGC 9.6 copy sells at auction; the census shows six at 9.6 and one higher.
A CGC 9.6 from the Douglas Schmell collection sells at auction; eight at 9.6 and one higher.
Steve Ditko dies in New York, about this date.
A CGC 9.6 copy sells at auction for $144,000, the issue's highest documented price.
Molina returns as Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
A CGC 9.6 copy sells for $58,000.
A CGC 9.6 copy sells for $50,000.
The world in 1963
The Mona Lisa goes on display in Washington, its only exhibition in the United States.
The Supreme Court decides Gideon v. Wainwright, guaranteeing counsel to poor defendants.
The nuclear submarine USS Thresher sinks east of Cape Cod with all 129 aboard.
Martin Luther King Jr. writes his Letter from Birmingham Jail.
Medgar Evers is assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi.
King delivers the "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2021 | $144,000 | Sold at auctionCGC 9.6, off-white pages. Sources give September 9 or 12. |
| Nov 30, 2023 | $58,000 | Sold at auctionCGC 9.6, sold at auction. |
| Mar 19, 2024 | $50,000 | Sold at auctionCGC 9.6, sold at auction. |
A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.
By reference price, The Amazing Spider-Man #3 is number 31 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (94 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- Stan Lee said he gave Doctor Octopus extra arms "just for fun."
- Spider-Man loses so badly in the first fight that Peter Parker considers quitting.
- The issue was Spider-Man's first full-length story; earlier issues held several shorter ones.
- A lettering slip on page 8 calls the hero "Super-Man."
- The issue introduced the series' first letters page.
- In 2004 a single CGC 9.6 was the highest-graded copy CGC knew of.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 3, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026