Amazing Fantasy - Publication History

Publication History

The science fiction-fantasy anthology Amazing Adult Fantasy began with issue #7 (cover-dated Dec. 1961), having taken over the number of the similar anthology Amazing Adventures. Whereas the earlier series featured stories drawn by a number of artists including Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, and Steve Ditko, Amazing Adult Fantasy was reconfigured to reflect the more "sophisticated" nature of its new exclusive content: the quick, quirky, twist-ending tales of artist Ditko and writer-editor Stan Lee. The cover of the comic carried the motto "The magazine that respects your intelligence."

Lee in 2009 described these "short, five-page filler strips that Steve and I did together", originally "placed in any of our comics that had a few extra pages to fill", as "odd fantasy tales that I'd cream up with you O. Henry-type endings." Giving an early example of what would later be known as the "Marvel Method" of writer-artist collaboration, Lee said, "All I had to do was give Steve a one-line description of the plot and he'd be off and running. He'd take those skeleton outlines I had given him and turn them into classic little works of art that ended up being far cooler than I had any right to expect."

Although the interior artwork was by Steve Ditko alone, Lee rejected Ditko's cover art and commissioned Jack Kirby to pencil a cover that Ditko inked. As Lee explained in 2010, "I think I had Jack sketch out a cover for it because I always had a lot of confidence in Jack's covers."

With issue #15 (Aug. 1962) Amazing Adult Fantasy was retitled Amazing Fantasy. In numerous interviews Lee recalls how the title had been slated for cancellation, and that therefore, with nothing to lose, publisher Martin Goodman reluctantly agreed to allow him to introduce Spider-Man, a new kind of superhero — one who would be a teenager, but not a sidekick, and one who would have everyman doubts, neuroses and money problems. Sales for Amazing Fantasy #15, however, actually proved to be one of Marvel's highest at the time, so the company installed Spider-Man into a series of his own.

This version of the history is problematic: it was seven months before the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man arrived on newsstands to capitalize on the new character's apparent popularity. Furthermore, Amazing Fantasy #15's message from the editor about "the new Amazing", (advertised in a blurb on the front cover), in fact pertains to that issue's deletion of the word "Adult" from the title of the series. The editor's message explains the reasons for the new format and a new theme or direction promised for the series, which was evidently supposed to continue as Amazing Fantasy. Likewise, Lee's parting text on the final page of the published origin story actually urges readers, "Be sure to see the next issue of Amazing Fantasy --- for the further amazing exploits of America's most different new teen-age idol -- Spiderman!" (one of several instances in the early days that even Lee forgot or omitted the hyphen in the character's name).

The DVD release of the collector's edition of the Spider-Man movie included an electronic copy of Amazing Fantasy #15. In 2001, Marvel published the 10-issue historical overview The 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time, with Amazing Fantasy #15 topping the list.

In 2008, an anonymous donor bequeathed the Library of Congress the original 24 pages of Ditko art for Amazing Fantasy #15, including Spider-Man's debut and the stories "The Bell-Ringer", "Man in the Mummy Case", and "There Are Martians Among Us".

In September 2000, Metropolis Comics in New York City brought the only known CGC-graded 9.6 (near-mint plus) copy to market and sold it for $140,000. In October 2007, a near-mint copy sold for $210,000 in an online auction on ComicLink.com. A near-mint CGC-graded 9.6 copy sold for $1.1 million to an unnamed collector on March 7, 2011, making the issue one of only three different comic books to have broken the million-dollar mark (the others being the debut of Superman in Action Comics #1, of which three copies have sold for more than $1 million each; and the first appearance of Batman in Detective Comics #27).