[imagesource: Michael Zeck / Marvel]

Artist Mike Zeck debuted Spider-Man with a black costume for the first time in his 1984 Spider-Man comic book.

The comic book cover is seen above.

While the cover is quite striking, it is a single page from inside the comic that made a mind-numbing profit at a recent auction in Texas.

Page 25 of Secret Wars #8 fetched an epic $3,36 million (around R51 million) at the Heritage Auctions.

Bleeding Cool notes that actually, Spider-Man‘s black costume was originally revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #252 (cover-dated May 1984).

The thing is, in that comic, the change had little explanation or backstory and was only fully explained in Secret Wars #8:

The saga of Spider-Man and the symbiote unfolded over several subsequent years, and this particular story page from Secret Wars #8 can ultimately be considered as the origin moment of Venom.

Check it out:

Image: Heritage Auctions

There is a trend of late to spend money on popular culture memorabilia at auctions, with people dishing out record payments for comics and Pokemon cards, reported Sky News:

Joe Maddalena, vice president of Heritage Auctions, which sold the Spider-Man comic, said: “Collectors are buying their nostalgia so instead of buying their, you know, piece of contemporary art, this is it.

“They’d rather have this because this speaks to them more than a piece of contemporary art would.”

The sale of this iconic page 25 marks the highest price ever paid for an interior story page (not a cover) of original comic book artwork, and might just be the highest price ever paid for any piece of original comic book artwork.

If you’re interested, you can check out some other notable sales here.

Spider-Man is certainly on a high, with the latest film in the franchise, Spider-Man: No Way Home, ranking eighth in terms of the world’s highest-grossing movies.

In the four weeks since its release, it managed to rack up more than $1,5 billion at the global box offices.

Amazing.

[sources:skynews&bleedingcool]