The Amazing Spider-Man #300, cover-dated May 1988, is one of the most collected comics of its decade. Written by David Michelinie and drawn by Todd McFarlane, it shows Venom in full, reveals Eddie Brock as the man inside the symbiote, and marks the series' 25th anniversary. Ask a room of collectors whether it is Venom's first appearance, though, and you will start an argument.
The Debate: Where Does Venom Really Begin?
Venom is two characters joined together, a living costume and the man wearing it, and each half has its own starting point. That is why there are four candidates.
- Amazing Spider-Man #252 (May 1984). The black costume's first published appearance. Spider-Man comes home from Secret Wars wearing it. If you count the symbiote as Venom, this is the beginning.
- Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars #8 (December 1984). The story where Spider-Man first finds the costume. It comes first in the story's timeline, but it was published seven months after #252, and collectors almost always rank by publication date.
- Amazing Spider-Man #299 (April 1988). Venom's first look in costume: a brief cameo at the end of the issue. Eddie Brock himself had shown up a month earlier, in #298.
- Amazing Spider-Man #300 (May 1988). The first full appearance: Venom's name, his look, his origin and a full fight with Spider-Man.
The hobby has mostly settled it the usual way: a "first full appearance" beats a cameo, and the character called Venom first exists in #300. The others are still real keys with their own followings, and the market prices them that way.
What the Market Decided
Raw Fair Market Values for the Direct variant on November 6, 2026:
| Issue | What it is | Raw | CGC 9.8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #252 | First black costume | $178 | $1,568 |
| Secret Wars #8 | Costume's origin | $222 | $725 |
| Amazing Spider-Man #298 | First Eddie Brock | $71 | $650 |
| Amazing Spider-Man #300 | First full Venom | $396 | $3,085 |
The #300 is worth roughly double any of the others at every grade, which tells you which argument won. (We don't list #299 here because we don't have a reliable Direct-variant value for it yet.)
#300 by Variant and Grade
| Variant | Raw | CGC 9.4 | CGC 9.8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | $396 | $700 | $3,085 |
| Newsstand | $385 | $1,037 | $7,350 |
The gap at the top is the part to notice. Raw, the two variants are worth about the same. At 9.8 the Newsstand copy is worth well over twice as much, because far fewer of them survived in top condition. A Direct copy shows the Spider-Man image or Direct wording in the corner box; a Newsstand copy has a barcode there.
How ComicValuator Values This Comic
Every value on ComicValuator is a Fair Market Value: an average of recent sales, drawn from PriceCharting's market data and refreshed every day for comics people track. A few things happen on top of that, and they matter for a book like this one.
- Each variant is valued on its own. Direct and Newsstand copies sell for different prices, so the app matches your copy to its own variant instead of averaging them.
- Your grade sets your value. Market data lists prices at set grades (raw, 9.4, 9.6, 9.8 and so on). For a grade in between, the app draws a straight line between the two nearest prices. Where no price exists for a grade, it projects one from the shape of the grades it does have and shows that value in orange, so you always know which numbers are sales and which are estimates.
- Your history is kept. Once a comic is in your collection, its value is recorded every day, so you can watch it move with the market and see when a new movie or announcement lifts it.
For #300, that means a raw Newsstand copy and a raw Direct copy show nearly the same value, but the moment you enter a high grade, the Newsstand copy pulls well ahead. Put in the wrong variant and your 9.8 could be off by more than $4,000.
The grading recommendation is deliberately cautious. It says yes only when grading beats selling raw after the grading fee (which the graders set by the comic's declared value), and when at least three of four checks pass: the graded value still covers the raw value plus the fee even if the grade comes back lower than you hoped; the graded value beats what you paid plus the fee; there is real upside above your grade; and the possible gain outweighs the possible loss.
With #300, grade decides nearly everything: the Direct 9.8 is worth more than four times the 9.4. Grading pays off for a sharp copy and rarely for a worn one.
Search for the issue on ComicValuator to see today's values for every variant, then add your copy to get a grading recommendation based on what you paid.