Sales: Over 360 million Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can. Has international sales of a huge size, catches readers just like flies. Look ouuuuut, here comes the Spider-Man. The reasoning behind Spidey's massive popularity short version: geek who gets superpowers, girlfriends is wish-fulfilment for geeks without superpowers, girlfriends is well-documented, but the staggering amount of success his various comics have had is less so. Aside from the voluminous total sales, Spidey also benefited from a renumbering during the early-nineties speculator boom (people buying up first issues in the hope they'd be worth something one day), with the Todd McFarlane title racking up pre-orders of 2 million. The webhead also has the honour of the biggest-selling single issue in the past decade with Amazing Spider-Man #583. The reason? A back-up story with a cameo by little-known Marvel character President Barrack Obama.