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.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
