Doctor Octopus First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #3 Value

Doctor Octopus first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #3, cover-dated July 1963, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (Wikipedia). He was one of Spider-Man's earliest villains, three issues into the series, and the same issue is the one collectors mean when they search for the first appearance of Doc Ock.

PriceCharting values for The Amazing Spider-Man #3 (1963), based on recorded sales, retrieved September 25, 2026:

• Ungraded: $1,250.00
• CGC 4.0: $2,521.34
• CGC 6.0: $3,816.86
• CGC 8.0: $9,432.16
• CGC 9.2: $20,400.00

Individual sales in PriceCharting's log show how much a half grade can move the price: a CGC 8.5 sold for $12,000 on April 6, 2026, a CGC 9.2 for $22,800 on April 30, 2025, and an ungraded copy for $1,100 on September 22, 2026. Restored, trimmed or incomplete copies sell well below these figures.

Otto Octavius was born in Schenectady and became a nuclear physicist, atomic research consultant, inventor and lecturer (Wikipedia). He built a harness of mechanical arms for his work. A radiation leak ended in an explosion that fused the apparatus to his body, and the radiation also changed his brain so that he could control the arms with his mind. He then turned to crime as Doctor Octopus.

Doc Ock did not marry Aunt May. Wikipedia says he became May Parker's tenant and later tried to marry her to get an island with an atomic plant. Wikipedia's article on May calls him her former fiancé; she later married J. Jonah Jameson Sr. in The Amazing Spider-Man #600 (July 2009), and Doctor Octopus tried to stop that wedding.

After the 2012 storyline "Dying Wish", Octavius swapped minds with Peter Parker using an Octobot in The Amazing Spider-Man #698-700 and set out to prove he could be a better Spider-Man (Wikipedia). These issues are collected as a separate group from #3: #3 is the first appearance, #698-700 are the issues where Otto takes over Peter's body.

• Alfred Molina played Otto Octavius in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and returned in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).
• Kathryn Hahn voiced a female version, Olivia "Liv" Octavius, in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018).

Both credits are from Wikipedia.

• Indicia: the small print on the first page or inside cover gives the title, issue number, date and publisher; reprints and facsimiles say so there.
• Cover price and barcode: a price or barcode that did not exist in the cover year means a later edition.
• Paper: decades-old newsprint tans at the edges; bright white pages on an old date are a warning sign.
• Restoration: color touch, trimmed edges and replaced covers are common on expensive keys; a grading service such as CGC or CBCS can detect them.

Shoot the front cover flat and straight on in even light, then the indicia and the back cover. Make sure the issue number 3 is sharp: The Amazing Spider-Man ran for hundreds of issues, and a single digit decides whether the copy is a $1,000-plus key or a common later issue. ComicLens reads the title, issue number and cover art from the photo, and there are free scans every day.

Research and drafting were assisted by AI and checked line by line against the sources listed on this page. Prices are the figures shown by the named source on the date given; they change with the market.