The 1990s Have No King
Spider-Man. X-Men. Spawn. New Mutants. The 1990s aren’t short on recognisable names, but during the September 22–October 5 reporting period, none of them dominated the decade.
The five highest-selling titles generated $133,783 combined, with Spider-Man narrowly leading at $29,913. Amazing Spider-Man followed at $28,994, New Mutants reached $28,187, Spawn generated $24,544, and Uncanny X-Men rounded out the group at $22,145.
From first place to fifth, the entire field was separated by only $7,768.
For a decade filled with some of the most recognisable characters and titles in modern comics, surprisingly little separated its market leaders.
Source: GPAnalysis.com, sales recorded from September 22 to October 5, 2026.
The Throne Is Empty
Spider-Man finished first, but no title came close to controlling the 1990s market. The decade's Top Five shared $133,783 remarkably evenly.
Spider-Man's share of the decade's Top Five sales.
Nobody.
Every Top Five title captured a meaningful share of the decade's sales.
Not very.
Now compare it with the 2020s.
Both decades had a sales leader. Only one had a title that overwhelmed everything around it.
Less than $8,000 separated the entire Top Five, and the market leader controlled just 22.4% of their combined sales.
Spider-Man Won, But Barely
Technically, Spider-Man was the decade’s highest-selling title. But calling it dominant would be a stretch. Its $29,913 represented only about 22.4% of the $133,783 the Top Five generated. Amazing Spider-Man was just $919 behind, while New Mutants sat only $1,726 below the leader.
That means less than $2,000 separated the top three.
Even Spawn, in fourth place, was only $5,369 behind Spider-Man. Uncanny X-Men finished fifth at $22,145, leaving just $7,768 between the top and bottom of the entire group.
There is a winner on paper. It just doesn’t have much of a throne to sit on.
The Market Was Spread Across Familiar Names
Unlike the 1950s, where a tight sales race brought superheroes, romance, horror and crime into direct competition, the 1990s field is concentrated around familiar superhero and independent properties.
What it lacks is a single franchise that can pull decisively away.
Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man occupy the first two positions, but even together they don’t make the rest of the market irrelevant. New Mutants sits close behind, Spawn remains competitive and Uncanny X-Men is still within striking distance of the leader.
The result is a market where collector spending is spread across several established properties rather than concentrating around one obvious winner.
That’s particularly interesting because the decade contains books that are ubiquitous in modern collecting. These aren’t obscure corners of the market fighting over small amounts of attention. They are some of the era's most recognisable titles, competing for essentially the same slice of collector spending.
Volume Doesn’t Produce a Clear Winner Either
The volume rankings tell a similar story, although the order changes.
Spider-Man remained the decade's most-traded title, followed by Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men/New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and Spawn.
This time, the relationship between popularity and spending is much stronger than we saw in the 1950s. Spider-Man leads both categories, Amazing Spider-Man sits second in both, while Spawn and Uncanny X-Men also appear in each Top Five.
But that consistency still doesn’t produce dominance.
Instead, it tells us that the titles attracting the most transactions are broadly the same titles attracting the money. Collector activity isn’t being split into two separate markets. It is being shared among several major properties.
Even the most-traded individual issues reinforce how recognisable this part of the market is. Spider-Man #1 leads the group, followed by X-Men/New X-Men #1, Spawn #1, Venom: Lethal Protector #1 and Uncanny X-Men #266.
No shortage of famous books here. No single book or title dominates the market.
A Decade Built on Accessibility
That raises an interesting question: what makes the 1990s different?
The decade sits much closer to the present than the Golden and Silver Age material that dominates the upper end of the vintage market. Many of its major books were produced in enormous numbers, and collectors have a wide range of characters, titles and issues competing for their attention.
In this fortnight’s data, that appears to create a broad market rather than a concentrated one.
Collectors aren’t being forced towards a single title because it represents the obvious centre of the decade. Spider-Man, X-Men, Spawn and related titles all provide different entry points, and the sales figures suggest money is moving between them rather than accumulating overwhelmingly in one place.
That doesn’t make the 1990s the largest market. In fact, its $133,783 Top Five total is among the smaller decade totals in this reporting period.
But size and structure are different things. And structurally, the 1990s are remarkably balanced.
Compare That With the Modern Market
The contrast becomes much clearer when we jump forward to the 2020s.
The 1990s Top Five generated $133,783, with Spider-Man accounting for about 22.4% of that total. The 2020s Top Five generated $262,444, but Absolute Batman alone produced $223,972.
That’s roughly 85.3% of the modern Top Five total coming from one title.
The other four 2020s sales leaders combined generated only $38,472.
So while the 2020s produced almost twice as much Top Five revenue as the 1990s, the structure underneath those totals could hardly be more different.
The modern market in this reporting period had a clear centre of gravity.
The 1990s didn’t.
That comparison matters because looking only at total sales would make the 2020s appear unquestionably stronger. Looking at how those sales are distributed tells us something else entirely.
One market is highly concentrated. The other is dispersed.
No King, Plenty of Competition
Spider-Man finished first in both volume and sales, so there is technically a leader. But leadership isn’t the same as dominance. Its $29,913 in sales was only $919 ahead of Amazing Spider-Man and $1,726 ahead of New Mutants. Even fifth-place Uncanny X-Men trailed by less than $8,000.
Across the Top Five, collector spending was divided remarkably evenly between some of the decade’s biggest properties.
That’s what makes the 1990s interesting in this dataset.
No single title distorts the result. No single enormous transaction is dragging the decade upward. And there isn’t a dramatic disconnect between what collectors trade and where they spend.
Instead, a crowded field of familiar titles competes within a surprisingly narrow range. Spider-Man may have finished first, but the 1990s have no king.
