WEB OF SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #2

UPC barcode box in lower left confirms newsstand edition. Cover shows generally strong gloss with sharp corners; minor surface handling marks visible on the red spider-emblem area (small scuffs/creasing in the webbing artwork) and slight softness at the top left corner. No major spine stress, tears, or color breaks are evident, though the book is in a plastic sleeve which limits full assessment. Interior and back cover were not examined.

Published in 1986 under editor Jim Owsley, Web of Spider-Man Annual #2 pairs Ann Nocenti's script with full interior art by Arthur Adams on the lead story, "Wake Me Up I Gotta Be Dreaming," in which Warlock leaves the New Mutants for a solo trip to New York and runs afoul of animal experimenters before Spider-Man intervenes. Cannonball, Cypher and Magik appear alongside their teammates in cameo, and the backup, "You're Lying, Peter Parker!," is a nightmare sequence penciled by Mike Mignola with inks by Geof Isherwood, folding in Aunt May, the Kingpin, the Hobgoblin, J. Jonah Jameson, Flash Thompson, the Black Cat and the Black Fox. Charles Vess supplies a painted cover. The issue carries no first appearance or origin, but it is an unusually well-stocked creative package for a mid-decade annual: Adams fresh off Longshot, Mignola early in his Marvel tenure, and Vess in painted mode.

Demand tracks the art credits rather than the story. Adams completists and New Mutants collectors drive most of the interest, with a secondary pull from Mignola's early work and from Spider-Man readers seeking black-costume-era appearances. In raw grades the book behaves like standard Copper Age annual stock, moving in dealer bins and in multi-annual lots where per-book pricing barely separates it from the rest of the run. The market narrows sharply at the top: certified copies in high grade are where the collector money goes, and the spread between 9.6 and 9.8 is proportionally wide because the annual's square-bound spine and newsstand handling made clean corners and sharp spine ticks less common than the population suggests at first glance.

This is a book for run collectors, Adams and Mignola followers, and New Mutants specialists rather than for investors chasing keys. Below Very Fine it is inexpensive and readily available, so grading is not economic and copies trade as reader or filler material; the practical decision point is whether a copy is a plausible 9.6 or better, at which point certification changes the audience entirely. Buyers should expect steady, unspectacular liquidity, with the strongest bids arriving when Adams or Mignola interest spikes around reprint collections or gallery editions of their eighties Marvel work.