Amazing Spider-Man #798 is still a popular choice among collectors, but the values are dropping across the board. 

Back in the spring, the Red Goblin storyline was all the rage. There were variants galore, and by the time ASM #798 hit shelves, the collector's market lost its collective mind. Why wouldn't we? Certainly, the Red Goblin wasn't anything necessarily new; we'd seen Carnage, we'd seen the Green Goblin, but mashing them together left us with some amazing visuals, especially the Alex Ross art.

These days, the Carnage symbiote is being reunited with Cletus Kasady (think the Woody Harrelson/Cletus cameo at the end of Venom had anything to do with it?), so that leaves old Norman as the odd monster out. Still, ASM #798 is consistently among the best-selling graded comics on the market. In fact, it ranks first on the new comics' rankings here on GoCollect. Despite it selling so well, prices for the first full appearance of the Red Goblin have been dropping.

By far, the most popular grade has been the 9.8, which makes sense for a comic so new. Want to talk about variants? Because ASM #798 has enough variants to give you a migraine. Counting the sketch editions and "virgin" editions, there were a grand total of 18 variants released for the Red Goblin's debut...and 17 of those have lost value in the past 90 days. Here's the breakdown of the data.

The standard edition Ross cover (which is magnificent in its portrayal of a classic Goblin/Spidey clash above the city skyline) is still the most sought after copy. In these three months, it's sold 142 times. It was only in April that it was routinely bringing triple figures, and it peaked at $123 that month. These days, it's fallen to an average of $39. Although one copy brought $68 this month, it's been in the $20-$40 range for five of the last six sales.

Not even my cherished Tyler Kirkham signed sketch variant or those impressive Gabriel Dell'Ottos are safe from this downward slope.

The only 9.8 that has been gaining value has been the Terry Dodson "virgin" variant, which has averaged $51 in the three-month span. Of course, that boost comes from the $80 sale on August 28. Something to keep in mind is that it's only sold four times since the beginning of August, three of which were for no more than $41. That means if you toss out that $80 sale, it's averaging just $38 since August.

The lower grades aren't faring much better. No grade below an 8.0 has sold since the comic's release, but of those grades under a 9.8 - variants included - only the standard edition at a 9.4 has not lost value over the past 90 days. Then again, the only 9.4 that sold in this span was in September, and that one was for only $27, which isn't even enough to cover the grading fees.

The conclusion here is that while collectors are still enamored with the Red Goblin, his popularity is waning, and that's likely due to the resurrection of the original Carnage. I predict the volume of sales will begin reflecting the falling values by the end of the year.