Babe Ruth

The real-world baseball legend Babe Ruth, one of the earliest celebrities depicted in comics, appeared in caricature and biographical form beginning in 1922. His most prominent comics home was Babe Ruth Sports Comics, celebrating his career as the iconic New York Yankees slugger.

Few real-world legends made the leap into Platinum Age ink quite like Babe Ruth, who first swung into comics panels back in 1922 courtesy of artist Louis Fancher in the pages of Judge — making him one of the earliest celebrities to be immortalized in the medium. His comics presence spans an extraordinary stretch of publishing history, from that Platinum Age debut all the way through to the present day, with Babe Ruth Sports Comics serving as his most natural home on the stands. Along the way he's shared pages with characters like Scoop Scanlon and Rusty James, and he even turns up in the landmark Action Comics 1 Superman Day Special Edition, lending his real-world star power to some genuinely collector-significant appearances. For fans of comics history, sports history, or simply the golden thread connecting American pop culture across a century, Ruth's place in the medium is a genuine treasure worth tracking down.