Batman #1

Apr 1940 · DC

📊 ~280,360 copies sold its debut month

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★ 1st appearance — Joker★ 1st appearance — Catwoman★ Key event — Batman

🏆 Retro Hugo (2016)

About this Issue

Batman #1 (Spring 1940) stands as one of the most consequential single issues in the history of American comics: it launched Batman's first self-titled ongoing series — only the second time DC had devoted a solo title to a single character, after Superman — and in doing so gave the Dark Knight a narrative home that would run for more than 700 issues. In its four stories, writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane introduced the Joker and Catwoman (billed only as 'the Cat'), two characters whose cultural staying power across eight decades of comics, film, television, and animation is essentially unmatched in the medium. The issue also carried direct editorial consequences that shaped superhero comics broadly: Batman's lethal dispatching of Hugo Strange's monster men so alarmed editor Whitney Ellsworth that he directed Kane and Finger to pull back on violence, a directive that evolved into DC's formal 'no-killing' rule for Batman and other heroes — a creative constraint that has defined the character's moral identity ever since. In short, Batman #1 is the founding document of the Batman rogues' gallery and an early demonstration that a superhero's ethical code could be as defining as his powers.

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History

Batman had debuted less than a year earlier in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), and his popularity — along with the just-introduced Robin in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) — convinced DC to launch a dedicated quarterly title, advertised in early April 1940 and published on or around April 24–25, 1940, under the indicia of Detective Comics, Inc. at 480 Lexington Avenue, New York. Bill Finger wrote the issue's stories (going uncredited, as was standard practice at the time, with sole credit going to Bob Kane), and the art was executed by Kane alongside key collaborators Jerry Robinson and Sheldon Moldoff; Robinson's involvement in particular became historically significant because the creation of the Joker — whose visual design drew on actor Conrad Veidt's rictus grin in the 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs — remains a three-way disputed claim between Kane, Finger, and Robinson, with all parties acknowledging contributions but disagreeing on who originated the concept. The 68-page issue also reprinted the two-page Batman origin strip 'The Legend of the Batman — Who He Is, and How He Came to Be,' which had originally appeared in Detective Comics #33, giving new readers a self-contained entry point to the character.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of the Joker, in two back-to-back stories ('The Joker' and 'The Joker Returns'); the character was originally scripted to die of a stab wound at the end of the second story, but editors intervened and the final panels were redrawn to show him surviving.
First appearance of Catwoman, identified only as 'the Cat' — a jewel thief introduced without a costume; she was co-created by Bob Kane, partly inspired by his cousin Ruth Steel and with the visual influence of actress Jean Harlow.
First appearance of Joker Venom (the lethal toxin that leaves victims with a frozen grin), establishing what would become one of the Joker's signature weapons across decades of stories.
The issue contains four original stories plus a reprint of Batman's two-page origin ('The Legend of the Batman — Who He Is, and How He Came to Be'), originally from Detective Comics #33; the 68-page issue was published quarterly by Detective Comics, Inc., with a cover date of Spring 1940.
Hugo Strange's 'Monster Men' — chemically enlarged criminals — also debut here; Batman's machine-gun killing of these creatures directly prompted editor Whitney Ellsworth to impose a no-killing editorial mandate that became a cornerstone of Batman's characterization.
The self-titled series was only the second DC solo title ever launched around a single character, following Superman — a measure of how rapidly Batman had become a commercial and creative priority for the publisher.
The Joker's creation credit is formally disputed among Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and artist Jerry Robinson; all three have been cited as contributors, with Finger and Robinson both pointing to Conrad Veidt's portrayal in The Man Who Laughs as the visual source.
Key reprints of this issue's content include Famous First Edition #F-5, the Millennium Edition: Batman #1 (2001), Batman: The Dark Knight Archives Vol. 1, and DC Facsimile Editions published in November 2023 and November 2025.