Cover: David Mazzucchelli

Batman #405

Mar 1987 · DC · 0.75 USD; 1.00 CAD; 0.40 GBP

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“Batman Year One Chapter Two: War Is Declared”

★ 1st appearance — Sarah Essen★ 1st appearance — Carmine Falcone

About this Issue

Batman #405 is the second chapter of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's 'Batman: Year One,' the Post-Crisis origin story that redefined the Dark Knight for every generation of readers and storytellers that followed. The issue packs three landmark first appearances into a single installment: mob patriarch Carmine Falcone, detective Sarah Essen, and Officer Stanley Merkel all step onto the DC stage here for the first time in mainstream continuity, giving the Batman mythos a rich cast of original supporting characters that would anchor decades of sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations. Falcone in particular became one of the most consequential villain additions to the rogues gallery since the Silver Age, graduating from this issue's dinner-party confrontation scene to becoming the pivotal antagonist of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Batman: The Long Halloween and then appearing in multiple live-action and animated films. The chapter also marks the in-continuity debut of Bruce Wayne actively operating as Batman—complete with Batarangs and Utility Belt—establishing the canonical template for how the character's earliest crime-fighting career has been understood ever since.

In "Batman Year One Chapter Two: War Is Declared," Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli launch a gripping chapter of Gotham’s transformation, as Bruce Wayne steps into the shadows as Batman, determined to dismantle the city’s corruption. With the police now ordered to stop him, the vigilante’s first real clash with authority begins—setting the stage for a brutal, no-holds-barred war on crime. The cover by David Mazzucchelli captures the intensity of this pivotal moment, with stark, powerful lines that mirror the story’s unflinching tone.

writer Frank Miller · artist, inker David Mazzucchelli · colorist Richmond Lewis · letterer Todd Klein · cover David Mazzucchelli

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (VF) $10

CGC 9.8 · 432 in census $123*

CGC 9.6 · 428 in census $46*

CGC 9.4 · 268 in census $39*

CGC 9.2 · 166 in census $39

CGC 9.0 · 109 in census $39

CGC 8.5 · 57 in census $32

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CGC 8.0 · 42 in census $28

CGC 7.5 · 21 in census $23

CGC 7.0 · 22 in census $22

CGC 6.5 · 4 in census $21*

CGC 6.0 · 5 in census $20*

CGC 5.5 · 2 in census $20*

CGC 5.0 · 2 in census $20*

CGC 4.5 none in existence

CGC 4.0 · 1 in census $20*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

More listings for this title

VF $7.99 FN $8.95 Newsstand $9.99 VG $9.99 VF/NM $11.95 VF/NM $11.99 FN $12 VF/NM $12.75

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History

By the time Batman #405 went to press in early 1987, the series was in a creative and commercial crisis: incoming editor Dennis O'Neil had been warned on arrival that low Batman sales could force the cancellation of one of DC's founding titles. O'Neil, who had previously edited Frank Miller's celebrated run on Marvel's Daredevil, persuaded Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli to serialize what had been conceived as a standalone graphic novel into the ongoing Batman title, with Crisis on Infinite Earths providing the continuity clean-slate Miller needed to retell the origin without constraint. Mazzucchelli handled both penciling and inking, while Richmond Lewis supplied the muted, painterly color palette and Todd Klein lettered all four chapters—a complete art team whose collaborative consistency gave 'Year One' a visual identity unlike anything else on the 1987 spinner rack. The creative team of Miller and Mazzucchelli came directly from their critically praised 'Born Again' arc on Daredevil, making this issue part of one of the most productive writer-artist partnerships in the Copper Age.

Trivia · 8 facts

Batman #405 is 'Batman: Year One, Part II of IV,' subtitled 'War Is Declared,' written by Frank Miller with art and inks by David Mazzucchelli, colors by Richmond Lewis, letters by Todd Klein, and edited by Dennis O'Neil; published by DC Comics with a cover date of March 1987.
First appearance of Carmine Falcone (a.k.a. 'The Roman'), the Italian-American crime boss who controls all of Gotham City's organized crime and its political class; he is presented here as the principal villain Batman publicly challenges when he crashes the Mayor's dinner party.
First appearance of Detective Sarah Essen, a Gotham City Police Department investigator and, in this story, a love interest for Lieutenant James Gordon; she was created by Miller and Mazzucchelli specifically for 'Year One' and has no pre-Crisis counterpart.
First mainstream-continuity appearance of Officer Stanley Merkel, Gordon's low-key departmental ally; the character had been introduced earlier by Miller in the Elseworlds-adjacent 'The Dark Knight Returns' but appears here for the first time in the Post-Crisis New Earth continuity.
Harvey Dent appears in this issue as Gotham's Assistant District Attorney, and Gordon briefly investigates him as a suspect in the Batman identity case—an early, in-continuity depiction of the Dent-Gordon alliance that would be elaborated upon in Jeph Loeb's 'The Long Halloween.'
The issue is, per multiple wiki sources, the earliest chronological Post-Crisis appearance of Bruce Wayne operating as Batman, and also the earliest chronological appearance of Batman's Batarangs and Utility Belt in the rebooted DC continuity.
The four 'Year One' issues, including #405, were collected in a trade paperback that has remained continuously in print; the arc was also adapted as a 2011 DC Universe Animated Original Movie directed by Lauren Montgomery and Sam Liu, with Bryan Cranston voicing Gordon and Ben McKenzie as Batman—a production widely praised for its fidelity to the source material.
Carmine Falcone, who debuts here, went on to appear in Christopher Nolan's 'Batman Begins' (2005, played by Tom Wilkinson), the Fox television series 'Gotham' (John Doman), and Matt Reeves's 'The Batman' (2022, John Turturro), making this issue the source point for one of the most screen-adapted characters in modern Batman lore.