Detective Comics #168
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeDetective Comics #168 contains the first-ever origin story for the Joker, retroactively explaining — more than a decade after his 1940 debut in Batman #1 — how a small-time lab worker became comics' most enduring super-villain through a chemical accident. By introducing the Red Hood alias and the fateful vat-of-chemicals transformation, writer Bill Finger gave Batman's archenemy a genuinely tragic dimension, shifting him from a purely mysterious murderer to a figure shaped by circumstance and catastrophe. That framework proved so durable that it became the foundation for virtually every major Joker origin retelling that followed, most directly Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) and the broadly influential 1989 Batman film. The issue also introduced the Red Hood as a concept, a masked criminal identity later reactivated in DC continuity as the persona adopted by former Robin Jason Todd.
In "The Man Behind the Red Hood!", Batman takes a rare break from the streets to teach criminology at State University, where his sharp students impress him with their deductions. When he challenges them with an unsolved case from his past—the elusive Red Hood—what begins as a classroom exercise soon blurs the line between lesson and investigation. Written by Bill Finger and illustrated by Lew Sayre Schwartz, Win Mortimer, and George Roussos, with a cover by Lew Sayre Schwartz and George Roussos, this 1951 issue offers a clever twist on Batman’s early detective work.
In "The Man Behind the Red Hood!" from Detective Comics #168 (1951), Batman takes a rare step outside his usual methods, stepping into the classroom as a guest instructor at State University. With his students showing surprising promise, he challenges them with a case that’s long eluded even him—the mystery of the Red Hood.
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The story, titled 'The Man Behind the Red Hood!', was scripted by Bill Finger and appeared with a cover date of February 1951, though DC Database records show it was actually published on December 20, 1950 under editor Whitney Ellsworth. Interior pencils are now credited to Lew Sayre Schwartz — the work was published under the Bob Kane studio byline, as was standard practice for the Batman titles of that era — with inks by George Roussos; for decades, credits were incorrectly assigned to Sheldon Moldoff on pencils and Charles Paris on inks, errors since corrected in the Grand Comics Database through research by Craig Delich. The story's unusual framing device — Batman as a guest criminology lecturer at a state university — gave Finger a plausible in-narrative reason for the Dark Knight to revisit an unsolved case from his past, building mystery before the climactic revelation.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First origin story ever given to the Joker — published more than a decade after the character's debut in Batman #1 (1940).
- First appearance of the Red Hood, the masked criminal identity that the Joker formerly used before his chemical transformation.
- Written by Bill Finger; interior art penciled by Lew Sayre Schwartz (published under the Bob Kane byline) and inked by George Roussos — credits long misattributed and later corrected by the Grand Comics Database.
- Cover date February 1951; actual on-sale date December 20, 1950; edited by Whitney Ellsworth; cover price 10 cents; 52 pages.
- The chemical facility in the original story is called the 'Monarch Playing Card Company,' not 'Ace Chemical Processing Plant' — the more familiar canonical name came later in DC continuity.
- The story served as the direct source material for Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), which updated and expanded the Red Hood origin, and influenced the Joker's backstory in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film.
- Reprinted numerous times, including Batman #213 (1969), Limited Collectors' Edition #C-39 (1975), The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told (1988), Batman Archives Vol. 8, Batman: Secrets of the Batcave (2007), The Joker: A Celebration of 75 Years (2014), The Joker: 80 Years of the Clown Prince of Crime: The Deluxe Edition (2020), and Batman in the Fifties (2021).
- The issue also contains backup stories featuring Roy Raymond (art by Dan Barry), Robotman (art by Frank Bolle), and Pow-Wow Smith (art by Bruno Premiani), making it a standard 52-page Golden Age anthology.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Falling in Love #12 (1957), Superboy #105 (1957), Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #26 (1958), Batman #213 (1969), Superman #2/1970 (1970), Batman from the 30s to the 70s #[nn] (1972), Limited Collectors' Edition #C-39 (1975), The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told #[nn] (1988), The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told #[nn] (1989), The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told #[nn] (1989), Stacked Deck: The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told #[nn] (1990), Batman in the Fifties #[nn] (2002), Batman: Cover to Cover #[nn] (2005), Batman: Secrets of the Batcave #[nn] (2007), DC + Aventura #1 (2011), Batman Archives #8 (2012), The Joker: A Celebration of 75 Years #[nn] (2014), DC Comics Graphic Novel Collection #59 (2016), Batman: The Golden Age Omnibus #7 (2019), The Joker: 80 Years of the Clown Prince of Crime: The Deluxe Edition #[nn] (2020), Batman in the Fifties #[nn] (2021)
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