Posted By Dan Greenfield on Mar 30, 2016 | 6 comments

These are the ones that made me the Batman fan I am today.

So officially speaking, March 30, 1939, is evidently considered the publication date of Detective Comics #27, though I’m certain it didn’t hit the stands all at once that day.

But it’s a nice way to give a peg to a Batman anniversary celebration — and around here we celebrate anniversaries with 13 COVERS.

How in the world do you do just 13 COVERS for Batman? Well, I took a page from 13th Dimension contributor Steve Thompson (click here) and did a chronology of the covers that marked the milestones of my Batlife, from early childhood to early adulthood.

Obviously, I’m leaving a TON out. For example, I could just as easily have included the Famous 1st Edition treasury of Batman #1 or Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-37, featuring Batman on a rooftop under Batsignals that instead show the faces of four of his greatest adversaries.

Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson on the left. Jim Aparo on the right.

I could have, and probably should have, included Batman From the ’30s to the ’70s, the seminal hardcover collection.

Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson

Also missing is Batman #251, which might be my favorite cover of all time.

Neal Adams

Why?

Because I decided that these covers should be flashpoints, signifying those moments that immediately come to mind. This was almost a rapid-fire exercise of going through my memories to see what came out. And with Batman #251, for example, the cover came off so quickly that for years I was more familiar with the opening splash page:

So here they are, the 13 COVERS that helped define me as a Batman fan. Not always my favorite. Not always the best. Always memorable.

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Detective #360. See, I told you these weren’t going to be obvious. One night we were at the Sperlings, friends of my parents. As we headed out, they gave me a stack of their son’s old comics, and this is the one I remember most. I think it’s because the Batphone is so prominent and Batman to me was the TV show. These may very well have been the first comics I ever got.

Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella

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Batman: The Cheetah Caper. I think this Big Little Book predated comics for me even. I just know that I was young and I remember staring at this cover in a display case at a Howard Johnson’s. I have no idea how long I stood there but it feels like I never wanted something so much. My parents bought it for me and I read and it and read it and read it until the cover fell off. My Dad made a new one with plastic and duct tape. Thanks, Dad!

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Batman #237. This comic leapt out at me from the spinner rack of a Krauszer’s in Ocean Township, N.J. It was an electrifying moment and I had to have it. It was here that I started to get the sense that the Batman in the comics and the Batman on TV were quite different, because this was such an unsettling cover. This was my first Neal Adams-Denny O’Neil comic, too, though I didn’t realize it at the time.

Neal Adams

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Batman #261. By the time I was 8 or 9, I’d started amassing a small collection of comics and I remember picking this one up at a comics shop in Highland Park, N.J., when I was visiting my friend Paul Kessin. (We liked Highland Park so much, we later moved there.) The shop wasn’t around much longer but it was the first I’d ever been to.

Nick Cardy

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Limited Collectors’ Edition C-51. I wanted this to be a movie. I still do, even though parts of it have already been ripped off. I wanted Christopher Lee to be Ra’s al Ghul. I wanted Caroline Munro to be Talia. (I even got to ask Neal Adams about the Talia-Munro connection, here.) This is the best Batman screenplay never filmed, written by Denny O’Neil.

Neal Adams

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Detective Comics #473. What a strange way into the classic Steve Englehart-Marshall Rogers run. My recollection is that I schnurred this from a guy I knew in middle school, Mark Swerdlow. Pretty soon after I started tracked down the other chapters and to this day, the full run remains one of the Top 4 or 5 greatest Batman stories ever.

Marshall Rogers

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Batman #312. This comic marked my first foray into regular collecting. Up to this point, I got comics when I could but there was a shop in Highland Park that was nominally a stationery store but was just crammed with everything. I mean, that place was packed. And they sold comics, so I could walk there from home and get Batman every month.

Walt Simonson and Dick Giordano

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Batman #180 and #186. I’ve told this story a few times so skip ahead if you’ve heard it: My Mom took my sister Paula and me to a Beatlefest at the Hotel Pennsylvania (or whatever it was called at the time) across from Madison Square Garden when I was around 12. By sheer coincidence, a comic convention was there at the same time. I begged my Mom to let me go — thanks, Mom! — and I bought one of these two. I can’t remember which because I kept changing my mind and only had enough money for one. Most of the time, my memory tells me I bought #180. Or maybe it was #186… Either way, I eventually got both.

Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson

Murphy Anderson

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New Teen Titans #1. By the time I was about 13, I was able to take my bike on a perilous journey to the U.S. #1 Flea Market in New Brunswick, N.J., where there was a comics kiosk I liked to hang out at on Saturdays. And right around this time, New Teen Titans came out, a book that would quickly become my favorite.

George Perez and Dick Giordano

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Tales of the Teen Titans #44. This comic was huge for me. As Robin was growing up, so was I. I mean, every 17-year-old thinks he’s already an adult, right?

George Perez

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The Dark Knight Returns #1. Here’s why.

Frank Miller and Lynn Varley

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Batman #404. Batman: Year One might be the best-told Batman story ever. I’m not sure. Ask me again tomorrow. But it’s always right there.

David Mazzucchelli

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Cover images and credits (mostly) from the memorable Grand Comics Database.