13 QUICK THOUGHTS… Every time I pick it up, I’m amazed by how nearly perfect Batman #1 is. Not 2011’s Batman #1 or 2016’s Batman #1, both of which were entertaining. No, I’m talking about the original 1940 Batman #1, mostly written by Bill Finger, with art by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson. The ground-breaking one. One of the most important comics in history. As it was for so many readers of my generation, my introduction to Batman #1 was through DC’s Famous First Edition series of treasury-sized reprints. Issue #F-5 is cover-dated Dec. 1974/Jan. 1975, which means I was 7 going on 8 years old when it came out. I don’t remember getting it but I do remember having it around that time and I read it, and re-read it and re-read it again. I recently had reason to re-read it yet again, in preparation for Rob Kelly’s TreasuryCast, which as the name suggests, is a podcast dedicated to the wonderful oversized comics format. It happens to be one of my favorite podcasts and I’d been on twice before — discussing the Ra’s al Ghul treasury (click here to listen) and the Batman villains treasury (click here to listen). But I was just as eager to go back and talk about the Batman #1 edition — because all three formed the nucleus of Young Dan’s core Bat-curriculum. When I opened my copy to brush up, I was again struck by what a great comic Batman #1 is — especially in the oversized treasury format — with four stories (and a tweaked reprint of Batman’s origin story) that in large part remade the Bat-template for the next eight decades. So here are 13 QUICK THOUGHTS: Why BATMAN #1 (And Its Treasury Edition) Is an Enduring Classic: 1. Batman’s potential reached full flower in Batman #1, with the introduction of the Dark Knight’s greatest adversary, the Joker, and his greatest female foil, Catwoman, as well as an appearance by his best early-days villain, Hugo Strange. This was also just Robin’s third appearance — and he’s immediately shown to be an aide-de-camp worthy of the Caped Crusader. 2. Batman’s first year in Detective Comics was really a shakeout cruise, an exercise in comics pulp. The stories, though heavy on mood, focused on fairly one-note supernatural adversaries and evil scientists (Strange being the best of them). The series got a shot...