Batman in Detective Comics: Featuring the Complete Covers of the First 25 Years

by Joe Desris (Introduction)

The Caped Crusader takes on Gotham City's most nefarious archcriminals in a thrilling quarter-century of comic book covers. 300 full-color illus.

Genres: Comics, Batman, Art

320 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1993

Reviews

[Glen Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Batman in Detective comics is perky little book that simply reproduces the covers of DC's Detective comics from 1937 to 1962. I'm sure you could find a web page that has most of these covers, so why buy the book? Well, there's value in having them in a book that's easy to flip through and enjoy. You very quickly get a sense of the history and development of the title from its beginnings as a crime comic to the loopy science fiction adventures Batman enjoyed in the late 50s and early 60s. A worthy addition to the shelves of comic collectors.

[Steven Gauthier · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of these covers, like the stories told inside were sort of redundant, variations on the same few plots told over and over in endless cycle. Batman battles brutish criminals! Batman rescues Robin! Batman battles Joker! Batman wears weird costume! Batman battles Aliens!
Still it was rather nice to have them all in one compact 1993 place to carry around, back before the internet’s came along and made millions of covers instantly accessible.
The very earliest covers, before The Batman completely took over, are interesting in a different way, as a fond glance back at comic history before the super-heroes took over.

[R.J. Huneke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Covers!

[Andrew Ives · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish this was a larger format book as the pages (10cm x 11cm) are really too small to appreciate the quaint artwork in such a thick little book. The first dozen pages whet the appetite well, with history and quotes from various artists, but this too could've been longer and less higgledy-piggledy. The rest of the book is occupied with the hundreds of Detective Comics covers from the first 25yrs, 1937-62. These are nicely presented, as quality photographs of actual comics, showing the occasional wear or graffiti. When you see them all together like this, it's quite striking how ridiculous Batman has sometimes been throughout the decades, yet somehow we all still love the character 80yrs on. 3.75/5