Batman comic book cover gallery

[SprangFan]

I don't mind females being drawn to Batman; he's obviously got a lot going for him. But by the time Barbara showed up, it was the expected thing to do, so when she didn't, it was wonderfully refreshing. A few years ago I sat down and read the "Showcase Presents" collection of Batgirl stories and kept waiting for the other shoe to fall; surely they're eventually going to get around to her crushing on Batman. But she never did. I really loved that.

I also loved it later when they hinted at a spark between Babs and Clark Kent. Talk about unexpected!

The cool thing about Catwoman is that Batman feels something strong for her despite his better instincts. That whole "they're attracted but they can't follow through" thing is such a classic staple of great screen pairings that it works better, and longer, than if they'd been able to act on the attraction. I remember being disappointed when Selina reformed in the late 70s and became Bruce's girlfriend. It wasn't nearly as cool as I always imagined it would be.

I think my favorite exchange between these two happened on the Animated Series:

CATWOMAN: "You can't deny there's something between us."

BATMAN: "Yes. Unfortunately, it's the law."



But if he falls for numerous other bad girls, it starts to say something about his judgment, and dilutes the magic of the Catwoman relationship.

I agree that whole "romance" with Black Canary was unfortunate, like everything else Mike Friedrich did on the JLA book. And unlike Haney's work, it was harder to simply write it off as another "Earth-B" aberration.

Here's another great cover with Batman and Batgirl. I remember the story inside was underwhelming, but the cover is aces. It's by the incomparable Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, another artist who should probably have shown up on this list more already.

[Batfanman]

I miss the way Batman was drawn during this era. More simplistic costume and always great dramatic emphasis achieved by how the cape is deployed from scene to scene.

[BATWINGED HORNET]

gothosmansion, #210 is a great Batman cover. Aside from the original line art and the published version you posted, it was also used by Topps as part of their Holy Grail of productions, the 1970 Comic Cover Sticker set:



I've always loved the color of Batman's mask and cape as it reminded me of the '68 Filmation version--even the ear length is similar.

The next cover is from Detective Comics #90 (1944) featuring a Dick Sprang cover with the Dynamic Duo going all out in battling armed thugs on a boat caught in a violent storm...



Golden Age perfection.

[gothosmansion]

Batwinged Hornet,

Thanks for the Sprang cover and the stickers. I had never heard about those. Were those the only two Batman ones featured.

Sprangfan,

I've never seen a bad piece of art from Garcia-Lopez and he is one of my favorites. I'll certainly post some by him soon if someone doesn't beat me to them. My only real complaint with that cover is that Batgirl isn't more in the action on it.

Batfanman,

I agree. I think to many modern artist try to make the suit look "realistic" instead of just making it look cool. I don't really like the lace-up boots that Batgirl wears now and prefer the classic more "go go" style boots.

Believe it or not, I've seen some people complain about Batman's cape being too long on this picture by Berni Wrightson, saying that if it were real, he would trip over it. Come on, people. It is a comic book and Batman looks awesome on it. One of my favorite pictures.

Back to the covers, I started to go with the Batman/Black Canary story I mentioned above, but since we're still on Catwoman...As we know, she pretty much disappeared in the mid 50s and didn't reappear in a new comic until after the character debuted on the TV show. Well, she actually didn't reappear in Batman, but in Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, which also featured Batman, Robin, and the Penguin. Strangely, instead of her trademark skirt, she wore pants. I wonder if this cover was used as a reference for this record cover. Oh, that isn't Wildcat on the record cover, either.

[BATWINGED HORNET]

Batwinged Hornet,

Thanks for the Sprang cover and the stickers. I had never heard about those. Were those the only two Batman ones featured.

Topps' Comic Cover Stickers featured 44 stamps, with covers from every genre of DC titles up to that time. 15 of the 44 "cards" were larger covers (as seen in my previous post). Batman was represented by his own title,
World's Finest & Detective Comics, while Robin could be found on those covers, as well as the 1st Teen Titans series. I don't have the checklist in front of me, but i believe there were 12 or 13 Batman-related covers.

Here are additional examples, with Bat-related covers highlighted in red:

[SprangFan]

Holy Joe, those cards are awesome! I'm guessing by "holy grail," you mean they can be had, but for a fortune. If I'd seen them back in the day, I wouldn't have stopped til they were all mine.

I've never seen a bad piece of art from Garcia-Lopez and he is one of my favorites. I'll certainly post some by him soon if someone doesn't beat me to them. My only real complaint with that cover is that Batgirl isn't more in the action on it.

I have to admit even at the time I thought it seemed out of character for Babs to take that "Yeoman Rand" style "save me, Captain" pose, but she looks great, anyway.

Somebody upthread beat me to JLGL with the "Batman vs Hulk" cover, but there's plenty more out there to savor.

I can't believe we're this far in and I let someone else post the first Sprang image! But then I can never decide whether this is supposed to be limited to books we actually OWN. If not, I'm partial to this, another "battle at sea" image:

[gothosmansion]

I think I have only posted covers that I own, but feel free to post anything that you like. If we limit this to comics that we own, I only have 1 Batman from the 40s and 7 from the 50s that are originals, so that would limit the early years. I think everyone would probably like to see all eras represented.

I appreciate the extra information about the stickers. I would have snatched those up to.

Here is another Garcia-Lopez cover with Batgirl. I have a T-shirt with this image, and I've seen a poster proof from the 1970s for it, but it was out of my price range. Anybody know anything about the poster? I have a Superman poster with Garcia-Lopez art that was a give away from Scholastic, I think, so I wonder if that is what the Batman poster was. The Superman poster was one of those they gave you in elementary school when you ordered books off that little sheet the teacher would pass out.

Detective Comics 487 December 1979/January 1980

[Lou Szabo]

Batman 183

This always caught my eye as a kid as I thought is was a TV show tie-in.

[gothosmansion]

Szabol,

If that cover isn't a TV tie in, it is still capitalizing on the show, with "Batman" watching himself on TV and the "Holy Emergency" text.

Here is another great Jim Aparo cover for Brave & Bold. Since Haney's Batman is so girl-crazy, I found it odd that this is one of the few times that he shows absolutely NO attraction to Catwoman at all. Haney being Haney, he presents a Catwoman with no qualms about killing, either.

[SprangFan]

Here's another great cover from Garcia-Lopez. This was a fun mini-series, even it took a really bizarre turn at the end.

[Lou Szabo]

Szabol,

If that cover isn't a TV tie in, it is still capitalizing on the show, with "Batman" watching himself on TV and the "Holy Emergency" text.

When you are 6 or 7, and Batman's the hottest thing on TV, it looks like a tie-in until you read it.

[gothosmansion]

Sprangfan,

I love that JLGL cover...really enjoyed picking up that series off the spinner racks back in the day. I'm a huge Len Wein fan, but I found the ending a bit "off." Still, I was so young when the mini-series came out, and reprints, etc. were rare then, so I hadn't read a lot of the stories referenced in the mini-series and learned a lot of my Batman history from it.

Here is one comic from both 1950s and 1970s. In the 70s, Pizza Hut issued reprints of six 1950s DC comics (2 Batman, 2 Superman, 2 Wonder Woman). From what I've read, customers were given a random comic at the restaurant and not given a choice. That must be so, because I have one of the Superman reprints from back in the day, and, although I really like Superman, I'm sure I would have picked a Batman given the choice. I was probably just glad I didn't get stuck with Wonder Woman back then. (I think 5 year old me would be disgusted that old man me has a few hundred issues of Wonder Woman) Really, I don't know where I got the Superman, since there wasn't a Pizza Hut in my home town until the early 1980s.

I've since picked up the other 5 Pizza Hut reprints on eBay because they are a very economical way to read some entertaining 1950s issues. I think I only gave a dollar for a lot that contained both of the Wonder Woman comics.

The reprints did replace all the original ads with Pizza Hut ads, but the stories are complete. I don't know if the issues chosen were picked at random or what the reasoning was.

Here is the Pizza Hut reprint of Batman 122 which was originally from March 1959. Cover was unsigned but the online credits I've seen say Curt Swan was the cover artist.

[SprangFan]

Yep, that's Swan. The faces of the wedding guests give it away, plus Kathy's pose. A sure indicator is the hand on the blond guy: the two middle fingers are held together with the forefinger and pinkie spread away from them. This crops up again and again in Swan's work.

Curt was my favorite Superman artist and also drew many of my favorite Batman images in the late 50s and early 60s, when we were trapped in the dark days of the "Kane" house style. Between him and Sprang on Worlds Finest, it's no wonder that book rates so high with me.

I remember that Pizza Hut promotion and I got a Superman book, too. Never got a chance at another as the nearest Pizza Hut was in the next town over, and we didn't make it there often.

[gothosmansion]

The other Batman Pizza Hut comic Batman 123. The original was from April 1959. All the comics had a volume 1, so I guess there were plans for more reprints that didn't materialize.

[SprangFan]

Another great Swan image. And Batman is doing that "Swan salute" with the fingers of both hands.

Oh for the innocence of an age where we could have an "Ace the Bat-Hound."