Welcome back. Please log in.

slightly brittle pages; very minor amount of glue on cover (blue label)
1st Slam Bradley/Spy by Siegel & Shuster; SEMINAL KEY, the title that put the "D.C." in DC Comics!


Detective Comics #1 isn't just the start of Detective. This is the historical artifact that launched Detective Comics, Inc., later famously abbreviated to become DC Comics. Detective itself would go on to an initial print run longer than any other DC title. That legendary stint began with this classic Yellow Peril cover by Vin Sullivan, which helped to lure in the vital pulp market. (DC scribe Gene Luen Yang would do an impressive job retconning the image in New Super-Man #8 .) Printed more than a year before Action Comics #1 — with Batman's debut years away with Detective #27 — this comic set the stage for the two-fisted heroes who'd later take on the growing threat of Nazism.

Of course, Detective Comics #1 is also a cornerstone in the cutthroat history of the early industry, In debt after creating the comic book market with 1935's New Fun, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson turned to distributor Harry Donenfeld to finance Detective . Donenfeld agreed if Wheeler-Nicholson brought in accountant Jack Liebowitz as a partner in the new company. Detective Comics, Inc. was soon forced into bankruptcy by Donenfeld. Liebowitz joined Donenfeld in acquiring Wheeler-Nicholson's other assets, and the former bookkeeper would continue a reign at DC Comics into the early 1990s.