DALLAS, TX.- It was a big day for the Batman at Heritage Auctions Thursday during the first session of the four-day Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction.

A copy of 1939’s Detective Comics No. 27, featuring the first appearance of The Dark Knight, realized $1.74 million. Thursday’s sale of this historic comic, graded Fine 6.0 by Certified Guaranty Company, ties the auction record set in May 2022, when a higher-graded copy realized the same price.

Detective Comics No. 27 is so rare there are just 75 copies known to exist in any condition and only 14 graded higher than the one offered in this auction. This copy ranks among the most valuable and coveted of them all: As CGC notes, Batman co-creator Bob Kane left a message, written in ink, on its first page to his friend (and beloved collector) Robert Crestohl.

“Twice in three years, Heritage has either set or tied the auction record for this historic book, and it never gets old,” says Heritage Auctions Senior Vice President Ed Jaster. “After all, this is one of the most important comic books ever published – and one of the rarest. And that makes for a dynamic duo for any collector.”

Moments after that landmark book sold, a bidding war broke out over Detective Comics No. 33, which was already considered among the most valuable issues in the run of this legendary title as it’s the first comic book to tell Batman’s origin story. The book, famous for its image of the gun tucked into Batman’s utility belt, set a new auction record Thursday when it sold for $288,000.

The stage was already set for Batman’s breakout in this event.

A copy of Batman No. 1 graded CGC Very Fine 8.0 sold for $1,110,000. This was a particularly special copy with a remarkable origin story involving a father’s secret collection of 300,000 books and a son’s revelation in 2020. This Batman No. 1 is so spectacular it bears the first CGC custom-made provenance collection label: Fantast Collection Custom.

The label also notes that this issue is featured in Selling Superman, an in-the-works documentary about the collection in which this Dark Knight hid for decades. This Batman’s grade is breathtaking: There are only seven higher, and “it’s the finest copy I’ve ever held in my hands,” says Heritage’s Comics & Comic Art Consignment Director Matthew McGee. Its origin story only added to its allure.

It’s quite possible that Batman has never been more popular, especially as Michael Keaton suits up to once again play the big screen’s Bruce Wayne in The Flash, joining Ben Affleck. Yet it all began with these landmark books, among the most celebrated and coveted of the Golden Age.

Batman may have been conceived as a hybrid of several predecessors, among them The Shadow, the Green Hornet and Zorro. But artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger’s six-page story “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” found at the front of Detective 27, already included the hallmarks of the Caped Crusader to come: his secret identity as wealthy playboy Bruce Wayne, his friendship with Commissioner Jim Gordon, and the cape and cowl and costume that rendered him “the most flamboyant masked avenger of them all,” in the words of Batman and DC Comics historian Les Daniels.

That Detective 27 wasn’t the only comic in the first session to hit record-setting territory: The Mile High Pedigree copy of More Fun Comics No. 55 sold for $264,000, shattering its previous high. The condition of this copy, graded Near Mint+ 9.6 by CGC, certainly makes it valuable. But this book, too, introduced a DC Comics staple – Doctor Fate, wielder of the Amulet of Anubis, the Cloak of Destiny and the Helmet of Fate – and featured on its cover Fate’s fellow founder of the Justice Society of America, the Spectre.

The first all-horror book haunted this auction, as well: Eerie No. 1 from 1947 graded CGC Near Mint- 9.2 — the highest-graded copy in existence. It’s horrifying, but like everything else in this auction, it is historic, which explains why it realized a record-setting $108,000.

And one of comicdom’s most famous covers fanned the flames just enough to push this CGC VF+ 8.5 copy of Mask Comics No. 1, from The Promise Collection, to a new auction record of $144,000.

The entirety of the auction’s first session, which featured just 45 lots, realized $7,586,533 in less than two hours.