Key Comic #5: Detective Comics #359

Batgirl Debuts!

My wife has been asking “Why  haven’t you posted something about your favorite character yet, Batman?” I told her I wanted to get a few posts under my belt first, before I tackle THE favorite. Don’t worry, I am sure that we will be seeing a lot of Batman comics in my future posts. This is just the first of many.

Detective #359, another iconic comic cover by the great Carmine Infantino.

This issue is true to it’s cover.  “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl”, features the first appearance of Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, a long-standing major member of the Batman family. Barbara is the daughter to Commissioner Gordon who has fought crime in Gotham for many years. Years later, in the classic “The Killing Joke” Graphic Novel, after being shot by the Joker and made a paraplegic, becomes a computer savvy expert (an early geek!) and not only lends her technical skills to Batman as an Oracle, but also forms the Birds of Prey team with Black Canary.

Barbara Gordon is one of the more popular characters to come out of DC’s Silver Age era, and was immensely popular with her appearance in the Batman television show in the sixties.  

This issue continues to rise every year, I am astonished at how much it goes up eaxh year. This one has legs (some pun intended!), and is a major key book for Batman collectors. I was lucky to snatch up a couple of copies some years ago in regular back issue boxes at conventions, before the book started it’s epic rise. Good luck finding this book in a back issue box, more than likely it will be on some ones feature wall, where they display the hot “key” comics for sale.

Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide #44 (2014) has the NM of this comic at $1,250. I still think that this book is a great investment and will continue rising steadily in the future. The value has increased $250.00 (125%!) since the year before, and had an overall increase of $1,150.00 (1316%) since 1999.

Updated 07/21/2015: Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide #45 (2015) NearMint is $1,500.00, the value has increased $250 (20%) since the year before, and overall an increase of $1,405.00 (158%) since 1999. This comic is one of the hottest comics of the last 6 years.

Click on chart for larger view.