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Title: BATMAN No. 7
Publisher:DC [Indicia: Detective Comics, Inc.]
Date Published: October-November, 1941
Description: CGC certified: Poor (0.5). Purple label: Restored (C-5). Off-white to white pages. Grader notes: "Detached center wrap; tape cover; tape spine; 2 missing interior part/page/wrap center wrap affects story; color touch on front cover & spine; piece added with tape spine & cover C-5." Provenance: The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION.
 
CGC Census: 268 graded copies (203 Universal, 15 Qualified, 4 Signature Series, 46 Restored).
 
GPAnalysis: A restored 0.5 (C-1, centerfold missing, incomplete) sold for $910 in 2/23.
 
For comparison purposes, here are recent Universal sales: A 0.5 (incomplete, back cover & centerfold missing) sold for $650 in 4/23; a 1.5 sold for $1177 in 7/23.
 
Credits: Cover: Bob Kane. Scripts: Bill Finger, Henry Boltinoff, Ray McGill. Art: Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson (inks), George Roussos (backgrounds), Henry Boltinoff, Ray McGill. Overstreet: "Joker app."Bat-cyclopedia: "In October-November 1941 Batman and Robin battle the JOKER; match wits with GRANDA THE MYSTIC; apprehend the evil ASHER; and exonerate Bruce Wayne of the charge that he murdered HORATIO DELMAR." — Michael L. Fleisher, The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes Vol. 1: Batman. Macmillan: 1976, p. 116.
 
Details: The Joker makes fools out of Batman, Robin and the Gotham City police with a brilliant jewel heist. Later, while battling Batman atop a speeding locomotive, the Joker falls off a cliff "to seemingly certain doom." * Granda the Mystic is a crooked fortune-teller who hypnotizes his clients, gets them to spill their darkest secrets, and uses the intel to blackmail them. * Asher is an amoral lumber tycoon who snuffs his rival and gets busted by Batman. * Horatio Delmar was a seemingly respectable businessman whose business interests were a front for his underworld activities. Delmar was killed by a rival named Weasel Venner, who framed Bruce Wayne for the crime.
 
The Joker Returns: "By the early 1940s Batman and Robin were unqualified smashes. The Joker, by sheer volume of printed ink, became their archenemy. He began gracing Batman covers, and a splash page in #4 depicted his looming hands as he literally held the Dynamic Duo in the palms of his hands. His appetite for murder went unslaked, resulting in multiple murders and, in issue #7, a train derailment." — Daniel Wallace, The Joker: A Visual History of the Clown Prince of Crime. Universe Publishing: 2011, p. 24.