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Title: BATMAN No. 18
Publisher:DC [Indicia: Detective Comics, Inc.]
Date Published: August-September, 1943
Description: CGC certified: Good (2.0). Purple label: Restored (C-4). Off-white to white pages. Grader notes: "Detached cover; stain interior; tape interior cover; tape spine; creasing to cover; piece added with tape cover C-4; spine stress lines to cover; staining to cover." Provenance: The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION.
 
CGC Census: 274 graded copies (251 Universal, 1 Signature Series, 22 Restored).
 
GPAnalysis: A restored 2.0 (C-1) sold for $835 in 1/21.
 
For comparison purposes, here are recent Universal sales: A 2.0 sold for $1850 in 4/23; a 1.8 sold for $1400 in 9/22.
 
Credits: Cover: Ed Kressy, Dick Sprang, and Stan Kaye. Scripts: Joe Samachson, Bill Finger. Art: Jerry Robinson (signed as Bob Kane), Bob Kane, Jack Burnley (signed as Bob Kane). Overstreet: "Hitler, Hirohito, Mussolini cover."Bat-cyclopedia: "In August-September 1943 Batman and Robin match wits with TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE; Batman orders Robin to stay at home and give up crime-fighting until he has made some improvements in his failing report card; Batman and Robin battle DOCTOR MATTHEW THORNE; and the Dynamic Duo spend a day answering calls with the police emergency squad, the first in a series of adventures designed to familiarize the famed crime fighters and their readers with the activities and operations of 'our various police services,' those 'living, human people who keep a daily vigil to make the United States safe for you and 130,000,000 others!'" — Michael L. Fleisher, The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes Vol. 1: Batman. Macmillan: 1976, p. 117.
 
Details: Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Rotund Rascals, set up a lodge and restaurant that's identical in every respect to a neighboring establishment owned by an ex-con named Soup McConell. They disguise the road to McConell's joint and divert McConell's wealthiest clients to their identical establishment, with the complicity of two of McConell's employees, and rob the rich clients blind. Then, they conceal the road to their lodge so that when the cops investigate, they think ex-con McConell is the culprit. It's one of the kookiest, most convoluted capers in the early Bat-annals, but Batman manages to penetrate the elaborate camouflaging system and crack the case.
 
Unrelatable Robin: Batman restricts Robin's regimen due to the Boy Wonder's crappy grades in this ish. Robin's lousy report card adds a humanizing touch to the over-achieving sidekick, and may have made him a bit more relatable to readers who found his precocious prowess off-putting. According to Jules Feiffer, a young comics fan-cum-cartoonist who soon entered the field as Will Eisner's assistant, "I couldn't stand boy companions.... The super grownups are the ones I identified with. They were versions of me in the future. There was still time to prepare. But Robin the Boy Wonder was my own age. One need only look at him to see he could fight better, swing from a rope better, play ball better, eat better, and live better.... God, how I hated him. You can imagine how pleased I was when, years later, I heard he was a fag." — Jules Feiffer, The Great Comic Book Heroes. Dial Press: 1965, p. 43.The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION comprises over 40,000 comic books, including a copy of every single DC comic published for retail sale from 1934 to 2014. The collection was amassed by British music producer Ian Levine over the course of several decades, and it's been hailed as the single greatest collecting accomplishment in comic book history. This collection served as the basis for former DC Comics president Paul Levitz's monumental book 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, published by Taschen in 2017. PBA is proud to present this epic collection in a series of themed sales over the next two years. To join the DC Universe Collection notifications list, contact pba@pbagalleries.com.
Enjoying PBA's Batman sale? A very small number of softcover and limited edition hardcover auction catalogues are available for purchase. The catalogues are fully illustrated, thoroughly researched, and make excellent reference works for Batman fans. To order a copy, or to inquire about consignment opportunities, contact Ivan Briggs, PBA's Director of Comics: ivan@pbagalleries.com.