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Title: DETECTIVE COMICS No. 44
Publisher:DC [Indicia: Detective Comics, Inc.]
Date Published: October, 1940
Description: CGC certified: F/VF (7.0). Off-white to white pages. Grader notes: "Spine stress lines breaks color; wear spine breaks color; light creasing to cover." Provenance: The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION.
 
CGC Census: 120 graded copies (101 Universal, 1 Qualified, 18 Restored).
 
GPAnalysis: A 7.0 sold for $2151 in 2/17. More recently, a 5.0 sold for $2244 in 5/23.
 
Credits: Cover: Bob Kane (Jerry Robinson inks, George Roussos backgrounds). Scripts: Bill Finger, Jerry Siegel, Jack Lehti, Gardner Fox?, Chad Grothkopf. Art: Bob Kane (Jerry Robinson backgrounds), Jack Lehti, Ed Winiarski (signed Fran Miller), Don Lynch, Fred Guardineer, Russell Cole, Chad Grothkopf, Howard Sherman. New York World's Fair Comics ad. Overstreet: "Crimson Avenger: new costume."Bat-cyclopedia: "In October 1940 Robin dreams that he and Batman have somehow entered the fourth dimension, a bizarre world inhabited by giants and midgets." — Michael L. Fleisher, The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes Vol. 1: Batman. Macmillan: 1976, p. 115.
 
Dream Ream: DC is well-known for the non-canonical dream sequences and "imaginary stories" that proliferated in many of its Silver Age mags, but Robin's nutty dream sequence in this ish may be the first occurrence of this trope in a DC mag (predating another "imaginary" story that's sometimes cited as the first such DC tale, Siegel and Shuster's "Superman, Matinee Idol" from Superman #19, 1942). Researching these DC dream stories sent us scurrying down an internet rabbit hole which inevitably led to Reddit's Batman page, where a troubled fan shared his own Batman-related dream:
 
"[In my dream] there was this movie. It was a Batman movie, but it was really weird. Bruce Wayne looked like George Clooney. And so did Batman. And Robin was in it too, but he wasn't a kid. He was a grown man behaving like a twelve year old. And even though he went by Robin, he wore a Nightwing suit, except instead of black and blue, it was dark blue and red, and it had a cape... and nipples. The batsuit had nipples too. And both suits had extremely distracting cod pieces and rubber muscles. Batgirl was there too. Her suit didn't have nipples for some reason, but she wasn't Jim Gordon's daughter, Barbara Gordon. Instead, she was Alfred's niece, Barbara Wilson, and she was a sexy blonde instead of a geeky redhead. Everything was so weird and goofy. Gotham City looked like a cheesy neon nightclub. Mr. Freeze looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger and made an insane amount of ice puns. And Poison Ivy looked like a crazy neon stripper. And the batmobile... well, the batmobile wasn't too bad tbh. Anyway, it was the most horrifying dream I've ever had. And then I woke up and it was all true."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.