The Joker: First Appearances, Origin and Key Issues (Batman #1, Detective #168)

The Joker was born in Batman's debut solo issue, alongside Catwoman, in the spring of 1940. Created under the pressure of filling an inaugural issue, the character was originally slated to die in his second story — a sharp-eyed editor struck out his death panels at the last moment. Since then, Batman's archenemy has never stopped evolving: a mischievous prankster through the 1950s and 1960s, a ruthless killer from 1973 onward, and a tragic philosophical figure from 1988.

This guide sticks to the verifiable: records documented by Heritage Auctions and the specialist press for Golden Age grails, and eBay medians from our estimator (eBay.fr + eBay.com, June 2026) for Bronze Age issues. The eBay median for Batman #1 reflects a blend of reprints, facsimile editions, and modern tie-in books — it bears no relation to the value of the 1940 original, which is a six-figure grail.

Joker key issue ranking — real market values (June 2026)

Both Golden Age issues belong to series covered by our tool, but their eBay medians are unusable: Batman #1 is swamped by facsimile editions, and Detective Comics #168 returns only 4 listings (below the reliable threshold of 15). All figures below are exclusively documented auction records.

Record sources: Heritage Auctions, CGC News, ComicLink.

Batman #1 (1940): the birth of an archetype

Published in Spring 1940, Batman #1 brought together for the first time the Dark Knight and his two iconic adversaries: the Joker and Catwoman. The Joker was a joint creation by Bill Finger (script), Bob Kane (primary art), and Jerry Robinson, who contributed the visual concept inspired by actor Conrad Veidt in the 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs. This issue is not merely the Joker's first appearance — it is the founding act of the rogues' gallery that would define Gotham City for decades. The issue is extraordinarily scarce: the CGC Census recorded roughly 270 copies in all grades by 2020, with only a handful graded above CGC 8.0. The finest known copy (CGC 9.4, white pages) realised $2,220,000 at Heritage Auctions in January 2021 — the world record for any Batman comic. Our eBay estimator returns a median of €7 across 100 listings, but that figure is entirely dominated by facsimile editions and modern reprints: it must never be cited as a value for the 1940 original.

Detective Comics #168 (1951): the origin of the Red Hood

Published in February 1951, Detective Comics #168 reveals the Joker's origin for the first time in the story «The Man Behind the Red Hood». Batman and Robin investigate a mysterious masked criminal known as the Red Hood, only to discover he is the man who would become the Joker, disfigured after falling into a vat of chemicals. That backstory laid the foundation for every subsequent reinterpretation of the character — from Alan Moore's The Killing Joke (1988) to the 2019 film. With only 4 listings in our eBay estimator, the data is too thin to establish a reliable median. The documented record speaks for itself: a CGC 9.4 copy sold for $324,000 at Heritage Auctions in November 2022, confirming this late Golden Age issue's grail status.

Batman #251 (1973): the Joker gets his edge back

Between 1954 and the early 1970s, the Comics Code Authority had pushed publishers to defang the Joker, reducing him to a harmless prankster — a far cry from the murderous criminal of 1940. It was writer Denny O'Neil and artist Neal Adams who restored his menace in Batman #251 (September 1973), «The Joker's Five-Way Revenge»: the Joker hunts down and kills former henchmen, permanently re-establishing his status as a murderer. Neal Adams's cover — Batman diving toward a grinning Joker — is now one of the most iconic images of the Bronze Age. Our estimator returns a median of €9 across 65 listings, a reliable signal for the all-grades mass market. In high grade, the documented record stands at $38,000 for a CGC 9.8 (ComicLink, June 2024), from a census of only 30 copies at that grade.

Beyond the grails: the Joker franchise on screen

The character's cultural footprint reaches far beyond print. Heath Ledger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Dark Knight (2008). In 2019, Todd Phillips's Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix crossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office — the first R-rated film in history to achieve that milestone, on a production budget of just $62.5 million. The sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, was released in 2024. That sustained cultural dominance only deepens collector interest in the character's founding issues.