Batman Part I

There were 22 Batman reprint collections in the DC Comics early reprint series, second only to Superman's 23. Seven were Annuals (1960 - 1964) and 15 were 80 Page Giants (1964 - 1971). Most of the 80 Page Giants had a letter column with many correspondents complaining that few stories from the 1940s were being reprinted. The editor kept explaining that the negatives to those stories did not exist and therefore they were too expensive to prepare for reprinting. Only six (of 134) Batman and Robin stories from comics published in the 1940s were reprinted in the series. The earliest was 1943.

Eventually DC found a way to reprint these stories through the expensive hard cover Archives series. Hundreds of 1940s stories have now been printed in the 16 Batman Archives volumes.

Below is the collection (Batman 213 (G61) from July - August 1969) with the oldest Batman story from Batman 16 (April - May 1943). The story is also seen in Batman: The Dark Knight Archives Volume 4 (DC Comics, 2003). The only change made in the earlier reprint is a note in the last panel explaining when the fat Alfred became the thin Alfred that everyone is familiar with.