Batman: The Official Comic Adaptation of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture

    (DC, 1989)
™ and ©1989 DC Comics

The 1989 release of Batman was a huge hit, breaking box office records and successfully transferring the mystique of the Dark Knight to the silver screen. This was a marked contrast to the campy Batman of 1960s television, and the little-noticed movie it had spawned.

Released in both regular and prestige formats, this comic adapted the 1989 blockbuster in comic book form. It told how a mobster named Jack Napier was set up by his boss and cornered by police at the Axis Chemical plant. During flight, he was across the face by a face by a bullet and fell into a vat of chemicals. He survived—barely—but the chemicals had bleached his skin white and turned his hair a bright green. Moreover, the bullet had severed muscled in his face, leaving him with a ghastly perpetual smile. When he resurfaced, Jack Napier was no more—instead, he was the Joker, a mad killer whom only Batman could stop.
Jump to issue:
  • 1
    #1
    Jan 1989
    Cover: $2.50
    W: Dennis O’Neil, Sam Hamm  ·  A: Jerry Ordway
    Origin of Batman retold; Versus Joker; Comic adaptation of Warner Bros. Movie; Newsstand format
    4 copies from $2.75
  • 1/NS
    #1 Newsstand Edition
    Newsstand Edition with cover by Jerry Ordway
    Jan 1989
    Cover: $2.50
    W: Dennis O’Neil, Sam Hamm  ·  A: Jerry Ordway
    Origin of Batman retold; Versus Joker; Comic adaptation of Warner Bros. Movie; Newsstand format
    1 copy for $14.98
  • 1/PR
    #1 Prestige Edition
    Aug 1989
    Cover: $4.95
    W: Dennis O’Neil, Sam Hamm  ·  A: Jerry Ordway
    Comic adaptation of Warner Bros. Movie
    9 copies from $3.50
  • 1/PR-2
    #1 Prestige Edition - 2nd printing
    2nd Printing
    Cover: $4.95
    W: Dennis O’Neil  ·  A: Jerry Ordway
    Origin of Batman retold; Versus Joker; Comic adaptation of Warner Bros. Movie
    1 copy for $94.98