Sales: Over 460 million Where do you go from Spidey? Well, you head to the heavy-hitters of the superhero game. The big names. The elder statesman. It's alleged that at the height of his early popularity, Batman's Detective Comics regularly sold in excess of a million copies to kids getting in at the ground floor of this funnybook business. That story might be apocryphal, but what's definite is that Bats is one of the bestselling heroes of all time. Like Cap and The Phantom, the Caped Crusader's longevity has helped - he first appeared in Detective Comics #27, cover dated May 1939 - along with the character's ability to adapt with the times, from the pulp-inspired hero of his early incarnation through the sixties camp of the Adam West TV show to the grim 'n' gritty "real world" feel adopted by the Nolan films and the recent New 52 reboot. Factor in new fans drawn in by those various screen adaptations, and maybe that figure isn't quite so surprising. No less impressive, mind.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
