*DC: The oldest issue of DC’s Detective Comics we’ve ever had – and probably the oldest American comic we’ve ever stocked – this pre-Batman issue of Detective is cover-dated August 1938, and is a packed 64 pages of crimebusting thrills, starring Slam Bradley by Siegel & Shuster, Speed Saunders by Gardner Fox and Fred Gardineer, Bart Regan – Spy, Cosmo Master of Disguise, Bruce Nelson, Steve Malone and the cover-featured ‘Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu’, a comic-strip adaptation of the famous character written, it is believed, by Sax Rohmer himself! The good (well, bad) Doctor stars on the striking cover. Well, we said 64 pages – in fact, the first two pages of ‘Larry Steele’ are absent, having met an unknown fate sometime in the book’s history, but given that it’s a barely-remembered black & white strip – sorry if there are any ‘Larry Steele’ groupies reading this – it’s not the worst thing that could have happened. That specific defect aside, the copy is an Apparent Good, sound and clean, some rust at staples but cover still firmly attached, light wear to edges and corners, cover scene, as may be seen in our illustration, still colourful and vibrant. Pre-Batman issues of Detective Comics are a true rarity – this is the first one to pass through our hands in our quarter of a century in business – and this is a lovely example, priced lower than its apparent grade, owing to the missing pages, at £700. Front and back cover scans shown below; high resolution scans are available on request. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD