Beschreibung:

"If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice." — The Joker, Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) DETECTIVE COMICS No. 168 * Origin of the Joker Provenance: DC Universe Collection Publisher: DC [Indicia: National Comics Publications, Inc.] Date Published: February, 1951 Description: CGC certified: VG (4.0). Purple label: Restored (C-2). Off-white to white pages. Grader notes: "Light wear to cover; moderate creasing to cover; multiple chip out left top of back cover; pieces added left top back cover B-2; pieces added right center front cover B-2; small amount of color touch on cover; tear seals left top back cover C-1." Provenance: The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION. CGC Census: 185 graded copies (143 Universal, 2 Qualified, 1 Signature Series, 39 Restored). GPAnalysis: A restored 4.0 (C-1) sold for $5489 in 2/19. For comparison purposes, here are recent Universal sales: A 4.0 sold for $11,812 in 7/23; another 4.0 sold for $13,500 in 12/22. Credits: Cover: Lew Sayre Schwartz and George Roussos (inks). Scripts: Bill Finger. Art: Lew Sayre Schwartz (signed as Bob Kane), Win Mortimer (Robin figure on splash), George Roussos (inks), Dan Berry, and Bruno Premiani. Overstreet: "Origin the Joker." Bat-cyclopedia: "In February 1951 the Joker dons the colorful garb of the Red Hood — thereby reassuming the villainous identity with which, according to Detective Comics #168, he first began his criminal career approximately a decade previously — although why the Joker would want to resume the use of a long-forgotten identity is never explained in the text. In the guise of the Red Hood, the Joker invades the campus of State University in an unsuccessful attempt to steal a payroll from the college bursar's office. The Red Hood successfully eludes Batman and Robin, but he is waylaid and held captive by Earl 'Farmerboy' Benson, a twenty-two-year-old ex-convict employed as the campus gardener, who poses as the Red Hood while committing a series of campus robberies in the hope of pinning the blame on the real Red Hood, the Joker.... Batman and Robin apprehend the bogus Red Hood... and then force him to lead them to the ramshackle shed where he has been holding the Joker captive." — Michael L. Fleisher, The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes Vol. 1: Batman. Macmillan: 1976, pp. 122, 244. Under the Hood: A nameless criminal dresses in formal evening wear, wears a featureless red hood, and attempts to rob a playing card company. Batman foils his scheme, and the crook plunges into a basin of toxic chemicals. Breathing apparatus hidden in the hood allows the crook to escape drowning, but the chemicals bleach his skin chalk white, stain his lips ruby red, dye his hair emerald green, and leave him with a permanent rictus grin. The anonymous crook, now completely insane, proclaims himself the Joker. In Alan Moore's retcon in Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), the Joker was a broke, unfunny comedian who was forced to wear the Red Hood costume by a gang of criminals looking for a patsy. When his pregnant wife unexpectedly died and his Red Hood caper went horribly wrong, the Joker — convinced that all it took was "one bad day" to drive the sanest man nuts — embraced madness. "His 1940 debut didn't supply an origin. Like all clowns, the Joker stepped into the lights ready to perform, his costume and sinister shtick already rehearsed to perfection. The mystery lasted for over a decade, but in Batman's world, criminals hardly needed justification to model themselves after playing cards. That's just the way things are in Gotham, the stories seemed to shrug. That changed in the 1950s, as superhero comics got more outlandish but somehow more literal. 'The Man Behind the Red Hood,' in Detective Comics #168.... [revealed] that the Red Hood — a crook who had vanished years before — and the Joker were one and the same." — Daniel Wallace, The Joker: A Visual History of the Clown Prince of Crime. Universe Publishing: 2011, p. 131. The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION compris