250's for America's 250 · Day 5: Batman #250

Publishing: Monday, June 15, 2026 · DC Comics · Cover date: July 1973

Cover art by Dick Giordano (logo/lettering design by Gaspar Saladino)

See full issue details on the Grand Comics Database →

A Bronze Age Batman anthology whose third story has quietly become its most talked-about feature.

The issue

The lead, "The Deadly Numbers Game!," has Batman chasing a bizarre string of thefts of number-related objects, all turning up in a failing wax museum. A Robin backup, "Return of the Flying Grayson!," sends the Boy Wonder after thieves. But the standout is "The Batman Nobody Knows!" — Bruce Wayne takes a group of underprivileged kids camping and listens as each describes his own wildly different imagined Batman, including a Black "Batwings" version that fans frequently cite as a creative seed for later characters. It's the segment everyone remembers.

Who's in it

• Batman (Bruce Wayne) — the Dark Knight, seen here through the eyes of children imagining wildly different versions of him.
• Robin (Dick Grayson) — tracking down thieves solo in the issue's second story.
• Commissioner Gordon — Gotham PD's top brass, a recurring presence across the issue's stories.
• The campfire kids — a group of underprivileged Gotham youths whose imagined versions of Batman form the emotional core of the issue's standout story.
• The Flying Graysons / Haly's Circus — Dick Grayson's family and circus roots, referenced in flashback.

Behind the book (creators)

• Cover: Dick Giordano, with logo design by Gaspar Saladino
• "The Deadly Numbers Game!": Frank Robbins (writer), Irv Novick (pencils), Dick Giordano (inks)
• "The Batman Nobody Knows!": Frank Robbins (writer), Dick Giordano (art), Ben Oda (letters)
• Editor: Julius Schwartz

Meet the creators

Dick Giordano wore nearly every hat comics has to offer over a five-decade career: penciller, inker, and — most consequentially — editor. As DC's Executive Editor through much of the 1980s, he was instrumental in shepherding landmark projects like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Watchmen to print, helping steer the entire DC line through its most transformative creative era. His inking style, smooth and expressive, made him one of the most in-demand finishers in the business for decades.

Frank Robbins came to comics from an unusual background: he was already a successful newspaper cartoonist, having created and drawn the adventure strip Johnny Hazard for over three decades before moving into writing and art for Marvel and DC in the late 1960s and '70s. His Batman scripts of this era, including this issue's empathetic "Batman Nobody Knows," are still cited as some of the character's more thoughtful Bronze Age outings.

What it's worth

A solid Bronze Age book prized for the cover and that third story. Raw VF/VF-NM copies typically run $40–$120; graded mid-to-high grades (8.5–9.4) commonly sell $80–$300; and scarce CGC 9.8 copies generally fetch roughly $500–$1,200+ (estimate). Some listings flag it as a "Batwing prototype," which adds speculative interest.

Where to read it (collected edition)

"The Batman Nobody Knows!" is widely anthologized — find it in Limited Collectors' Edition #C-59, The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, and Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told Vol. 1. The Robin backup appears in Showcase Presents: Robin, the Boy Wonder Vol. 1. The full issue isn't collected as a single unit.

Part of "250's for America's 250" — counting 24 milestone #250 comics down to the U.S. 250th on July 4, 2026.