Batman Detective Comics #33 Variant Cover Original art by Jim Steranko

I first saw this AMAZING piece in the gallery of another collector and loved it. Unfortunately, I barely missed it when it sold and regretted it. Lucky for me, it came up again and this time, I was committed to adding it to my collection. First, it is very large 17 x 23 which adds to its wonderful composition.

A lot of people do not know that this is Steranko's attempt to "correct" the original cover to Detective Comics 27 which he hates. I will let Steranko tell the story from his interview about this piece:

"Had editor Vince Sullivan access to a time machine and assigned me the task of creating the cover of Detective 27, the result would be the image on DC’s recent Detective 33 — the first appearance of Batman.
“One of the reasons I created it is because that monumental moment is so deeply flawed. The problem is the original cover has more compositional and elemental screw-ups than The Man Who Laughs has teeth!
“To begin, the swinging figures were copied from a Prince Valiant panel, revealing an idealistic hero whose legs are truncated at the knees. Artist Bob Kane was completely bamboozled about solving the design problem of the cape — which was about as far from batwings as possible. The thugs (if they are thugs) in the foreground are almost benign (certainly not threatening, unless one is intimidated by a puny cap pistol).
“The urban background — lifted along with most other qualities directly from the character’s resource material: The Shadow— is laughably inept."
The list goes on, but the most egregious goof is Batman doing his thing at high noon … !”

I completely agree with Steranko and love his take on the cover presenting a magnificent Batman swooping in to take out the evil thugs and save the damsel in distress. Can you imagine if this was the original cover to Detective Comics 27...WOW!