Dark Knight beats Son of Krypton into second place

THE 1939 comic book in which Batman made his debut sold at auction for £710,000, breaking a record set just three days earlier by a Superman comic.

The copy of Detective Comics No 27 was sold to an anonymous buyer by an unnamed seller at a Dallas auction house.

"It pretty much blew away all of our expectations and now it's the highest price ever for a comic book," said Barry Sandoval, of Heritage Auction Galleries.

A copy of the first comic book featuring Superman, a 1938 edition of Action Comics No 1, sold on Monday for 660,000 in a sale between a private seller and a private buyer. "We can really say that Batman has nosed out Superman, at least for now," Mr Sandoval said.

He said the seller had bought the Batman comic in the late 1960s for about 65. The comic's cover, by creator Bob Kane, features Batman swinging on a rope above city rooftops. "That cover is just one of the most famous of all comic book covers," Mr Sandoval said.