Batman Family #6

DC Comics - July / Aug 1976

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of The Jokers Daughter

Just who is The Joker's Daughter? Well, contrary to the characters name and appearance, she is not the daughter of the Clown Prince of Crime. She is, in fact, the daughter of another popular Batman villain, and when you hear her real name, you'll probably guess which villain that is.

But before we get to that, lets talk a little about her first appearance in the pages of this giant sized, 52 page comic. In the very appropriately named story "The Joker's Daughter", Dick Grayson and his girlfriend Lori Elton are at a gathering where a manuscript has gone missing. The Joker's Daughter bursts in, and everyone assumes that she is the one behind it's disappearance. Dick quickly makes up an excuse and leaves the gathering, only to reappear seconds later as Robin. The Boy Wonder tries to capture The Joker's Daughter, but since he's Robin, he fails and let's her escape.

The next day, an article in the newspaper claims that The Joker's Daughter wants to return the manuscript, but only to Robin. I don't understand why they had this meeting, but an inevitable fight breaks out between the two. Using some crazy Joker like gadgets and gizmos, The Clown Princess of Crime is able to escape again. At the end of the story, we learn that she never stole the manuscript and that it never existed in the first place.

Like a lot of character in the DC Universe, her background varies in Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis. I'll only be talking a little bit about the  the Pre-Crisis version of the character for now. 

The Joker's Daughter's real name is... drum roll please...Duela Dent. This should be a huge clue as to who's daughter she really is. She has claimed to be the daughter of many iconic villains such as Scarecrow, Riddler and Penguin, but she is actually the daughter of non other than Harvey Dent, ole Two Face himself.

Now's the time when we look at some CGC census numbers. As of this writing, there are only 97 copies listed. Those are only CGC numbers. I've seen auctions for CBCS and PGX graded copies as well, so there are more than 97 total graded copies out there. I do expect those numbers to change fairly quickly as more and more people start digging through their long boxes and send their copies in. Of course, a lot of these copies that are listed are high grade copies, the highest being 9.6 NM+ with 21 copies. There are also a hand full of 9.8 NM/M copies too, nine to be exact. None are graded higher than that so far.

Values for Batman Family #6 on GoCollect

The biggest reason I decided to write about this is because of the large increases in value over the last couple of years. Some grades have seen a significant boost, like 9.2 NM- have vaulted up over 116%. Even 9.8 NM/M copies have gone up over 80%. The latest sale for a copy at that grade on eBay was $482 way back in July of last year. That sale was actually down from the previous sale, which was for $700 a month before in June. There were only two sales for 9.2 NM-, but the values jumped from $90 for a CBCS graded copy, all the way up to $195 a year later for a CGC copy.

The Joker's Daughter has become a more popular character lately due to her reemergence in the New 52 comics. And, with an all female Harley Quinn movie in the works, we might be able to see her hit the big screen in the future. If you want to take a gamble and speculate on this one, it could pay off for you in the not too distant future. 

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