In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.

Reader Thomas F. wrote in to ask if I knew when Batman was first referred to as the Dark Knight.

Now, let's be frank (pun unintended at first, but in the time that it took me to write "pun unintended," I could have easily written something else, so then isn't the pun sort of intended now?), the reason that we know the name "Dark Knight" so well is because Frank Miller decided to name his classic 1986 Batman miniseries by the name Batman: The Dark Knight.

A funny thing about that series, of course, is that THAT is what it is called - Batman: The Dark Knight.

It is just that Miller came up with the idea of working the name into different titles for each issue, so the first issue was Batman: The Dark Knight Returns...

And for the public, that was it. The name of the book WAS Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Don't bother trying to tell them otherwise, as that WAS the title now.

It didn't matter that #2 was Batman: Dark Knight Triumphant....

or that #3 was Batman: Hunt the Dark Knight...

or that #4 was Batman: The Dark Knight Falls...

Nope, the overall series now had to be Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

Still, the more important part of that series is that it now locked in that phrase "Dark Knight" so deep into our consciousness that it has never left since.

There was a comic book series...

a film...

and even ANOTHER film...

So the phrase was never going away (it was also a series by David Finch, but I think we all agree that the phrase was already locked in by that point, right?).

In Heather Duda's book, The Monster Hunter in Modern Popular Culture, she explained why Miller choose the name, "In this case, 'dark' is not so much referring to the fact that he works at night or that he wears a black suit. Instead, the 'dark' here refers to the soul of the Caped Crusader which may or may not be every bit as tainted as those he captures."

Fascinating stuff.

Okay, so that brings us back to the original question from Thomas - when was the name first used?

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Perhaps appropriately enough, the first usage occurred in the first appearance of the Joker in the lead story in Batman #1 by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and George Roussos.

The Batman tries to stop Joker from killing another person...

The Joker then pretends like he is Spider-Man and Batman is an entire team of X-Men by just beating the heck out of him until Batman falls off of a bridge. Luckily, the water revives...yep, you guessed it, the Dark Knight!!

So it's good to know that the name has been with Batman for quite a long time.

Thanks for the question, Thomas!

If anyone has a comic book first that they were wondering about, please drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!