Detective Comics is an anthology comic featuring detective characters, both superhero and civilian. It was later shortened to DC Comics. The longest-lasting character in Detective Comics was Batman: from the time of his debut (#27, May 1939), the Caped Crusader was almost always the star of the cover and lead story.

Detective Comics has remained in publication longer than any other DC Comics title, and indeed, the very name DC was taken from its initials. However, since Action Comics was published weekly for a short time in the 1980s, and Detective was bi-monthly for a period in the 1970's, Action had a higher issue count (until January 2020, when both titles were up to issue #1019). Nonetheless, in March 2019, Detective became only the third American comic book in history - after Action and the Four Color series of the 1930s-60s by Dell Comics - to publish a 1,000th issue. In 2011, as part of The New 52 reboot, Detective's numbering was reset to #1 and a "Volume 2" launched. However, in 2016 the legacy numbering was restored, allowing the comic to reach the milestone.