Batman (1940)

Batman #227 (December 1970, the date printed on the cover), cover by Neal Adams; pictured is his uncolored original art A homage that became a landmark in its own right. Adams's editor asked him to rework the giant-Batman-over-a-castle cover of Detective Comics #31 from 1939, and Adams answered with a looming Batman above a gothic mansion and a terrified woman running in the foreground, styled after the gothic romance paperbacks of the day. Many readers now know the idea through this version rather than the original. Adams returned to it for a Detective Comics #49 variant in 2016, with inker Brent Anderson re-tilting the woman's head to match the original. It is the clearest case on this list of a homage that outshines its source.