"Detective Comics" would become a sensation with the introduction of Batman in issue #27 (May 1939). By then, however, Wheeler-Nicholson was gone. In 1937, in debt to printing-plant owner and magazine distributor Harry Donenfeld – who was as well a pulp-magazine publisher and a principal in the magazine distributorship Independent News – Wheeler-Nicholson was compelled to take Donenfeld on as a partner in order to publish "Detective Comics" #1. Detective Comics, Inc. was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Jack S. Liebowitz, Donenfeld's accountant, listed as owners.