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27 Facts About the Dark Knight Detective
The Editorial Team’s own DeevElliott brings his copious comics knowledge to the site once more in celebration of a certain comic detective character’s big birthday celebration.
Batman is 75 years old this year and no character has had the impact on the world’s zeitgeist like him, taking reign even over Mickey Mouse and Superman. Yet the character has changed and evolved through the years as the times, different creators and diverse mediums have left their mark on his world.
Clearly a character as influential as Batman has enough history and background for several books and there are others who will surely argue that more important facts than these 27 should have been covered. I will leave it to those critics to feel free to fill the comments section below.
I would like to acknowledge the hard work of Les Daniels, Marc Tyler Nobleman and Arlen Schumer for being responsible for bringing much of the information found within this article to the public’s attention and helping many of the creators mentioned within it receive much deserved credit.
Batman is the secret identity of billionaire Bruce Wayne. Recent estimates have put the cost of being Batman as high as $600 million dollars, with Bruce needing to clear an annual income of over a billion dollars and maintain a net worth of over $10 billion dollars.
Batman was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1937. It is now acknowledged that Bill Finger created most of what we have come to know of Batman’s world including his origin. The comics editors didn’t know of Bill Fingers existence or massive contribution for years.
Bruce Wayne lives in Gotham city, although the city wasn’t named until 1940 when Bill Finger saw the name in a phone book for a jewelers in New York.
Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson co–created the Joker, but neither has received official credit for it as Bob Kane’s contract gave him sole credit for the strip even when he had no involvement in its production. It is widely acknowledged that the character was created by Robinson while Finger wrote his first appearance.
The Joker was originally supposed to die in his first appearance but the editors decided to keep him around.
Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson created the Dick Grayson/Robin character. Marv Wolfman more recently created Dick Grayson’s subsequent persona Nightwing.
One of the artists who defined much of the look of the Batman comic through the 1940’s and 50’s was Dick Sprang, best known as the artist who drew all the stories of Batman fighting villains in warehouses filled with dinosaurs and giant typewriters, as well as designing the 1950’s Batmobile. Like Finger and Robinson, Sprang received little credit for his work outside of fandom before his death.
Dick Grayson was the youngest of an acrobat family that performed at circuses as “The Flying Graysons.” Dick’s parents were killed by a mafia boss, but and with the help of Batman he was able to eventually get his revenge. Bruce Wayne adopted Grayson as his official ward and trained him to become Robin the Boy Wonder.
Robin has led the superhero teen group the Teen Titans for many years, even after he became Nightwing. He also replaced Bruce Wayne as Batman when Wayne was feared dead.
Four actors have portrayed Robin in other media: Douglas Croft (1943 Batman serial), Johnny Duncan (1949 serial), Burt Ward (1966 TV series and tie in motion picture), and Chris O’Donnell (1995’s “Batman Forever” and 1997’s “Batman & Robin”). Some have supposed that Joseph Gordon–Levitt’s character John Blake in Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight Rises” was going to be Robin or the new Batman at the end of that film.
Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth was created by Jerry Robinson and first appeared in Batman in 1943. He was originally conceived as an overweight, bumbling foil for Batman, comedic relief, until he made his first appearance in the 1943 serial. Played by the actor, William Austin, he was now tall, thin, slightly dashing with a pencil thin moustache. The comic version was quickly sent to a health farm where he lost some weight and gained a moustache. Not the first or last time a comic character has made changes to fit closer to his onscreen persona.
Alfred was not always the caring butler who raised young master Bruce after the death of his parents. In his original appearance he was hired after Bruce and Dick had been Batman and Robin for a while. He discovered their secret identities by mistake but has kept them secret even when threatened with losing his life. In 1964, Alfred was killed off in the comic and returned two years later as a villain who had been resurrected by scientist Brandon Crawford. This newly resurrected butler possessed super powers and became a villain, nearly killing Batman. But very much due to his popularity on the Batman TV show, he was eventually cured without any memories of his time as a villain.
Batman wasn’t created as the Dark Knight we know today. Bob Kane originally conceived of Batman wearing a red suit with black trunks and small facemask. His wings were fixed in a similar fashion to Leonardo da Vinci’s designs for a glider. Kane had seen Superman and was keen to cash in on Siegel and Shuster’s success. Fortunately Bill Finger persuaded Kane to let him make changes closer to what we now know as the Batman. This includes borrowing the idea from Zorro of a rich alter ego as his public persona.
Batman has carried guns and has killed people. In his earliest appearances, Batman carried a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it. He has also been responsible for killing several bad guys including one he lassoed around the neck from his batplane and suspended until he died. These days he tries to refrain from killing but still allows bad guys to die at others’ hands or leaves them to fall to their deaths.
Batman’s first appearance was in Detective Comics issue 27. Detective Comics was the flagship title and name of the original publisher. It would be many years later that the title would be abbreviated and used by the company as just DC Comics.
While the character Green Lantern was originally created by artist Martin Nodell, Bill Finger is credited with co–creating the character as he co–produced the first story and worked with Martin for several years on the title.
Bill Finger received his first cover credit recently when the first Batman story was reprinted.
Over the years there has been much talk about the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, with the suggestion being many suggesting that the pair were in a gay relationship. The first person to ever broach the subject publicly was Dr. Fredric Wertham, a psychologist who led a huge crusade to regulate and ban horror, crime and adventure comic books, believing them to have an adverse affect on children’s minds. His book, “Seduction of the Innocent,” led to a Congressional inquiry on the comic book industry and resulted in the formation of the Comics Code ratings system, a series of archaic regulations that ran many publishers at the time out of business. However, last year, Dr. Carol L. Tilley, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science, had the opportunity to review Wertham’s papers, now available to the public in the Library of Congress. She found that Wertham had exaggerated and even falsified documents to make his claims. Information discovered far too late for the creative artists whose livelihoods were destroyed by Wertham’s crusade.
Who created Batgirl? The original Batgirl’s secret identity was Betty Kane and both characters were created by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff in 1961. But when the successful TV show needed some added sex appeal, the character was reintroduced into the comics by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino, who were asked to keep the character close to the TV show. This resulted in Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, Barbara, becoming the new Batgirl.
Adam West is still the most popular actor to don Batman’s cowl. Perhaps Andy Warhol is a runner up to Burt Ward for favorite Robin? Andy Warhol directed the first Batman movie, which for obvious legal reasons (and probable reasons of good taste) has never seen a release.
Frank Sinatra wanted to play the Joker on the Batman TV series but the role had already been cast and given to Cesar Romero. Cesar refused to shave off his moustache, but no one seemed to notice it when they covered it with white make-up.
Frank Sinatra’s best friend from the Rat Pack DID appear briefly on the show when he opens his window to find Batman and Robin climbing up the wall. (Can you name him?)
America was rocked in November 1968 when Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura kissed on TV. It was the first kiss on TV between a white man and an African American woman. More recently there have been protests against the Fantastic Four’s Johnny Storm and the Norse God Heimdall being also being cast as black men in the Marvel movies of the comics in which the characters were originally white. Yet little or no controversy erupted when Eartha Kitt, whom Orson Welles referred to as “the most exciting woman in the world,” took over the role of Catwoman from the departing Julie Newmar and gave us perhaps the sexiest Catwoman ever.
Move over Doctor Who. In his career Batman has fought monsters, aliens, and even dinosaurs, traveling in both time and space and even going to medieval England and to Saturn for his adventures.
How many Jokers in a pack? We nearly had Robin Williams as the Joker instead of Jack Nicholson, but after Williams found out his name was being mentioned only to coax Nicholson to take the role, he refused to work with Warner Brothers again. Heath Ledger was initially hoping to be Batman in his first conversation with Chris Nolan before assuming the role of the Joker. My personal favorite Joker is under the pairing of Bruce Timm and Mark Hamill for the animated Batman series. Hamill went on to reprise the role by voicing the Joker of the highly successful Rocksteady video game series based on Arkham Asylum, the hospital for the insane just outside Gotham City.
Jack Bauer was nearly Robin. In Tim Burton’s first Batman movie he had originally planned to include Robin and offered the part to then 19 year old Kiefer Sutherland. The role was then reduced to a brief appearance of Dick Grayson and then cut completely from the film.
Damn! Those fans can be mean!! In 1988, DC Comics planned a story where they were considering killing off Robin. By this time Dick Grayson had moved on to Nightwing. The sacrificial Robin was a kid called Jason Todd. In the “Death in the Family” storyline Jason goes off following a trail for his real mother only to find his mom had betrayed him to the Joker. In the penultimate issue, the Joker ties the two of them up in a warehouse and sets explosives to bring it down on top of them. On the last page DC invites its readers to call a number and decide if Jason lives or dies. !!! SPOILER ALERT !!! He dies. But it’s the comics… so who ever really dies? They always come back. As, indeed, he did!!
While I never cared for it, there was an interesting concept by Marvel and DC to combine Batman with Wolverine as part of their “Amalgam” cross–over event many years ago. All the DC and Marvel Universe characters were merged into a single shared universe. Interesting, but I chose to keep this list focused on Batman.
Lastly, the reason why I chose 27 facts rather than 10, 20, or 30 was because Batman’s first appearance was in Detective Comics issue 27, dated May 1939.
Happy 75th Birthday, Batman!
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