Over the course of a weekend, the men had created one of the most recognizable figures in modern history.
DC
It’s a look back at a legacy that could have scarcely been imagined in 1939, back when comics were designed as — quite literally — disposable entertainment, and Batman was conceived as just another sleuth solving crimes.
With the success of Superman, however, it became clear that intriguing personalities were just as important to the success of a comic as the plot and format. The windfall from Superman’s recent syndicated newspaper strips made the character an important model to follow. Years later, Finger recalls Kane’s first draft closely resembled the Man of Steel.
“He had drawn a character who looked very much like Superman with kind of … reddish tights, I believe, with boots … no gloves, no gauntlets … with a small domino mask, swinging on a rope. He had two stiff wings that were sticking out, looking like bat wings. And under it was a big sign … ‘BATMAN.’”
Finger made important suggestions to Kane’s design, many of which can be seen in Batman’s 21st century incarnation.
More than just the look, LeClear credits Finger with giving Batman his moniker, Bruce Wayne.
“He wanted something that had a sound of American gentry,” says LeClear. “So he rejected a bunch of earlier ideas, like Hancock and Adams. Then he got to [Revolutionary War Officer] ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne. They’ve even made it that Bruce Wayne is a direct descendant of Mad Anthony Wayne. And then ‘Bruce’ is from one of your all-time great rebel figures in history, [Scottish freedom fighter] Robert the Bruce.”
But perhaps his greatest influence is Zorro, the masked vigilante avenger of Spanish California.
“Here is this masked vigilante avenger, this swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks-like character,” says LeClear. “It’s been in his DNA forever.”
It’s no accident that the most transformative event in Batman’s life — the murder of his parents — occurs as they’re leaving a cinema after watching a Zorro film.
More than a compelling backstory, the loss of his mother and father introduced vulnerability to his superhero persona, and helped endear him to millions of readers.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, the idea of losing your parents to violence hits a nerve with everybody,” says LeClear. “That someone would take this vow of never letting this happen to anybody else means we feel included — he’s actually fighting for us. And I think that’s part of the lasting appeal. He’s also proven that his will is something that is second to none. He won’t give up on us. He will fight.”
Another factor in Batman’s early success was the introduction of his partner in crime fighting: Robin. Fed up with having to write soliloquies for the solitary superhero, Finger sought to compliment the Sherlock Holmes-like Batman character with a Dr. Watson figure. Art assistant Jerry Robinson suggested they name him “Robin,” after the beloved Robin Hood books he’d read as a boy.
“The impetus came from Bill’s wanting to extend the parameters of the story potential and of the drama,” Robinson recalled in a 2005 interview. “He saw that adding a sidekick would enhance the drama. Also, it enlarged the readership identification. The younger kids could then identify with Robin, which they couldn’t with Batman, and the older ones with Batman. It extended the appeal on a lot of levels.”
“He said, ‘I don’t know…we’re gonna put a kid in this kind of crazy world!?’” LeClear says.
“I think the most under reported thing about Batman is that Robin is there almost immediately. He’s there inDetective38, so it’s only 11 issues later that Batman has Robin as a sidekick. And Robin as a character has survived all this time when so many other major, major characters at our company just disappeared because of lack of popularity.”
By the dawn of the ’50s, Bruce Wayne was no longer a gun-touting gumshoe fighting members of the criminal underworld.
Now entering his ninth decade, Batman has proven that he can withstand any foe, including the passage of time.
“I think the comics are a mirror on our society,” LeClear says. “There’s some really direct links, but sometimes you just see how people have reacted in time periods…He’s in so many different titles, graphic novels, but he’s also been on cartoon shows, and lunch-boxes, and toys. No matter what your medium is, whether it’s video games, whether it’s television, or movies — he’s there.”
source: people.com
