Bill Finger and Bob Kane

The Caped Crusader has always stood as a pillar of virtue and justice. But the tale of his creation was long one of hypocrisy and cultural deceit.

Superman's debut in 1938 introduced the superhero genre to comic books, and the Man of Steel's publisher, National Comics Publications (as DC Comics was then known), was all too eager to capitalize on its success — which editor Vin Sullivan mentioned to a budding young cartoonist named Bob Kane. Born in New York City on October 24, 1915 (as Robert Kahn), Kane had worked for Will Eisner, creator of the Spirit, and his partner, Jerry Iger, before opening a studio of his own. A graduate of DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, Kane had recruited fellow alum Milton "Bill" Finger to join his shop.

Born February 8, 1914, in Denver, Colorado, Finger too had grown up in New York, and, like Kane, had fallen in love with comic strips. But where Kane's personality was outgoing and dominant, hell-bent on making the kind of money Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were pulling in every week, Finger's was thoughtful and submissive. On paper, he was an employee of Kane's, and wrote Kane's Rusty and His Pals (a knockoff of cartoonist Milt Caniff's newspaper strip Terry and the Pirates) for no credit. But Rusty generated little fanfare, and Bill maintained his day job as a shoe salesman.

When Kane spoke with Sullivan one Friday afternoon to discuss the possibility of a "Bat-Man," he promised he'd be back on Monday with a design for the character. Fond of swiping panels from other artists in his work, Kane's own skills were limited. He drafted a costume, but was unhappy with it. He met Finger that weekend at his apartment and showed him what he'd come up with. His champion's colors were the inverse of Superman's — he was blond and wore a bright red union suit with blue boots and briefs, a yellow belt, a domino mask (taken from Lee Falk's newspaper strip hero the Phantom), and a pair of rigid wings. Kane would later claim the wings were inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's famed ornithopter drawing.

Finger disapproved, and said the Bat-Man's colors should be dark, like that of his namesake. Moreover, his face should be covered by a cowl, from which should extend bat-like ears. And instead of the stiff wings, he should wear a cape, scalloped, so it resembled wings when he soared through the air — which he would do on a rope, requiring gloves.

Kane revised his design per Finger's descriptions, took it to National the following Monday, and the Bat-Man was born. Taking his cue from Johnston McCulley's pulp superstar the Shadow (one story of whose Finger would swipe for Bat-Man's first adventure), Finger made his urban crimefighter's secret identity that of a wealthy playboy, Bruce Wayne — whom the writer named after Scottish king Robert the Bruce and American Revolutionary War general "Mad" Anthony Wayne.

March 1939 saw the Bat-Man swing to life on the cover of Detective Comics #27. Dated May 1939, the cover (which historian Arlen Schumer discovered was a swiped image from Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon strip) referred to him as "The Batman." His first story, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate" — written by an uncredited Finger with art by Kane — also introduced Wayne's close friend Commissioner Gordon, another creation of the writer. Six months later, in Detective Comics #31, Finger gave his hero an origin: he was once a small boy whose parents were shot to death by a mugger trying to snatch his mother's pearl necklace.

The following year, Finger gave a name to Batman's city — Gotham — and conceived of the Batmobile, Hugo Strange, Wayne Manor, Robin, Clayface, Catwoman, the Joker, and a nickname for his hero, "The Dark Knight." In 1941, he co-created the Penguin and the Scarecrow, followed by Two-Face, the Batcave, the Riddler, and the Mad Hatter. He received credit for none of it, since Kane secured a contract that stipulated his name alone be printed as the creator of Batman comics in perpetuity. The lie was underlined in June 1940's Batman #1, which included a brief biography of Kane, written by editor Whitney Ellsworth, that stated he did all of the work on the character himself.

Enamored of trivia and research, clippings from which he would frequently send along with his scripts to the artists who illustrated them, Finger also co-created the Golden Age hero the Green Lantern and Superboy's girlfriend Lana Lang, and wrote tales of National's other characters (eventually commissioned directly by the company instead of via Kane). His Batman stories, however — weird, whimsical, and chock full of oversized props across which his heroes and villains would battle — are his masterpieces. He wrote approximately 1,500 over the course of 25 years, during which time Kane moved to Los Angeles, and schmoozed his way through Hollywood with the arrival of the 1966 Batman TV show. Every episode featured his name as the character's sole creator. Finger wrote one two-part episode" — The Clock King's Crazy Crimes" / "The Clock King Gets Crowned" — introducing yet another long-running supervillain. But by then DC Comics had stopped calling him, turning its attention toward a new generation of comic creators.

Finger found some extra work outside of comics, scripting, for example, the 1968 cult film The Green Slime. He also found time to marry twice, and had a son, Fred, with his first wife, Portia. By 1974, Finger had suffered three heart attacks, and his second marriage, to Lyn Simmons, had dissolved. On January 18, 1974, he was found alone in his Manhattan apartment, dead of arteriosclerosis at the age of 59.

Bob Kane died at the age of 83 in Los Angeles on November 3, 1998, after attending the Hollywood premieres of four Batman films. He liked to wear a scalloped cape when he walked the red carpet — a white one, to match his tuxedo. The plaque on his gravestone in the Hollywood Hills is adorned with the Bat-Signal and bears a lengthy memorial that begins, GOD bestowed a dream upon Bob Kane. Blessed with divine inspiration and a rich imagination, Bob created a legacy known as BATMAN.

As revealed in writer Marc Tyler Nobleman's 2012 book Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman (as essential for fans as the 2017 documentary it Spawned — directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce's Batman & Bill), Finger was cremated, and his ashes collected by Fred, who spread them on a beach in the shape of a bat and let the tide wash them away.

Though Fred died in 1992 of complications from AIDS, he left behind a daughter, Athena, who, with the help of Nobleman, worked tirelessly to get Warner Brothers to give her grandfather the credit he so deserved. Their efforts were rewarded on September 18, 2015. Today, Finger is named as Batman's co-creator in most every form of media in which his Dark Knight appears. The Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing is awarded every year at Comic-Con International in San Diego.

The Batsuit

Despite the many changes Batman has undergone throughout his history, his suit remains close to its original depiction, found in May 1939's Detective Comics #27 (in which it was first drawn by Bob Kane, after substantial input from Batman co-creator Bill Finger). Here was established the gray outfit's...