Batman: A Fan's History

Liam Burke

[right arrow] It is difficult to remember a time when the world was not in a perpetual state of Batmania. Today, Batman is the basis of a blockbuster film series, a universally-adored video game and a host of other media and entertainments. However, like the penniless Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan, 2012), the character has experienced many hard times, including the post-World War II decline in superhero popularity, the camp hangover from the television series that prevented mainstream audiences from recognizing the renewed complexity of the comics, and the mid-1990s' film adaptations that pushed the Dark Knight back into the neon mire he had spent decades clambering out from. Yet, throughout, Batman fans have kept their hero at the forefront of popular culture. What follows is a history of Batman from the point of view of those who know him best – the fans.

It is appropriate, given the important role that fans have played over Batman's undulating career that the creation of the hero was, in itself, an act of fandom. Bob Kane was already an established cartoonist in 1939 when editor Vin Sullivan tasked him with creating a character to complement DC Comics' already soaring star, Superman. Kane's first attempt was the red unitard and domino mask-wearing 'Bird-Man', but fortunately for Kane (and legions of future Bat-fans), the cartoonist had enlisted the services of his frequent collaborator Bill Finger. On Finger's advice Bird-Man's colour scheme shifted to black, his mechanical wings became a scalloped cape and his domino mask morphed into a cowl with pointed ears – Batman was born.

Kane shrewdly ensured that his was the only name that would appear on Batman comics, even if he was not directly involved in the particular issue's creation. This saw many of the early innovators of Batman, including Finger, go unrecognized during the first decades of the hero's comic book career. Kane was equally as astute when it came to developing Batman, with the cartoonist, and his growing roster of ghost artists, cherry picking from the best of pulp magazines, novels and the movies. Before Batman, Zorro featured a nobleman who emerged from a subterranean lair to right wrongs, while another darkly-clad pulp hero, The Shadow, was one of the first to use theatricality and deception 'to cloud men's minds'. Stretching back before pulp magazines, Batman's analytical mind is indebted to the world's first 'greatest detective', Sherlock Holmes, while the hero's style draws on cinematic representations of Dracula and the caped killer of the 1930 mystery film, The Bat Whispers (dir. Roland West). This defanged Dracula with The Shadow's style and Zorro's toys may have 'borrowed' from pulp, film and literary precursors, but Batman blossomed in the superhero genre. By serving as the golden halo around the darker figure of the bat, Superman's example lifted the nocturnal vigilante out of the gutter and placed him into a new genre populated by modern mythological icons.

Batman mirrored Superman's success, and quickly annexed anthology series Detective Comics following his introduction in issue 27 (cover date May 1939). By Spring of 1940, Batman was rewarded with his own, eponymous title. Like Detective Comics #27, the cover found the hero swinging across a canary yellow sky, but now Batman was not alone, and he even seemed to be smiling. Premiering one month earlier, Batman's sidekick was introduced as 'The Sensational Character Find of 1940 ... Robin the Boy Wonder'. Since his addition, Robin has divided fans, with many suggesting that his Technicolour presence diminished the gritty realism of the Dark Knight, while others argue that he introduced necessary warmth to Batman's brooding austerity. However, in this era before letters pages, fanzines and the Internet, approval was registered through sales, and as Bill Boichel notes, Robin 'was an immediate success and so widely imitated that the junior sidekick emerged as one of the most important terms in the superhero lexicon'.

In the same month Robin was introduced, Nazis troops invaded Denmark and Norway on their march across Europe. Soon comic books, many of which were produced by first generation European immigrants, joined the war effort; Duncan and Smith identify 61 patriotic comic book heroes that appeared between 1940 and 1944 including The Shield, The Patriot and most famously Captain America. The covers of Batman and Detective Comics during this time found the dynamic duo also doing their part. For instance, in Batman #15 (February–March 1943) the hero waived his 'no guns' policy by taking hold of a smoking machine gun as a caption reminded readers to 'Keep Those Bullets Flying! Keep On Buying War Bonds & Stamps!' However, Batman did not engage as fully in the conflict as those heroes created in direct response to the war effort. In Batman Unmasked, Will Brooker identifies only four stories during this period that can be described as 'war-related'. Nonetheless, the war effort had a massive impact on Batman fandom, as many servicemen who missed home comforts and sought escape became avid comic book readers.

While the comic book Batman may not have fully engaged in the jingoism of the time, the hero's first foray into cinema certainly did. Batman (dir. Lambert Hillyer) was a low-budget serial produced by Columbia in 1943. With hyperbolic chapter titles like 'Slaves of the Rising Sun', the 15-part adventure saw the dynamic duo tackling Axis criminal Dr. Daka. Although posters promised that Batman would be '[a] hundred times more thrilling on the screen!' the serial's paltry budget, with its ill-fitting costumes, cheap effects and basic sets, could not have met reader expectations. However, as Brooker explains, the serial was designed 'to reach a wider viewing public than the established Batman fan-base'. This desire to target a...