Batman

EMERGENCE OF BATMAN AT A SUPERHERO CREATION In early 1938 the success of superman encouraged editors of National Publications ( future DC comics) to call for more superheroes to be made, because of this Bob Kane( artist) and Bill Finger (writer) created ‘Batman’ . Bob Kane had originally drawn batman to look similar to superman, with reddish tights, boots, no gloves, two stiff wings that looked like batwings and a small domino mask. Bill Finger had only a few suggestions like giving batman a cowl instead of a domino mask, a cape instead of wings some gloves and removing the red from the costume. The character’s first name ‘Bruce’ comes from Robert Bruce a Scottish patriot. Many aspects of batman’s life was inspired by popular culture of the 1930’s including movies, pulp magazines, comic strips newspapers and even some aspects of Bob kanes own life. EARLY YEARS In May 1939 the first batman story “ the case of the chemical syndicate” was published in detective comics #27. Batman was originally written in pulp style and this is extremely evident in the way that he showed little guilt in murdering or injuring criminals. In 1940 batman was given his own solo title even though he still appeared in detective comics. Batman and Superman were the two most important characters for National publications as they played a huge part in the company’s success. Batman and superman were featured side-by-side in world’s finest comics in fall 1940. Within six batman issues, batman was being drawn with a more profound chin and the length of the ears on the mask grew longer, after about a year batman looked how he does today. 1950- 1963 Batman was amongst a few superheroes that were continuously published even when interest in detective comics declined during the 1950’s. In Superman #76 ( june 1952) “ the mightiest team in the world” batman and superman team up and during the course of the story they both discover the others secret identity. Because this story was so successful world’s finest comics was changed so that batman and superman starred in more stories together instead of separate stories as it had been like previously. Batman comics where criticized when the comic book industry came under scrutiny because of psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s book seduction of the innocent in 1954. In his book Wertham stated that children were copying the crimes that the superheroes were committing in comic books and were corrupting the youth. Batman was criticized when Wertham accused Batman and his sidekick Robin of being gay. Because of the impact of Wertham’s book the comics’ code authority was established. In 1960 batman was debuted as a member of the justice league of America. “NEW LOOK” BATMAN AND CAMP By 1964 batman comic sales had drastically fallen, DC comics were even contemplating killing batman of all together. In May 1964 changes designed to make batman look more contemporary and return him to his detective orientated stories. The remodelling of batman’s look included redesigning batman’s equipment, the Bat mobile and his costume ( introducing the yellow oval behind his bat emblem). The debut of Batman on TV in 1966 had a huge influence on how the character was viewed from then on, the success of the TV series increased sales of Batman comic books, batman comics had a circulation of about 900,000 copies. Elements of the TV series like batgirl and the shows happy nature were introduced into the comics. Both the comics and TV series was popular for a long time, but the happy approach to batman wore thin and the show was cancelled in 1968. Once the show was cancelled the comics once again lost popularity. In 1969 Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams made a deliberate effort to detachment batman from the happy portrayal of the 1960s TV series and returned batman back to his former origins as a “ grim avenger of the night”. The idea behind this reform was to take batman back to where it had started.