70 Years of the Bat
When artist Bob Kane was fishing around for superhero ideas in the wake of Superman’s success, he cast his creative line into a book full of Leonardo da Vinci’s early inventions. There he found the image of a man on a winged sled, with this written below: “Your model shall have no other wings but that of a bat.” Marrying that inspiration with his love of the hero Zorro and other influences, Kane and writer Bill Finger developed a character who would prove to be Superman’s dark antithesis: Batman.
Speaking of her late husband, widow Elizabeth Sanders Kane commented: “[Bob] said his dream as a child was to live in a castle in Italy and have a butler. I think a lot of his daydreams were incorporated into the character.” She spoke in a documentary on the 2005 two-disc Special Edition of the 1989 Tim Burton movie “Batman.”
Batman premiered in “Detective Comics” #27 the year after Superman’s debut in 1938’s “Action Comics” #1. Both comic book series continued to star their respective heroes, but the characters also received their own titles. Batman, who hearkened back to such pulp characters as The Shadow, was a dark figure in his early days: he often carried a gun and killed bad guys. After Robin joined his side in 1940 (as the first child sidekick), however, Batman began to soften, and eventually an editorial decree ended his use of guns and other lethal tactics.
The 1950s saw intense scrutiny of comic books, thanks to hearings held by the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. That activity resulted in the 1954 formation of the Comics Code Authority, an organization created by the industry to self-regulate its subject matter. Batman soon became the campy character immortalized in that infamous 1960s TV series, although the 1970s saw a gradual return of his darker side, a movement that culminated in a pair of gritty watershed works published during the 1980s: Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Batman: Year One.” Batman comics published since then have continued that trend.
“’The Dark Knight Returns’ had a huge impact on me as a comic book fan when it first appeared,” recalls Smith, “as did [Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s] ‘The Killing Joke’ (1988). Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s ‘Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth’ (1989) was also amazing at the time, although, since working on the LEGO Batman game, it’s been fun to go back to lots of classic older Batman comics.”
Moving Pictures
The character’s earliest appearance outside the realm of comic books and newspaper comic strips was a pair of serials released during the 1940s. One theatrical film spun out of the 1960s TV series, but Batman didn’t return to the silver screen until 1989, when director Tim Burton offered his own take on the character. It was followed by “Batman Returns” (1992), “Batman Forever” (1995), and “Batman and Robin” (1997); the last one was ravaged by critics and fared poorly at the box office.
Warner Bros. spent nearly a decade away from Batman before rebooting the character with 2005’s “Batman Begins,” which retold his well-known origin story and set the stage for new adventures. “The Dark Knight,” released in 2008, scored major critical and box office success, although it was overshadowed by the tragic death of Heath Ledger, who brought a unique, anarchic quality to his portrayal of The Joker.
Another well-known actor, Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), provided the voice of Batman’s most famous nemesis for “Batman: The Animated Series,” which ran from 1992 to 1995 and ushered in a superhero cartoon renaissance. The caped crusader had previously starred in “The Batman/Superman Hour” (1968-69) and “New Adventures of Batman” (1977-81), and he later came back for three more animated series between 1997 and 2008, with a fourth, “The Brave and the Bold,” making its premiere in late 2008. Batman has also starred in several animated feature films.
His videogame history is equally rich, but we’ll leave that for another time.