Bill Finger Co-Created Batman… and WASN’T Credited for 75 Years

Over the last 80+ years, Batman has become a pop cultural icon. In addition to the thousands of comics the character has appeared in since his debut in 1939’s Detective Comics #27, Batman has been featured in live action films, animation, television, commercials, and every kind of merchandise one can imagine, nearly all of which featured a credit for Batman’s some-creator Bob Kane. The only problem? Bob Kane didn’t actually create Batman by himself. In fact, some would argue that Bill Finger did more to create Batman than Kane ever did.

To understand how Bill Finger’s contributions to the Batman mythos went unappreciated for decades, one must have an understanding of how the early comic book industry functioned in the 1930s. As writer Marc Tyler Nobleman detailed in his book Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman – which later served as the basis for the Hulu documentary Batman & Bill – creator studios would negotiate contracts with publishers to produce comic book stories, then said creator studio would farm out the actual creation of the books themselves. Which brings us to Bob Kane…

In 1939, Kane began work on a character entitle Bat-Man – which in later years he would claim to have first conceived of as a teenager, though no definitive proof has been found – that bore little resemblance to the iconic Batman. Enter Bill Finger, who added numerous elements to the initial design, including the color scheme and cowl. Finger explained in later years that Kane, “… had an idea for a character called ‘Batman’, and he’d like me to see the drawings. I went over to Kane’s, and 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.”

Kane then took the character the two had worked on to National Comics (the company that eventually become DC Comics) and negotiated a deal with the company that gave them ownership in exchange for financial compensations, a sole mandatory byline on all Batman comics (and adaptations thereof) in perpetuity.

Thanks to Kane’s agreement with National, a “Created by Bob Kane” credit appeared on all Batman materials from the very beginning, despite the fact that Finger had not only made significant contributions to the character’s creation, but also was writing the comic and creating character and concepts including the Batmobile, Batcave, Gotham City, Robin, Riddler, and Penguin.

Finger continued working on Batman comics in anonymity throughout the 1940s and 50s. With the advent of adult comic book fandom in the 1960s, Finger became to find acclaim among aficionados as stories about his contributions to Batman began to spread at conventions and in fanzines. However, in the overall public consciousness Kane was still seen as the character’s creator, especially as his name was attached to the massive successful Adam West Batman television series (which ironically featured an episode penned by Bill Finger, the only time he received a Batman credit during his lifetime).

Bill Finger passed away due to occlusive coronary atherosclerosis in 1974, while Bob Kane continued to earn money and celebrity status through the enduring appeal of Batman products, especially following the 1989 Tim Burton film. Kane also spent years taking sole credit for creation of Batman through this period, refuting claims made by others in the comic book community. However, less than a decade before his death in 1998, Kane did write in his autobiography:

“Now that my long-time friend and collaborator is gone, I must admit that Bill never received the fame and recognition he deserved. He was an unsung hero … I often tell my wife, if I could go back fifteen years, before he died, I would like to say. ‘I’ll put your name on it now. You deserve it.'”

As stories of Finger’s contributions to the Batman mythos became more widely known in the 2000s, there began to be louder and louder calls for Finger to receive credit. These intensified further when Nobleman, in the process of writing his aforementioned book, located previously unknown surviving heirs: Finger’s granddaughter Athena and her son.

In 2015, the Finger family finally came to an agreement with DC, and beginning with 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Bill Finger has been credited on all Batman media and comics. It only took 80 years…