Significance of Bill Finger’s name on new “Detective Comics” #27 cover

Last week, news broke that, for the first time in Batman’s 75-year history, the name of his uncredited co-creator, Bill Finger, would appear on a Batman comic book cover, the upcoming free anniversary tribute issue of Detective Comics #27.

I was so excited that I posted it immediately and without comment.

But what does it really mean? Should we be excited? 

Yes.

But with realistic expectations.

Though this is indeed the first time that Bill's name has been on the cover of a comic, it is far from the first time DC Comics has credited him as writer for his stories, so it is a logical extension of what they have already done. Modern management is enlightened but also bound by old contracts. This is a way for them to demonstrate the former while honoring the latter.

But what of that fabled (infabled?) contract between DC and Bob Kane? Neither DC nor the Kane estate have made it public, which is no surprise. So while we can be nearly certain there is a contract (after all, it was a business deal), what if it does not contain a “sole creator” stipulation? Given Bob’s hubris and greediness, I am quite sure he would’ve asked for it, and since this was before creators of major superheroes were suing comics companies, I am inclined to believe that DC would have included it...but what if, for any number of reasons, they said no?

Maybe all those years, Bob was also lying about that...

DC would have no incentive to disabuse the public of the notion that such an ironclad contract existed. The less they reveal, the harder it is for anyone to raise disputes.

As was widely reported recently, Bill’s lone grandchild Athena Finger (whom I discovered in 2007 during my research for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman) issued a statement indicating that the Finger family is “not okay” with DC Comics…meaning not okay with DC not giving Bill co-creator credit on all Batman stories.

Of course I agree with that.

Some fans speculate that this inclusion of Bill’s name on the cover is a Bat-signal of a different kind: a first step to bigger, imminent change.

Of course I hope so.

But such a move makes no guarantees. Change won’t come simply because the management, as aforementioned, is enlightened. In the comics, Batman has big bank…and in real life, too. He’s a batzillion-dollar property. No matter how decision-makers at DC feel personally, nothing about something so valuable will budge without diplomacy. Or failing that, a fight.

Good thing no one is better at fighting than Batman. I just wish Bob Kane was still here to step outside...

2/22/22 addendum: Several years after Bill the Boy Wonder was published, I realized I could not trace the original source for the oft-cited allegation that Bob Kane’s contract included that he and he alone be credited as the creator of Batman. (Sure sounds like him, but still need proof.) Today I stumbled upon a possible answer that I first saw years ago, but did not reflect on deeply at the time. 

In a 1966 issue of fan publication Batmania that covered a comic convention called Con-Cave that was held that summer, Tom Fagan paraphrased no less an authority than legendary editor Julius Schwartz (who appeared on a panel) as saying that Bob’s contract with National (now DC Comics) might stipulate that Bob’s name appear on Batman stories because Bob was the originator. (Note that Fagan did not quote Schwartz as saying Bob’s name alone must appear, but I infer that is what Schwartz meant even if he didn’t explicitly say it or if Fagan didn’t accurately quote it.) Schwartz said that checking the contract could confirm or deny this—but obviously that didn’t happen at the con (if ever, as far as the fans have heard). 

I can’t imagine that this topic would have come up publicly much before this incident; the first “official” con (i.e. the first con where pros participated) was only the year before. But again, I can’t say with certainty that this is where the infamous claim took root…or if it’s true.

Bill Finger credited on a comic book cover for the FIRST. TIME. EVER.

That is all.

6,291 unclaimed trunks = ? copies "Action Comics" #1?

Forty-nine storage rooms.

One hundred ten buildings.

Six thousand, two hundred ninety-one trunks.

Millions of items, any of which could be worth millions.

In the 8/8/11 New Yorker, a Talk of the Town piece by Nick Paumgarten revealed that there are 6,291 unclaimed trunks of personal belongings in dank storage rooms below Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, a large apartment compound in New York.

These trunks date back decades to the 1940s, when the buildings opened, and of course the reasons they’ve been abandoned vary; the owners of some have died, but most likely most of those reasons will remain as mysterious as the contents themselves.

That is because it does not seem that anyone plans to open them. Well, some have been opened and some have burst open, but the article doesn’t say if there will a systematic cataloguing of the rest of the mass of material.

Which is why I promptly called Rose Associates, the property manager cited in the article.

Thus far, most of what has spilled out of trunks seems worthless—old clothes, canceled checks, ‘70s LPs. But I’m willing to wager that at least one of those trunks, and quite possibly several, contains an original copy of Action Comics #1 (featuring the debut of Superman), Detective Comics #27 (debut of Batman), or any number of other ultra-rare, mega-valuable comics, not to mention other kinds of valuables.

The companies that own the residential complex have been tasked with finding a more profitable use for this storage space. Given the understandably skeeved attitude of the property manager quoted in the article (who describes the air in those rooms as “unsanitary” and who said “I hate to think about the stuff that would come running out” when trunks are moved, etc.), I figured it would be worth a shot to ask if a writer could do research there. For all I know (the article doesn’t say), they might be planning to pulp those trunks.

I didn’t hear back from Rose. I don’t seem have great luck when it comes to New York institutions.

(I proposed holding a signing for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman at the Bronx Zoo both because of the bat connection and because Bill [Finger] lived in the Bronx when he co-created Batman. They said no. More on this in a future post.)

No matter. I will likely try again. After all, in most cases, searching for an Action #1 is as futile as searching for a Bigfoot in your bathtub, but that doesn’t mean one will never be found; and this is a scenario where the odds seem way greater than most any other I can imagine.

The location is right. (New York was the capital of comics.)

The time period is right. (Action #1 came out in 1938 so surely many copies were still lying around when people began storing trunks under Stuy Town.)

And to me, that amount of nostalgia packed all in one place bodes well.

Therefore even I, a person who has trouble concentrating if my finger accidentally grazes a sticky cup holder at the movies, would be willing to become a Detective, slide on gloves, and risk a rat carcass or two if it meant I might discover some Action.

Who’s with me?

Superman vs. Batman: first to a million

The New York City snowfall is not the only force of nature that broke records this week.

On 2/22/10, Superman made history yet again. A original, high-quality copy of his debut, Action Comics #1 (1938), became the first comic book to auction (to sell, period) for $1 million.

A mere four days later, another historic sale made national news. An also high-quality copy of Detective Comics #27, featuring the 1939 debut of Batman (who was, it should be noted, created in response to Superman), sold for $1,075,500.

In true superhero fashion, neither the buyer nor the seller in either transaction has revealed his (or, less likely, her) identity.

This will not settle the decades-long debate about which character is more popular or "better"...but given my forthcoming news about Batman, I'll take it as a good omen. Batman and omens, they do go together.

Two distinguished benchmarks: Superman was first to a million and Batman was first to surpass it. Again, given Bruce Wayne's wealth, that seems thematically appropriate.

But one inevitable day, someone will break this Batman record. Superman's, however, will always be his. And since he is the world's first traditional superhero, that, too, is only appropriate.

3/30/10 addendum: In a presumably unrelated auction, another copy of Action #1 sold yesterday for $1.5 million. That means three major records were broken within one month.