First appearance of the nickname “the Dark Knight” was…

…in Batman #1 (1940), page 7, last panel. Written by...come on.

DC vs. Marvel: the film series

In Washington DC, a clever spin on the superhero film festival:

Oddly, however, no Superman? Or Spider-Man, for that matter.

The “Dark Knight” Edits

To my recollection, I’ve made only a small handful of edits to Wikipedia—a couple at least five years ago, two the summer of 2012, and one or two more recently. Not surprisingly, most (if not all) were related to Bill Finger.

The summer 2012 edits were to the entries for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, the second and final films in Christopher Nolan’s groundbreaking Batman trilogy.

I added that the first Batman story to include the phrase “the Dark Knight” was one written by Bill Finger (in Batman #1, 1940). The fact that neither film needed the word “Batman” in the title shows how iconic not only the character but this nickname are.

Note that I did not write “Bill Finger was the first to call Batman ‘the Dark Knight’” nor did I claim that Finger coined the phrase.” I think both were the case, but we may never know for sure. Therefore, to defend my objectivity, I inserted the info in a way that is indisputable.

I feel it is a travesty that Bill’s name is not in the credits of those (or any) Batman movies, but am somehow comforted by the fact that at least Wikipedia has the truth. More people have access to Wikipedia than to the movie…

The Dark Knight Creator Rises

Bill Finger main-created Batman and nicknamed him the Dark Knight. Today (perhaps you heard) The Dark Knight Rises opens, but Bill’s name will not be in the credits.

On 12/10/07, a bit more than six months before The Dark Knight opened, I e-mailed DC Comics; after introducing myself as the author of books including Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman (which also wasn’t out yet), I asked the following:

Could Bill’s name be included in the credits for The Dark Knight? Please don’t automatically delete! I know contractually DC can’t call him “co-creator” so I rather mean something along the lines of “Batman was first called ‘the Dark Knight’ in Batman #1, in 1940, in a story written by Bill Finger.” DC publications already regularly credit Bill for that story, so I see this as completely compatible, legally safe, and of course morally fair. After all, the movie’s title doesn’t even include the word “Batman”—it is wholly a phrase coined by Bill Finger. I look forward to your response.

DC, to their credit, wrote me back:

Thanks for your passion for our creators and characters, but there are no plans to credit Bill on The Dark Knight.

MTN:

To be clear, I am asking if Bill can be credited only for the coining of a phrase, in unambiguous language. … Isn’t that just as permissible (it seems even more so) as your regular practice of crediting him in reprints for entire stories he wrote?

DC:

With all due respect, I’m not having this discussion.

However, I was not the first to attempt this. That distinction goes to Lyn Simmons, Bill’s second wife; they married in the late 1960s.

Her determination to get credit for Bill were bold, selfless—and, it seems, nearly successful. I will let her words—and press about her efforts—speak for themselves (some are undated so I have put them in chronological order as best I can):

This is the jaw-dropper:
“Warner Bros….appear willing to give Bill credit on the film.”
How I wish I knew more about the conversations that led to this.

Her proposed language: “In memoriam to William Finger, who helped create Batman.”

Alas, as you likely know if you’ve read this far, Bill was not credited in that (or any other Batman) film. What torpedoed this possibility?

Lyn said that Warner backed out when they learned that she was not his widow but rather his ex-wife.

In any case, this is an astonishing glimpse at what could have been.

Had it been, perhaps there would be no need for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman today…

Before Bill Finger's "Dark Knight"

I give Bill Finger credit for as much as I accurately can. I credit him with being the co-creator of Batman. I credit him with nicknaming Batman "the Dark Knight." However, I have been careful not to credit him with coining that phrase.

Savvy writer J.L. Bell picked up on this subtlety and took it a step further. His post brilliantly shows one kind of gap that blogs fill. Where else would you see such a piece of research?

What "The Dark Knight" is missing

The Batman movie The Dark Knight opens today. Even though I have not yet seen it, I already know what it's missing.

Batman’s “Dark Knight” nickname first appeared in 1940 in Batman #1 (page 7, last panel) and shortly after in Detective Comics #40, in stories Bill Finger wrote. (For those just joining this blog, Bill Finger is the uncredited co-creator and original writer of Batman.)

By virtue of having written a book on a DC character but with no real clout otherwise, I asked a decision-maker at DC several months ago if that Batman #1 citation could be acknowledged in the screen credits for The Dark Knight—after all, “Batman” is not even in the film’s title. I emphasized that I was not asking if Finger could be credited as “co-creator” (because that's a legal minefield right now) or even if Finger could be credited with coining the term "dark knight" (because it's unlikely that can be proven one way or the other). I was asking only for a simple statement of fact.

The answer was expected. The answer was no. So Finger’s name is not there, but as with all Batman stories, his Fingerprints will be all over it.

Superman returns, Batman begins, Nobleman natters

Today I went to a Superman/Batman double feature.

feature 1: Superman

Superman: The Movie (1978) was produced by father and son Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Salkind senior passed away in 1997. Ilya currently has a film company named for himself. In 2006, I contacted him while researching, ironically, my Batman/Bill Finger project. (Bill's second wife told me that Bill had been asked to fly to California to take a shot at writing a script for a Superman movie; turns out she was probably thinking of the 1960s Filmation cartoons, at least one of which Bill did write.)

Recently, I contacted the Ilya Salkind Company again, this time to ask what happened to the Siegel and Shuster biopic I saw announced on their site last year but which had since been taken down. Today Ilya's assistant kindly responded and told me that the film is back on the site, though on the back burner in terms of development. I didn't ask why it had been taken down, though I wanted to. It's obviously none of my business.

Intermission 

Bathroom.

Moist wipe for hands.

Twizzlers.

feature 2: Batman

Last Friday, I heard from the congenial producer of a documentary about Bob Kane to be packaged with this summer's animated DVD Batman: Gotham Knight. He'd learned online that I have Bill Finger photos beyond the only two that are continually republished. He wants to give his viewers something they haven't seen before—props for that—and asked if he could use any of the photos I've gathered in the film.

For about half an hour today, we spoke about how we might help each other. In exchange for use of the photos, he offered me screen credit and a spot on their Comic-Con panel (both bat-cool), but I asked for something else instead. We both doubt he'll be able to wrangle it due to the delicate nature of Bill Finger's status at DC, but if so, then you could see at least one of the new Finger photos on the copper screen (or whatever the TV equivalent of "silver screen" is). If not, you'll see them anyway, here and possibly elsewhere.

Also bear in mind that these are technically not my photos. Living people sent them to me on good faith. They've given permission for me to use them for my book (which this blog is an extension of), but for any purpose beyond that, I'd go back to them for clearance.

In the end, though, most of them want what I want: to coax Bill Finger out of the shadows at long last.