BATMAN’S SECRET PAST REVEALED!
New doc uncovers a decades-long coverup in Dark Knight’s origin story
BATMAN has a new villain to add to his legendary rogue’s gallery: his supposed creator.
A new documentary makes the compelling case that Bob Kane, the Caped Crusader’s acknowledged father, unjustly hogged all the credit at the expense of his collaborator, a little-known writer named Bill Finger.
“Batman & Bill,” debuting Saturday on Hulu, follows author Marc Tyler Nobleman’s obsessive quest to learn more about the mysterious Finger. Nobleman’s research was poured into the 2012 book “Bill the Boy Wonder: the Secret Co-Creator of Batman.”
“I am attracted to underdogs. They make for great stories,” Nobleman tells The Post. “It was also staggering to me that no one had written a book on the real creation of Batman.”
The superhero was dreamed up in 1939 after Kane noticed the success of Superman and promised publisher National Comics (later called DC Comics) he’d come up with something similar.
Over a weekend, Kane sketched a hero in red tights with stiff wings stuck to his back. Kane feared the character wasn’t particularly special and sought the input of Bill Finger, a Bronx high-school classmate and budding writer.
Finger suggested a dark, caped costume with a cowl, transforming the hero into the nocturnal avenger we now know. Finger wrote numerous early Batman stories, conceiving the character’s origin and creating or co-creating the majority of the series’ well-known supporting characters and villains.
But it was Kane’s name alone — legend has it due to a contract the savvy artist negotiated — that appeared on Batman comics for decades. Finger was almost completely unknown.
And Kane kept it that way. Until the end of his life in 1998, Kane consistently denied that anyone other than he was responsible for the Dark Knight.
When Finger wrote an open letter to fans in the 1960s, attempting to set the record straight, Kane fired back, calling Finger’s claim “hogwash,” and stating, “I, Bob Kane, am the sole creator of Batman.”
The film suggests that Kane even went as far as to fake a Batman sketch he supposedly made as a teen as proof he originated the concept.
While Kane lived his life as a wealthy celebrity, the tragic Finger died penniless at age 59 in 1974, alone in his Midtown East apartment.
Nobleman tracked down Finger’s elderly comic-book collaborators and even discovered family members previously unknown to the public, including a granddaughter. She and Nobleman then joined forces to try and get Finger the credit on Batman comics and movies he had so long been denied.
If you saw last year’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” you know this story has a happy ending. (And if you didn’t, Finger gets on-screen credit, along with Kane.)
“Any one person who speaks long and loudly enough has a chance to change things,” Nobleman says. “It’s a humbling feeling. I feel so happy for Bill’s legacy and spirit.”