This time on the Character Corner we’re finally talking about The Batman. We’ve talked around Batman for a while now. We covered him a bit in our Suicide Squad Character Corner, then the Rogue Wars episode on is villains. We’ve also covered one Robin and all of the Batgirls and even Batwoman. So it’s about time we finally dive into discussing the big guy himself.

We’ll be breaking this out into three parts. For this first part we cover the early years of Batman up to the introduction of Tim Drake as Robin. That’s about forty years of history from 1939 when he first appeared in Detective Comics #27 to the late 80’s and A Lonely Place of Dying. We also spend some time addressing the tragic story of Bill Finger who for the longest time was the uncredited creator of not just Batman but a lot of Batman’s villains as well as the classic conceptions we associate with the character. If you have Hulu, you should definitely check out Batman & Bill that goes into way more detail over how poorly DC treated Bill Finger and how everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.

Issues:

• Writer Bill Finger
  • Detective Comics #27 – The Case of the Chemical Syndicate – First Appearance
  • Detective Comics #29 – First Utility Belt
  • Detective Comics #31 – First batarang and first bat-themed vehicle
  • Detective Comics #33 – First telling of origin
  • Detective Comics #38 - First Appearance of Robin (Dick Grayson)
  • Batman #1 – First Appearance of The Joker & Catwoman
• Superman #76 – First teamup with Superman
• World’s Finest Comics
• The Brave and the Bold #28 – Joins JLA
• Tales of the Demon (1971-1980)
  • Detective Comics #411 – First appearance of Talia Al Ghul
  • Batman #232 – Daughter of the Demon (First appearance of Ra’s al Ghul)
  • Batamn #235
  • Batman #240
  • Batman #242
  • Batman #243
  • Batman #244 – The Demon Lives Again
  • DC Special Series #15
  • Detective Comics #489
  • Detective comics #490
• Strange Apparitions
  • Detective Comics #469-479
• Batman #357 – First appearance of Jason Todd (Pre-Crisis)
• Batman #366 – First Appearance of pre-Crisis Jason Todd as Robin
• Batman #408 – First Appearance of post-Crisis Jason Todd
• Batman #410 – Post-Crisis Jason Todd as Robin
• The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller)
• The Killing Joke
• Batman: Year One (Frank Miller)
• Batman: Death in the Family
• Batman #436 – First appearance of Tim Drake
• A Lonely Place of Dying
  • Batman #440
  • New Titans #60
  • Batman #441
  • New Titans #61
  • Batman #442 First Appearance of Tim Drake as Robin

Short list of some of Bill Finger’s Batman Creations:

• Batman
• Joker
• The Penguin
• Scarecrow
• Two-Face
• The Riddler
• The Calendar Man
• Gotham City

Part 2 of this series we’ll take a break from the comics and go into some of the other media interpretations of Batman and then we’ll return for the rest of the comic history for Part 3.

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