Happy Batman Day! The Dark Knight through the years
Published 9:25 AM EDT, Fri September 25, 2015
The now-annual Batman Day falls on September 26 this year, celebrating all things Dark Knight with special events at bookstores, comic book shops and elsewhere. The character was created in 1939 by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, with his first appearance in “Detective Comics” No. 27. (DC Comics — a Time Warner company, like CNN — recently agreed to <a href=”http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dc-entertainment-give-classic-batman-824572″ target=”_blank” target=”_blank”>give Finger a co-creator credit).</a>Four years later, “Batman” first hit the big screen as a 15-chapter movie serial. It had a strong anti-Japanese sentiment — with Batman and Robin fighting a Japanese spy during World War II, complete with racial slurs — so it’s far from politically correct when viewed today. Lewis Wilson and an age-appropriate 16-year-old Douglas Croft were the first actors to play the Dynamic Duo, and the serial’s portrayal of faithful butler Alfred influenced the comics. (As for Robin, he was introduced in the comics in 1940.)By 1949, Columbia Pictures’ movie serial budget was cut to the bone, and it’s apparent in the sequel “Batman and Robin.” Robert Lowery and John Duncan took over the roles of the crimefighters, and this time Commissioner Gordon and Vicki Vale were added to the story, as well as a new villain, the masked Wizard.By the 1950s, comic book sales had dropped, and there was an anti-comic book movement (which went all the way to the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency) that forced characters like Batman to fight space aliens and encounter ever-more outlandish plots (any actual violence involving human beings was forbidden). The characters Batwoman and Batgirl were introduced after psychiatrist Fredric Wertham said the book had an “atmosphere of homoeroticism.”As the story goes, Batman comic book sales were so bad that DC considered canceling them. Editor Julius Schwartz can be credited with saving Batman in 1964 when he rebooted the character with a “new look.”Writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams brought the edge back to Batman in 1971, setting the stage for a more serious, dark tone.The 1986 Frank Miller comic storyline “Dark Knight Returns” brought an even darker sensibility with an older Batman in a dystopian future.1988’s violent, disturbing “The Killing Joke” storyline by Alan Moore is considered by many to be the definitive Joker tale, though it remains controversial to this day.1988 was quite a year for the Joker as he also took the life of the second Robin, Jason Todd.Fox premiered “Batman: The Animated Series” in 1992, and it was leaps and bounds ahead of other network animation of the time. Some fans see this as the definitive adaptation of Batman.Batman faced the hulking Bane for the first time in 1993 and lost. Bruce Wayne was taken out of commission, briefly replaced by the psychotic Jean-Paul Valley.Val Kilmer took over for Keaton in Joel Schumacher’s “Batman Forever” in 1995. Chris O’Donnell joined the cast as Robin.
