Bill Finger's 1966 Batman TV Episodes Were A Much Bigger Deal Than You Realize

When the joyous "Batman" TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward hit airwaves in 1966, Batman comic books had only been published for the past 27 years. Batman is such an omni-presence in our popular culture that a world without him seems foreign, but truth be told, he's not really that old. When the '60s show was on, his creators weren't just a living memory, they were actually still alive — and one of them even wrote for the show.

That would be Bill Finger, the writer who made Batman into the character we all know. Modern consensus is that artist Bob Kane came up with the name "Batman" for a winged pulp hero, but Finger added the defining details: Batman's costume, the name Bruce Wayne, his detective side, his tragic origin story from the murder of his parents, and the comic's major supporting characters.

Writing with Charles Sinclair, Finger co-wrote the "Batman" season 2 episodes "The Clock King's Crazy Crimes" and "The Clock King Gets Crowned." As you can tell, these episodes featured the Dynamic Duo facing off with the Clock King (Walter Slezak). They're pretty formulaic episodes, like all "Batman" episodes were, but Finger's involvement elevates them into historical status.

Around this time, Finger was also still writing Batman comics as a freelancer. But unlike those episodes, you won't find his name on them. See, until the 2010s, Bill Finger was not officially credited as Batman's co-creator in comics, movies, or elsewhere. DC Editor Julius Schwartz introducing him as the primary writer of Batman at a 1964 convention, and some reprints of his Batman books in the 1970s, gave him credit. But when Finger was actually writing those comics, his name never appeared on the original printings.

Why? Bob Kane got a deal with the company then called National Comics for sole creator credit and royalties. The success of Batman allowed Kane to retire in comfort. Finger never saw that money or credit in his lifetime, and had to wait decades for justice.

The late Jerry Robinson, an artist and co-creator of the Joker and Robin, testified in 2009 that he thought Bill Finger was the creator of Batman, more so than Bob Kane. Since he'd worked with both men, he'd know. 

"[Bill] created most everything for [Bob]. He definitely was a full co-creator. I think he had more to do with the molding of Batman than Bob. He just did so many things at the beginning. As an artist, I can appreciate what goes into that. Aside from creating almost all the other characters, creating the whole persona, the whole temper, the history, origin of Batman. Everything."

Bringing this back to the '60s "Batman" show: That series kicked off with a story starring the Riddler (Frank Gorshin, but once John Astin). The Riddler debuted in a story penned by Finger in "Detective Comics" #140. That underlines the idea that if there was no Bill Finger, there'd be no Batman — at least not one that's anything close to the one we know today, or with the same Rogues Gallery. But instead of being showered with praise and glory, Finger died in poverty in 1974. 

One might compare this situation to Stan Lee and controversy over his tenure as Marvel Comics' editor-in-chief. There's been disagreement for decades over whether Lee got more credit than he deserved for creating the Marvel universe. Lee's rationale (that he came up with the ideas for characters and comic stories, so he deserves credit as the "writer" even if the artists did more of the work) is similar to Kane declaring himself as Batman's creator for having the idea first. 

But it's generally agreed by both fans and scholars (such as Mike Avila at Syfy) that Kane's treatment of Finger was worse than anything Lee did. The reason is that Stan Lee credited artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby for their work in the Marvel comics they drew. Kane stole credit from Finger by calling himself the sole creator of Batman. As Finger's son, Fred Finger (who passed away in 1992), said in a 1989 televised interview, his father had to keep writing Batman comics until the day he died to make even meager money.

In the years following Finger's passing, sentiment slowly mounted towards him getting credit for Batman's creation. One of the earliest cases was DC Editor Carmine Infantino writing an obituary for Finger (published in a reprint of "Batman" #1). Infantino called Finger one of Batman's two fathers in that tribute.

Part of that movement was the 2012 picture book "Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman" (by Marc Tyler Nobleman and art from Ty Templeton), which summarized Finger's life in about 50 pages. In 2016, "Batman v Superman" was the first Batman film to finally credit Finger as a co-creator, and the 2017 documentary "Batman & Bill" chronicled the movement to get Bill Finger that credit. The latest published issue of "Batman" — "Batman" #157 (legacy #922), by writer Chip Zdarsky and artists Jorge Jimenez and Tony S. Daniel — credits "Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger."

After Finger's death, Kane (who previously denied he was anything but the sole creator of Batman) would lament that Finger never got the credit he deserved. In his 1989 book "Batman and Me," Kane is complimentary of Finger's talent, but still writes of himself as the primary creative force of Batman. He excuses Finger's lack of credit by writing that:

"I never thought of giving [Finger] a by-line and he never asked for one ... today they put everybody's name on a strip, even the letterers, color artists, and inkers. But in the early days, only the originators put their names on strips, regardless of whether they had ghost-writers or ghost-artists doing their features. Superman, for example, carried both Siegel and Shuster's names because they had collaborated in creating him."

Kane did write in the book that if he "could go back fifteen years, before [Finger] died, I would like to say, 'I'll put your name on it now. You deserve it.'" Of course, Kane couldn't, and his deal for sole creator credit was never amended before his own death in 1996. As more and more of Finger's history has come to light and he's been celebrated more and more, Kane has posthumously become a villain in the comic book community.

Bill Finger did way more for Batman than write two measly TV episodes, and he deserved to be acknowledged (and compensated) in full for that while he was alive. But at least those "Batman" TV episodes marked the first publicly credited Batman work, even if they were nearly 30 years after the character was created.