In every Look Back, we examine a comic book issue from 10/25/50/75 years ago (plus a wild card every month with a fifth week in it). This time around, we head to April 1948 to see how Batman discovered the identity of the man who murdered his parents.
One of the well-founded stereotypes of the Golden Age is that not a whole lot actually happened in the comic book stories. Sorry, let me rephrase that. A LOT happened in the comic book stories, but not a whole lot that actually had any impact on the overall continuity of the characters involved. Batman, for instance, would have all sorts of adventures, but for the most part, none of the adventures had any lasting impact. Right after World War II, Batman's stories were all fairly interchangable. One slightly notable turn of events was the introduction of Professor Carter Nichols and his time travel machine. That opened up a bunch of stories involving Batman traveling through time, and there was some nominal continuity there, as Batman had to say, "Oh, hey, Professor Nichols" before they went on the latest time travel mission.
But other than that, few stories had any real impact, which is why it is BAFFLING to see Bill Finger, out of NOWHERE, suddenly drop a major story like "The Origin of the Batman!" in April 1948's Batman #47 (with art by Bob Kane and Charles Paris), where Batman meets Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents! Joe Chill does not make it out of this story alive.
Was the story really drawn by Bob Kane?
The artwork in this is mostly really quite good, so people, over the years, tended to believe that the story was drawn by Lew Sayre Schwartz, the talented artist who Bob Kane hired as his first ghost artist. However, that is not the case. People often think that Kane gave up on the Batman comic feature early on. However, it was more that he gave the COMIC BOOK series up in 1943 to concentrate just on drawing the Batman comic strip (being a comic strip artist was seen as a much more illustrious job back then). That strip, though, ended in 1946. Kane then returned to DC and did work for the Batman comic book series. In 1947, Kane signed a new deal with DC Comics (DC was wary about Kane due to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster suing for the rights to Superman, so Kane got a sweetheart deal from DC. He then quickly realized that he could profit from his sweetheart deal even more if he used ghost artists).
It was after this point that Kane first hired an official "ghost artist." After initially having his own studio in 1939/40, throughout the 1940s, the production of Batman art under Kane's name had been taken up by DC Comics (National Comics at the time - I use DC because it's easier) so Kane was not directly involved with ghost artists until his new deal with DC led him to realize that he could make a lot more money if he hired someone faster than himself to draw on his behalf. Lew Schwartz became his personal ghost artist in 1948 until 1953 when Sheldon Moldoff took over. Batman #47 actually featured the first Lew Sayre Schwartz-drawn story, but he didn't draw this one.
And Kane did an excellent job, including this flashback to when Joe Chill murdered the Waynes. Check out the eyes. How cool is that piercing eye effect?!?
What did Batman do when he discovered who killed his parents?
The story begins with Batman and Robin stopping a criminal-trafficking scheme. Only when they investigate further, Batman discovers that the head of the scheme is the man who killed his parents!! Batman figures out a way to draw Chill out - he stops a bad guy, letting him run to Chill so that Chill could smuggle him out of the country. Chill then murders the other crook, giving Batman enough to arrest Chill for murder, but Batman wanted Chill for the murder of the WAYNES, so he comes up with a bold gambit to get Chill to confess to the murder - he reveals his identity to Chill!!
He then lets Chill know that unless he confesses, Batman will haunt him the rest of his life. Chill freaks out, and runs to his criminal colleagues. A freaked out Chill then tells them that he was the one who killed Batman's parents. This causes his compatriots to freak out. So wait, HE'S the one responsible for Batman becoming Batman?! They then murder Chill in anger, not even thinking to check to learn Batman's identity first...
What a great twist. You can tell that this was a pre-Comics Code story, as it was way too violent for a post-Code story. Batman arrives too late to save Chill, but Chill informs him before he dies that he didn't tell the others, and Batman is able to mark the murder of Thomas Wayne finally solved (and yes, Batman marks it down as the murder of Thomas Wayne. Pretty messed up, huh?). As always, never learn Batman's secret identity! You WILL die!
If you folks have any suggestions for May (or any other later months) 2013, 1998, 1973 and 1948 comic books for me to spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! Here is the guide, though, for the cover dates of books so that you can make suggestions for books that actually came out in the correct month. Generally speaking, the traditional amount of time between the cover date and the release date of a comic book throughout most of comic history has been two months (it was three months at times, but not during the times we're discussing here). So the comic books will have a cover date that is two months ahead of the actual release date (so October for a book that came out in August). Obviously, it is easier to tell when a book from 10 years ago was released, since there was internet coverage of books back then.