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| I'm Batman! (or not.) |
I have finished my senior
cap class paper. It was the most fun I
have ever had writing a paper in my entire collegiate career. Two areas of research that I was looking
through was comic book history itself and research on the life in America
during World War II. The academic
community researching comic book related topics is quite small, however, it
appears to be growing. It made me
realize how much I enjoy reading comics and telling the story behind the
story. I would love to continue to study
Batman and comics as I continue to learn how to study and tell history. Here is a segment of my paper to show you what
I have been working on.
The
earliest stories drew from pulp magazines, monster movies and gangster movies
of the time.[1] Batman was a dark character as he battled
vampires, werewolves, mad scientists, and of course gangsters. Batman was so dark at the time that one editor
defined the comic book as “scary.”[2] Kane remembered, “In the first year, Batman
had been a grim vigilante who operated outside the law.”[3] Batman had even used guns in these early
issues, the first time was in Detective
Comic #32 where he used silver bullets to kill a couple of vampires.[4] The most notorious act of gun violence was in
Batman #1 where Batman battles two
monstrous giants. While chasing the
monsters in his Bat-plane, Batman says, “Much as I hate to take human life, I’m
afraid this time it’s necessary!”[5] Batman uses his Bat-plane’s machine gun to
stop the truck the giant was in and then proceeded to hang the giant with a
noose hanging from the plane. After
cutting the limp giant from his plane, Batman kills a second giant by shooting
him off a building.[6] Finger and Kane both got in trouble from the
editor for these overtly violent images. Kane would later say, “We didn’t think
anything was wrong with Batman carrying a gun because the Shadow used one.”[7] Comics were coming under some attacks for
their use of violence. Kane further
states “this story resulted in DC preparing its own comics code…. It forbade
any whippings, hangings, knifings, or sexual references” and Batman was not
allowed to use a gun.[8] To alleviate fears DC Comics told parents
that their comics were endorsed by psychologist, educational professionals, and
literature professors.[9] DC Comics was hoping that this would quiet
the critics and make parents choose their product over the competition.
DC
Comics began marketing to parents, by making comic books more family friendly.[10] DC was afraid parents would not let their
children buy comics where people were shot and killed.[11] Even before the gun controversy, Kane added a
new character, Dick Grayson, a young orphaned acrobat who became Bruce Wayne’s
charge. This character was of course
known as Robin, the Boy Wonder and side kick to Batman. This made for a lighter atmosphere where both
characters spewed puns as well as punches when dispatching villainous
criminals. To help lighten the feel of
the comic Kane “began drawing the cowl higher up so that his face showed more,
and had him smile and look less grim. I also shortened his ears, which…made him
look somewhat satanic.”[12] With the addition of Robin in Detective Comics #38 and Batman’s
lighter appearance, the comic sold almost double than it had with Batman by
himself.[13]
I hope you enjoyed this piece of my paper. I am looking for a way to make the entire
paper available. So, you can read the whole thing if you want.
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| Looking studious |
[2]
Mark
Cotta Vaz, Tales of the Dark Knight:
Batman’s First Fifty Years: 1939-1989 (New York: Ballentine Books, 1989),
31.
[4]
Dale
Crain et. al. eds. The Batman Chronicles.
Vol. 1. (New York: DC Comics, 2005), 160.
[5]
Ibid.,
161.
[6]
Ibid.,
164.
[9]
Jill
Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder
Woman. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), 186.
[10]
Gabilliet,
Of Comics and Men, 23.
