The year is 1939. (Actually it's not, but you'll have to suspend disbelief for this to work.) Superman has taken the world by storm, in the process spawning a host of carbon copy imitators. DC Comics decides to take a different direction with the superhero genre, and tasks a teenager named Bob Kane with creating a more normal, accessible and down-to-Earth hero than the Son of Krypton.

Kane, a functional illiterate who didn't understand what the words "normal," "accessible" and "down-to-Earth" meant, instead came up the story of a millionaire in his underwear who drove around in a bat-shaped car beating up clowns. That millionaire was, of course, Bruce Wayne, aka The Bat-Man (later changed to the curt "Batman" following a lawsuit from the hideous Bat-Boy of West Virginia cave fame).

Batman first showed up in Detective Comics #27, in a six-page story called "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate." But it wasn't until the 56-page Batman #1 some months later, printed in response to the hero's building popularity, that readers were offered a glimpse into the delicate sun-dappled rose that is Bruce Wayne.

How Batman became Batman in 1939, then. Tearful witness to his parents' murder while walking home from a movie (at the time generic, though later written in to be "The Mark of Zorro"), a young millionaire Bruce Wayne decides to avenge their restless spirits by spending the rest of his natural life "warring on all criminals." Think Hamlet meets Zorro, as played by Richie Rich:

Bruce further vows to spend the next 15 years hitting the gym to blast his lats. He cycles d-ball, downs protein shakes and buys egg whites and chicken breasts from wholesalers. On his off-seasons, Bruce reads only the smartest books available, and even holds up test tubes dramatically. In doing so, he earns himself the accredited title of Master Scientist.

Eventually both he and the reader are confident he has become a one-man wrecking ball on crime. In his famous origin scene, a be-smoking jacketed Wayne sips a protein shake in his study, feeling the burn and quietly ruminating on the subject of himself and how fucking balls he is. Buzzing a little from the shake, Wayne turns his attention to his most hated foe — criminals! — and reaches a shocking epiphany as to their psychological make-up: criminals, he realizes, are morons.

It's not entirely clear where Bruce is pulling his "all criminals are superstitious cowards" figure from, though here's my theory: his ass. To be charitable, Wayne does have a bit of a longstanding feud with the criminal element, so it's understandable that his views on their shortcomings might be somewhat biased. (It might even be a two-way street — a group of criminals could be sitting around in a study of their own, concluding that Bruce Wayne is a pompous dickhead. "We must... commit lots more crime. Black, terrible...")

Taking Wayne's dubious claim at face value, one could still argue he's setting the bar a little low for himself in the nemesis department. He's spent half of his life in training, after all, with the sole aim of doing battle with an enemy he freely admits is a gibbering mob of enormous dumbasses.

Let's be charitable and assume that Bruce's monologue here is the protein shake talking. This makes his next conclusion a little easier to swallow.

Wayne continues his line of flawless reasoning that whichever crimefighting disguise he chooses— his even needing a disguise at all is apparently not open for debate —must be able to scare the shit out of superstitious cowardly criminals. A ghost costume, perhaps, or Dracula. Maybe dressing up as one of those pictures of Jesus's face in clouds? But no — providence intervenes in the form of a wayward huge bat flying into Bruce's window. Within a single panel transition, Bruce is running around Gotham City in his adorable little costume:

Look at him, up on his tippy-toes there. Anyway, criminals are presumably terrified. Also, note the stink lines coming off that one Pigpen bat in the second frame.

Modern-day fans of Batman— sweaty fat people with cleft lips, at a guess —would hardly recognize their hero during his first incarnation. In the 1930's Batman fought crime with handguns blazing, and drove around town in a beat-up old civilian car. He also engaged in profoundly un-Batman-like dialogue exchanges with villains. In "The Batman Meets Doctor Death" (Detective Comics #29), Bats threatens some thugs with, "Your choice, gentlemen! Tell me! Or I'll kill you." Still better, in "The Coming of the Cat" (Batman #1) we get this little gem:

Bahhhh ha ha ha ha ha! Excuse me. So, yeah: the writing might have been clumsy, the plots hackneyed, the dialogue wooden. But whatever his profligate faults, these are the facts: 1930s Batman shot crooks in the chest and spanked women in the ass.

He also got shot himself— a decisive factor in Batman's popularity. Batman's competitor at the time, Superman, couldn't be wounded or killed (kryptonite hadn't been invented yet). Given the dramatic limitations of a categorically invincible hero who could never be intimidated or hurt, Superman's plotlines tended to be— and I'll be charitable —extremely shit-boring. Batman, on the other hand, was getting shot and maimed like crazy all-get-out, which led to skyrocketing comic sales and unprecedented fame. It seemed Bob Kane had stumbled on the key to what young boys cherished in a hero: frequent, violent maimings.

The premise of Batman has endured to the point of being iconic, so that it's difficult to step back for a second and realize how incredibly stupid it all is. Even taking into account the time period (the 1930's, when everything was stupid) and the target market (kids, who have always been stupid), one still has to wonder exactly what Bob Kane was thinking when he gave us the idea of a man dressed in a bat costume who not only fought crime, but was a scientist, a detective, a black belt in karate and—following the addition of Robin to the series in 1940—a suspected pederast.

WHAT NOIR LOOKS LIKE

Batman resurfaced in the 60's as a campy television series starring Adam West. Though briefly popular, the show has since been denounced by Batman fans, who alleged the series was "too silly," making their hero look ridiculous. Fans craved a return to the "ultra-realistic, noir beginnings" of the comic. I've illustrated a few of these below, for those of you unclear as to what ultra-realistic noir looks like.

Batman travels back in time to walk arm in arm with the Three Muskateers. This comic was criticized at the time for being too realistic.

More noir grit, Batman-style. Robin looks over to Batman as if to say, "Look, no hands!" Batman responds with the A-OK symbol, universally understood to mean "It's great that you're not using your hands to steer your comically oversized bicycle."

Another slice of everyday life. Here Batman throws a minor from a moving vehicle at an armed felon.

Hitler and cronies get their just deserts, courtesy of an enormous dynamite stick. The cover also reminds children to "Buy war bonds and stamps!", though given that Batman just exploded Hitler, there doesn't seem to be much reason to.

Batman delivers some chin music to an unsavory criminal.
Robin does his part by diving at the criminal's buttocks and burying his face between them.

Other JP.com Batman Articles

Batman Origin Comics

Batman: The Motion Picture: The Soundtrack

Batman Live Action Comics

The Dark Knight Adjourns

The Comics Critic: Justice League of America #103

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