Follow the Path: The Introduction of the Batcave

[CBR News]

In their spotlight on comics adapting ideas from other media, CSBG examines the Batcave's introduction and adaptation from the Batman serials.


Full article here.

[Güicho]

In their spotlight on comics adapting ideas from other media, CSBG examines the Batcave's introduction and adaptation from the Batman serials.

Full article here.

Re: Article - https://www.cbr.com/follow-the-path-the-batcave/

Great article, although it ignores another significant reference before the diagram shown in Batman #12(1942), there was already a sequence establishing what would become the Batcave/lair a year before.
In Detective #47(1941)

It is this issue that first shows the secret entrance outside the Mansion in the deserted barn, a secret passage through the barn floor, leading to a tunnel, and a flight of stairs going up, where he steps through another secret panel into the mansion. ..where Robin is waiting.
And the caption reads: "The secret labyrinth has lead to the lair of the Batman!"




"lair of the Batman" is significant as it's well known Zorro is often referenced in canon as inspiration, the scene parallels a certain lair of the Fox, where Zorro also (leads his black horse) down in through a secret barn door, through passage, upstairs, and emerges in a secret room where Bernardo is waiting.
In the 1920s Fairbanks Mark of Zorro. (we know both Kane & Finger were Fairbanks fans:

Jerry Siegel: "I loved The Mark of Zorro, and I'm sure that had some influence on me." ..."When writing the script, I had Douglass Fairbanks very much in mind in the athletic stunts that he did too, so the influence of Douglass Fairbanks was not only in the art but in the visual action."

Joe Shuster - "I was a great fan of Douglas Fairbanks, and so was Jerry and I tried to use his stance, the way Douglass Fairbanks looked, ...with his hands on his hips, in Robin Hood and Mark of Zorro, in all those he had those marvelous attitude..." " [His costume] was inspired by the costume pictures that Fairbanks did: they greatly influenced us. He did The Mark of Zorro, and Robin Hood, and a marvelous one called The Black Pirate - Fairbanks would swing on ropes very much like Superman flying... the feeling of action as he was flying or jumping or leaping - a flowing cape would give it movement.

Bill Finger - "Batman was a combination of Douglas Fairbanks [who played Zorro] and Sherlock Holmes."

Bob Kane -"Zorro’s use of a mask to conceal his identity as Don Diego gave me the idea of giving Batman a secret identity…Bruce Wayne would be a man of means who put on a façade of being effete. Zorro rode a black horse called Tornado and would enter a cave and exit from a grandfather clock in the living room. The bat-cave was inspired by this cave in Zorro. I didn't want Batman to be a Superhero with superpowers…So I made Batman an ordinary human being; he is just an athlete who has the physical prowess of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., who was my all-time favorite hero in the movies.”

[Güicho]

Also the last panel leads through an old clock that finally opens into the mansion.

Foreshadowing , as pointed out what finally shows up in the Batman serial.




Bob Kane also had an appearance in the first chapter of the serial, as a newsboy.

[Güicho]

Another movie that anticipates the cave of the 1942 movie serial is:

1937 Zorro Rides again: Not only has the cave lair, but also as modern descendants of Zorro, Vega and Reinaldo (descendant of Bernardo) also ride a black coop into the big City, where a "modern" Zorro swings from rooftops, and fights mobsters with tommyguns etc. before Batman's 1939 comic debut.

1937 Zorro Rides again

[Güicho]

Although it came later Zorro's Black Whip, another Zorro legacy character, not only the first female Zorro, but one of the first female Superhero films.
Introduced the now popular visual exit through a waterfall motif.

1944 Zorro's Black Whip.


Revisited in Mask of Zorro


...played to absolute sensational effect in Begins