DC to Give Bill Finger Official Credit on "Batman v Superman" and "Gotham"

[CBR News]

The late writer will be officially recognized in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and "Gotham" for his contributions in creating the Bat-mythos.


Full article here.

[TheNewFiftyForum]

They certainly took their sweet time, but well done none the less!

[JBatmanFan05]

Anytime Bob gets a credit, Bill does as well, it's that simple.

Good this happening, but you wonder why it took so long.

I've never liked what I read about Bob Kane, so I have a foremost affinity for Bill.

[Keanu]

Wow, didn't know the lack of Finger's credits were due to legal restrictions.

BOUT DAM TAHHM.

[Sans Simian]

About damn time.

[Username taken]

Very happy to hear this.

[ABH]

Yeah, this is great -- anywhere Finger can get Bat-credit, he should.

Still hoping that one day he'll be credited on the actual comics.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Always worth a reminder that the minor contributions of Bill Finger (who died poor and unrecognized in 1974) to the mythos include the name (both Bruce Wayne and possibly the title of Batman itself, with rumors that Kane's original title was "Bird-Man", though that's less substantiated as far as I can tell), the costume, the origin, that he's a non-powered crimefighter who is a detective, the Batmobile, Gotham City, Commissioner Gordon, Robin, Joker, Catwoman, Two-Face, Scarecrow and a few other odds and ends, as well as creating Green Lantern, and writing stories including both the first full-length telling of Superman's origin, and Superman himself encountering Kryptonite for the first time and actually learning about Krypton. Bob Kane meanwhile, whose most significant contribution to Batman was a sketch of a blonde guy in a red suit with glider wings, referred to Finger as "my good crony" while claiming for decades that claims by Finger of being Batman's co-creator were "hallucinations of grandeur", actively helped screw over Siegel and Shuster to score points with DC so he could renegotiate his Batman contract in his favor (complete with lying about his age to claim that the original contract was invalid, having supposedly been written when he was a minor), and is generally known in stories among those who knew him as being an almost comically terrible human being, went with this as his gravestone:



God, it seems, was a prestigious enough co-creator for Kane to fess up that someone else was involved in the process. So I'm pretty happy to see even a start in getting Finger recognition, even if it's not the universal "Batman created by Bill Finger, and also Bob Kane was there too we guess" credit I long for. I think, in the end, Ty Templeton put it best.



(Though I've heard the Riddler was Kane's idea, and I will definitely give him a lot of credit if that's true, because the Riddler is great)

[TheDarkKnightReturns]

Finally people justice.

[Kevin T Brown]

Only a few decades late.

[Punisher007]

Yeah, too bad that he isn't around to see (whereas Bob Kane got to mask in it for years). Still, good on them for finally getting around to it. I've said this before and I'll say it again, I don't really care if Bob Kane gets credited. I just hate that he keeps getting SOLE credit, because that's some grade-A BS. I wonder what's changed, did the Kane family finally cave a little or something?

[Drew Melbourne]

Note that they're not specifying HOW they credit him. For years the obstacleas been the contract with Bob Kane that requires them to list him as the sole creator of BATMAN. I expect Finger's credit to be something vaguer like "and inspired by the comic books of Bill Finger."

It'd be great if they could just say "created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane" though.

[Batman Begins 2005]

Better late than never.

[ChaoticScholar]

Anytime Bob gets a credit, Bill does as well, it's that simple.

Good this happening, but you wonder why it took so long.

I've never liked what I read about Bob Kane, so I have a foremost affinity for Bill.

Same here, every oldtimer I read about sorta tolerated Kane at best.

[nightw1ng]

Note that they're not specifying HOW they credit him. For years the obstacleas been the contract with Bob Kane that requires them to list him as the sole creator of BATMAN. I expect Finger's credit to be something vaguer like "and inspired by the comic books of Bill Finger."

It'd be great if they could just say "created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane" though.

I'm thinking you're right. The Kane estate has been adamant about blocking Bill Finger from receiving co-creator credit, so we probably won't see a "Batman created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger". Considering all the evidence out there against Bob Kane in favor of Bill Finger, it's mind-boggling how DC is still not able to throw out Kane's old contract.