Without Bill Finger, Batman would have never been Batman. Finger died broke and unknown.

It was only after his death that Bill Finger, who has given us the iconic Batman as we've come to know him, was recognized for his hugely influential contribution. How could that happen?

Since Bill Finger’s world had been comic books, you might wonder why I bring him up as part of the screenwriting history series. The answer is simple: He actually did write a few scripts - but that’s not the reason I’m focusing on him. If you check IMDB, you see that he has a whopping 139 listings as a writer - and most of that is Batman related. How is that possible, you ask? And how is it possible that the man who was instrumental in giving us much of what we know of the world of Batman, died broke and unknown?

The short answer is: Bob Kane. For the longest time, Kane was universally known as the sole creator of Batman. His name and that of the Batman were practically synonymous. Every kid knew it - Bob Kane was the genius who came up with the Batman … today we know that he did not. While it can be argued that he was the man who brought all the elements together, who pitched and sold and marketed - he was far from alone in doing the work. In fact, he did his very best to always hide his collaborators from his publishers.

Bill Finger had a story mind. He grew up in the Bronx, son to Jewish parents who had lost their tailor shop during the depression. He was a voracious reader - and worked as a shoe salesman. He graduated from high school in 1933 - the same school Bob Kane attended. Kane was already working in the comic book field. When he met Finger at the party, the two hit it off and Kane suggested that they should work together. Their first collaboration, Rusty and his Pals, was published in 1938 and Finger noticed that his name appeared nowhere in the comic.

It didn’t matter at the time. Bill had little to no money and, after all, Kane paid him for his work. Then Superman happened!

It was that same year, 1938, and suddenly comic books were big business. Kane was quick to jump to action and promised his publishers to deliver a superhero that was even better than Superman. In comes Bill Finger again. Kane asked Finger to join him, to brainstorm the idea of this next biggest superhero. He had an idea for a hero that looked colorful, essentially Flash Gordon with batwings.

Here’s what Bill Finger’s creativity brought to the table: Kane wanted it colorful (like Superman), Finger convinced him that the superhero look had to be dark. It was also his idea that he should be like a super sleuth - a cross between Sherlock Holmes, the Phantom, the Shadow and Zorro. Finger also suggested the secret identity, came up with the famous backstory of the parents’ death, and with the name of Bruce Wayne, too. The cowl and cape? Finger’s idea. The Joker? Finger’s idea. Robin and his trapeze artist family’s backstory? Yeah, you guessed it, Finger’s idea. The Batmobile? The Batcave? Catwoman? Batman’s nickname the ‘Dark Knight’? Even the very name of Gotham City? Finger’s ideas!

All things considered, Finger was content, even happy. Writing for comic books paid him decent wages, and it was a heck of a lot more satisfying than being a shoe salesman. In this time he co-created and wrote stories also for the Green Lantern and Wildcat - and he would go on to write over one hundred Batman stories. So - even with Bob Kane essentially paying him as a ghostwriter - things might have been okay … but life as a writer can be stressful and Finger was getting himself a reputation for missing deadlines.

World War II came and went, and the comic book world had its own ups and downs (like the Superman-Siegel-Shuster ownership lawsuit, and the vilification of comic books by Fredric Wertham) - but then there was the new medium of television. Finger wrote and co-wrote scripts - he even wrote two episodes of the live-action Batman series. It was the first time that his name appeared in connection with Batman. Imagine that - over the course of his life he apparently wrote something like 1’500 Batman stories - among them all of those pivotal early ones.

Now, you might wonder how Bill Finger finally - if long after his death - received the recognition he so clearly deserved. Enter Marc Nobleman. He’s a writer who, back in 2006, began researching Bill Finger. In all the past decades Bob Kane had remained omnipresent as ‘the man who created Batman’ - but since the mid-sixties rumors about Bill Finger’s involvement had been making the rounds at comic book conferences. Nobleman began to dig, and dig deep.

The writer found out about Finger’s personal life, about two marriages that didn’t work out and about a son, named Fred, from the first marriage. That son, Fred, had not been in touch with his father. The gay man had chosen a different life and lived that life in Oregon. In 1974, Finger died of a heart attack, alone in his apartment. When Fred showed up to pick up his father’s things, he saw that nothing much was left. He even had to sell his beloved comic book collection to make ends meet.

Nobleman would spend a decade with his research. He spoke to any- and everyone he could. Those who had collaborated with Finger, and he also found Finger’s second wife (the first had passed away). Finger’s son Fred had died of Aids in 1992 and that seemed to be the end of it all. Nobleman had discovered a great deal that would make it impossible for DC Comics to deny him his recognition - even if long after his death.

To Nobleman’s surprise, the story came with another twist. He discovered that Fred had briefly been married and had a daughter named Athena. Nobleman tracked her down, shared all of his research, and compelled her to officially claim what was rightfully Bill Finger’s. In 2015, DC Entertainment decided to finally and officially recognize Finger.

Nobleman published ‘Bill the Boy Wonder’ in 2012, and Hulu published a documentary film, ‘Batman & Bill,’ about Bill Finger and Nobleman’s research in 2017.

Countless stories within a story within a story … Nobleman’s decade-long effort is a fairly epic tale in itself. So is the - for far too long - un-storied life of Bill Finger. And then yes, that man, that man who died alone, poor and unrecognized, that man who created a ridiculous number of Batman stories in his time, is, in large part, responsible for every iteration of the Batman Universe ever since. The games, the comics, the animated shows, the films from Burton to Nolan … all of everything that’s given so much joy to literally billions over the years … that man, yeah, that man.

PS: For a long, long time, Bob Kane denied everything. In the late eighties he finally acknowledged Finger as a ‘contributing force’ - it was much too little, and much too late. It’s no consolation to Finger, but today, at least, if you see Batman flicker across any screen, you will always see" “Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger.”