July 23rd, conveniently a Wednesday and Preview Night of SDCC, is now Batman Day according to DC Comics. On that day, DC will be giving away a free special edition comic, and that retailers will be given a special “Batman Timeline” poster that shows how the character has progressed in pop-culture since his original introduction up through today.
So how are they celebrating? Not only is DC putting out a free copy of “Detective Comics” #27, featuring Batman’s first ever appearance in addition to stories by Brad Meltzer, Bryan Hitch, Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy, but they’ve given Batman’s original artist and co-creator Bill Finger cover credit as well. Take a look:
The cover, designed by Chip Kidd, features the “Batman” #0 cover from 2012 by Greg Capullo bursting out of the original Detective Comics #27, the first appearance of the character in 1939.
It is the first noticeable time that Bill Finger has received any form of major credit from DC for his work on Batman, as all DC books note “Batman created by Bob Kane” — something which is a fair bit of contention from Finger’s family. There’s actually an entire book covering the issue, if you’re so inclined, but the soundbite version is that Kane has largely received sole credit for the creation of Batman, with Kane only giving credit to Finger after Finger’s death.
You may also recall that recently at WonderCon 2014, the assertion was made that DC was “all good” with Finger and his family, something that was quickly rebuked by Bill Finger’s granddaughter.
Given that all the writers and artists contributing to the issue have, Bill Finger receiving cover credit isn’t ostensibly surprising in this situation. However, you could perhaps optimistically see this as a step in the right direction of Finger receiving more credit for his work, even if DC’s “Batman created by…” blurb doesn’t change anytime soon.
Other promotional items will include Batman capes, bookmarks and masks, designed by Ryan Sook to echo four of Batman’s most popular incarnations: his original appearance, “Batman ’66,” “The Dark Knight Returns” and the New 52 Batman.
