Batman & Bill Page #10

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fights are on the page.

They don't bring it into

the real world or anything.

But the fights that

they do get involved in,

it's not fisticuffs,

it's battles for what is right.

And how could they not?

Because the characters

they read about

all the time do the same thing.

Those are your role

models on the page.

So while Bill

didn't train people

to fight for him

after he was dead,

you have a bunch

of people who read

and were influenced by

the work of Bill Finger,

like this is what's right,

this is what's just.

So that's really where I

got a lot of pressure from,

was from the fans.

"Why isn't this happening?

Why isn't his name attached?

What's happening?

Why... what, what, what?

Tell me, tell me, tell me.

How, how, how?

Do, do, do."

And so I knew that

something was going

to come out of it.

In 2014, WonderCon was

held in Anaheim, California,

and there was this Batman panel.

And an audience member

gets up to the microphone

and asks this question about,

"Will Bill Finger get credit?"

And there's just

silence up there.

One member of the

panel says, "Crickets."

And a person working for DC,

Larry Ganem,

gets up and he says that,

"We're all good with

Finger and his family."

And that was when, "Okay,

we've got to reply to this."

Athena and I put

the statement together that,

"No, things are not all good

with the Finger family."

Timing is everything.

75th anniversary

of Batman's coming up,

it was the hundred

year anniversary

of my grandfather's birth,

it was the 25th

anniversary of the '89 movie.

Like all this stuff was

coming together in 2014.

I called Athena

and we had a huge cry

over Fred being gone.

And then we discussed it.

Maybe it's time that Bill Finger

got the recognition he deserved.

And that's when

it became a fight.

I felt that the

timing was right.

I knew it was

either now or never.

And I think I

called my sister first.

We have different fathers,

she's older than I am.

She felt like it was

really a burden in her life

to have inherited this

controversy, basically.

Knowing that I was the

only one that could do it

was a huge burden.

So it really... I wanted

to get it finished

knowing that I

only had one chance.

Being an attorney,

I... I was able

to assess what resources

we had and didn't have.

So she contacted me

because she was seeking

a copyright attorney to help her

with the situation.

The copyright law says

that when two people

create parts of something

that are intended to be merged

into an inseparable work,

then it's a joint work

and each of them

is a co-owner.

So coming into this, one of

the most commonly cited facts

of Batman lore is that Bob Kane

negotiated a contract

in which he would be

the sole creator

in perpetuity of Batman,

he would be the only

name listed as creator.

The only thing I've always

gotten from the people

that I have talked to at DC is,

"We know what

your grandfather did,

we wish we could

put his name on it,

but we can't because of

the contracts that we have."

This infamous Bob Kane contract

has never been

publicly disclosed,

as expected.

I mean, these are big

characters, big companies,

they have no obligation so share

all of their contents

of their vault.

If any company had an agreement

that clearly spelled

out their rights

and that shut down

a copyright claim,

it seems to me that

they would produce that.

I don't know why you wouldn't.

It might be hearsay,

it might be a myth

that DC Comics is perpetuating

because it helps them.

Or it might be real

and the original source was Bob.

That is another

interesting thing

about the copyright law

that was in play here.

Somebody is simply claiming

that they are the sole

author when they're not,

that's not really...

That doesn't really do it.

So then you look at what

did Bill Finger contribute?

Did that make him a joint author

or joint owner of the work?

Marc Tyler Nobleman

sort of taking this case on,

delving into the research,

and then, of course, Bob Kane,

you know, eventually

kind of helped

by talking about Bill's

contribution himself.

Um, that was very important.

If poor Athena,

like, had to start

with that threshold issue,

that just would have been

really, really difficult.

I mean, this is a huge

with an entire department

of, you know, attorneys.

And then there's,

you know, Athena Finger.

Sadly, for people

who are creating stories

about superheroes

who are selfless

and saving people's lives,

there's not a whole lot

of generosity going on here.

You've got creators fighting

a company over a character.

And, you know, it's a classic

David and Goliath story.

And in these cases, usually

the underdog doesn't win.

As teenagers in

Cleveland in 1933,

these two boys

signed a piece of paper

that, in effect,

sold their rights,

and they sold them for $130.

Well, they were just kids

and they were so anxious

to get published,

so anxious for recognition,

that they signed away

their copyright.

Superman became what Superman is

because of DC building Superman

to the industry that it is.

But still, Siegel and Shuster

deserved a lot

more than they got.

You know, they made

a couple of efforts

to get greater credit.

In their 1947 suit,

Siegel and Shuster did not

get ownership of Superman.

They did get $94,000 more,

but National Periodical

then owned Superman and Superboy

and fired Siegel and Shuster.

The creators of Superman

first sued over credit in 1947.

They were still working

for the company at the time.

So they lost the lawsuit,

they lost their jobs,

and the company

that became DC Comics

took their name off Superman.

In 1963, Siegel and Shuster

started another suit,

this one to win

back the copyright

when it came up

for renewal in 1966.

The court finding,

"Superman belongs to

National Periodical."

Long story short

is Superman has been

the subject of litigation

almost from the beginning,

and it's been going on

for decades at this point.

And most of the major

players are gone,

so it's passed on to

the second generation.

When you're dealing

with something so big,

the stakes are

big on either side

of a challenge, of a contest.

And, you know,

the Superman situation

would not have instilled

a lot of confidence

that you can win.

To push this type

of a claim further,

you have to have the means

and, frankly,

the money to do it.

And no single person, really,

even if you had

multi-millions in the bank,

would want to go

through that risk.

We would have been

possibly investing

five to ten years of our life

entering into a litigation

against a multi-national

corporation.

Frankly, it was my strategy

to not go down that road,

but to, of course, make

it appear that we would.

We're going back so far in time.

If we're going to assume

that all of these things

that people said in

the press were true

about Bill Finger and

about his contribution

and the way it went down,

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