Happy Bill Finger News!

DC Comics has announced that they've reached some sort of agreement or awareness or deal with the Bob Kane estate or — well, I don't know what it is — so that "Bill Finger will be receiving credit in the Warner Bros. television series Gotham beginning later this season, and in the forthcoming motion picture Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."

This is a very good thing and I don't know anything more about it than what's in the press release. I'm guessing though that it isn't a deal with the Kane estate, which has always insisted that as per past agreements, Bob Kane be credited as the sole creator of Batman. Past DC execs have tried and failed to amend that because even Kane himself, not long before he died, admitted it was not right. I'm going to assume that DC has decided that they can give Finger some sort of credit that won't violate the Kane deal, and I hope they're also paying some kind of significant money to Finger's grandaughter, Athena.

Without getting too deep into this again, I occasionally mount a slight defense of what Mr. Kane did to his partner, Mr. Finger. It may not have been right but it was not unusual in those days for one guy to sign a strip and for all others who contributed — even if they did substantially more than the guy who got sole credit — to remain largely anonymous. Finger in his lifetime did loads of comic book work unconnected to Batman and Kane, and didn't get his name on 98% of that, either.

The credit, whenever it appears, should say "Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger." Since the press release doesn't promise that, I assume that's not what's happening here…but even partial credit in some areas is way more than no credit in any areas so some justice has been done. Some justice, as we all know, is a whole lot better than no justice.

We will continue to award the Bill Finger Award each year at Comic-Con International to writers who have received insufficient credit and/or rewards for their work…and some of us will continue to lament that Bob Kane did not put things right before he died. Batman would have.