In a quiet home in College Park, with comic book memorabilia on the walls and shelves, sits the answer to a mystery that persisted for more than 70 years. She’s a blonde math teacher, 43 years old, who enjoys drawing and painting. But she spent much of her life as deposed royalty, a missing Anastasia, barely even a rumor in a fight for one of the most recognizable symbols ever to shine in the night.
Finger is the granddaughter of Batman writer and co-creator, Bill Finger.
(Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
“Hi, I’m Athena Finger,” she says, “the granddaughter of the co-creator of Batman, Bill Finger.”
The Background
Everyone knows Batman, who turns 80 this year. Most comic book fans are familiar with the name Bob Kane, listed as the sole creator of the Caped Crusader, dating back to the character’s premiere in 1939. But the story most people didn’t know was the influence of the Denver native who wrote those early comics.
“Kane, in response to the Superman character, wanted to make a superhero also, and the money the Superman boys were making,” said Finger.
Finger is the granddaughter of Batman writer and co-creator, Bill Finger.
(Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
So Kane drew a sketch: A blonde man in a red jumpsuit with black trunks, a small domino mask and stiff black wings jutting out from his back. He called his character The Bat-Man. He had no secret identity, no enemies, no backstory.
Milton “Bill” Finger was a longtime collaborator with Kane on other comic strips. Kane took the sketch to him and asked for his ideas. “Bill was looking at the sketches and didn’t really see that the sketch fit the name,” said Finger.
Bill added a cowl that covered the character’s face and changed the red suit to a gray one, adding the Bat symbol. He turned the wings into a scalloped cape. Then he created the name Bruce Wayne.
Later, Bill would add the utility belt, Robin, Commissioner Gordon, The Riddler, The Penguin, Catwoman and many others. He came up with the name of the hero’s city: Gotham.
“He got that by looking in the phone book and seeing Gotham Jewelers,” said Finger.
And Bill wrote the story of a boy watching his parents gunned down in a crime-ridden alley after leaving the theater and vowing to fight crime for the rest of his life.
“Unfortunately, it was an industry norm where most artists … got the byline,” said Athena.
Kane worked directly with DC Comics, which was National Comics at the time. As Bill was a contracted writer for Kane, Kane was under no obligation to add Bill’s name to the credits. Bill was paid a standard page rate for his writing, but he received no portion of the copyright on the character.
Bill went continued being influential in comic books. He was also the co-creator of the original Green Lantern character, Alan Scott, with artist Martin Nodell, for which he was given credit.
Yet for the rest of Bill’s life, Kane insisted that he not receive credit for any hand in Batman’s creation, referring to him only as a writer who scripted Kane’s ideas.
Only once did Bill get to see his name associated with his most famous creation, when he penned a script for the TV show starring Adam West in 1966. Bill was found dead in his apartment in 1974 with barely a dime to his name.
Kane had acknowledged Bill in his 1989 biography “Batman and Me,” saying, “Now that my long-time friend and collaborator is gone, I must admit that Bill never received the fame and recognition he deserved.”
This, however, was not enough to move DC to change the credit.
The missing heiress
Athena was always aware of her lineage, even if the world wasn’t.
“I don’t remember a time that I didn’t know,” she said of her grandfather’s contributions. She was born two years after Bill died. Her father, Fred Finger, was Bill’s only son. “My dad was super proud of his father.”
Yet the world had yet to recognize her granddad. “In the third grade, we had to write our own little autobiography,” said Athena. “And you were supposed to include information on your grandparents.” She told the class of her connection to the Dark Knight. “And they were, like, ‘How can you say that? If that’s true, why aren’t you living in Hollywood?’ “
Without proof of what she knew, Athena started omitting who her grandfather was. “I kind of shied away from talking about it because of those experiences,” she said.
Finger is the granddaughter of Batman writer and co-creator, Bill Finger.
(Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
The slight also frustrated Athena’s father. “He was heartbroken that his dad didn’t get the recognition and notoriety that he should,” she said. Fred made one unsuccessful attempt to get Bill’s name in the credits when Tim Burton’s “Batman” came out in 1989. “He was really upset when the ’89 movie came out and they weren’t willing to put [Bill’s] name up there. Listening to Bob Kane on ’60 Minutes,’ it was just devastating.”
Fred died in 1992, leaving Athena as the only heir and one of the few people outside of comic book insiders who knew the truth about Bill. “DC knew who I was because they sent me things after my father’s death,” she said.
Still it wasn’t enough to convince her to go public with her story. “I wouldn’t talk about Bill after my father passed away,” she said. “It brought up a lot of emotions.”
Things changed in the mid-2000s when Athena got a call out of the blue. “Once I got approached by Marc Tyler Nobleman about his research is when I started to realize there were people who actually knew who [Bill] was,” she said.
An author of children’s books, Nobleman had started a quest to see Bill’s name added to Batman’s credits. Legally, to change a credit, he needed an heir to make the challenge.
Athena didn’t immediately jump on board, having seen what the frustration that her father had gone through. But she did learn that Bill’s name wasn’t quite the secret she had imagined it to be. “There were a lot of fans who actually knew who he was,” she said. “I didn’t grow up reading comics. I wasn’t part of that culture. So I was, like, ‘Wow, people really know the history and understand what he did.”
But internal and external pressure began to mount on Athena to take action. “I had to go through this whole process of dealing with all of that, that I never really dealt with, and then also making it a positive because it was so negative for so long,” she said. “I was teaching at the time. I couldn’t even go into the classroom without seeing Batman this or Batman that.”
Nobleman made Athena’s existence a public revelation, which made DC take notice. “The big thing was when I was invited out to the office for DC in 2008,” she said. She was also invited to the premiere of “The Dark Knight” starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. “[DC president Paul Levitz] said, ‘You’re part of the DC family now.’
“With that momentum, I was able to start thinking about the next step,” she said.
Nobleman’s book, “Bill the Boy Wonder,” was released in 2012, the same year as “The Dark Knight Rises.” But rather than putting Bill’s name on the screen, Athena got a letter. “DC wanted me to sign off and give up my rights,” she said.
To date, Batman’s movies alone have grossed more than $2 billion for DC and its parent company Warner Bros. That’s not taking into consideration comics and merchandise. In an interview, Kane had described his ownership of Batman’s copyright as only “a piece of the pie.”
Athena’s half-sister was an attorney who helped “get our foot in the door,” Athena said. Then she hired another attorney, and after long negotiations, “Boom, it was done.”
In 2015, Bill Finger received his first credit on a Batman comic book as co-creator. His name was added that year to the second season of the TV show “Gotham.” His name appeared for the first time on the big screen in 2016’s “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.”
Athena is now a fixture at conventions, discussing the history of her grandfather and her family’s saga. At San Diego Comic Con, one of the largest annual conventions in the world, she hands out the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing.
Finger is the granddaughter of Batman writer and co-creator, Bill Finger.
(Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
She appeared in the 2017 documentary “Batman & Bill” about Nobleman’s research. Her business card reads, “Heiress to the Dark Knight.”
The comic book industry is rife with people losing out on their creations. “Unfortunately, the policies on how to deal with these super creative people was not supportive in any way,” said Finger.
“It really was a team. We can’t say that [Kane] didn’t do anything; he came up with the initial idea. They worked together. They should have both gotten credit.”
