10 Things DC Comics Want You To Forget About Batman

4. His Creator's A Jerk

One of the biggest controversies in DC Comics is that Bob Kane, the only credited creator of Batman, is kind of a terrible person. For one thing, Kane isn't the only guy involved in Batman's creation - in fact, he barely did anything, and it was writer Bill Finger who came up with basically everything that made the character so enduring - but he ensured that everybody thought he was. Kane ratted on Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who were looking to receive a little more compensation for their world-famous invention than the few measly bucks they got at the time, and was rewarded with sole credit over Batman for the rest of time. To be fair to DC, the reason they keep this revelation on the down-low is more from embarrassment than anything more sinister. They would love to credit (and compensate) Bill Finger, but they're in a tricky legal position, having signed some totally binding papers with Kane years ago. You can see why they wouldn't want Kane brought up too often, either, since he's so famously awful. Besides the whole Batman business, Bob Kane's heinousness is best summated by a story where he revealed to a friend that, whilst getting other people to draw his comics for years, he had instead turned his artistic skills to crummy, kitschy clown paintings he was sure would take the world by storm. A few weeks later, said friend heard Kane was being sued by one of his ghost artists...for taking credit for a bunch of clown paintings. Whatever, it's dealt with now in DC's eyes!