9 Mind Blowing "What If?" Scenarios That Almost Changed Comics Forever

8. Bill Finger Doesn't Change Bob Kane's Batman Concept

Bill Finger
Charlesbridge

Although Bill Finger has finally started to get his name on Batman stuff again, it's come 75 years too late. The writer, who was very much the unsung hero of DC's heyday, created pretty much everything we know and love about the character today, right down to the iconic Batsuit itself.

He came up with the name, the city, the villains (along with Jerry Robinson), the motif - all of it. We have the Batman we have today because of Bill Finger, and yet his onetime collaborator (some would say exploiter) Bob Kane raked in all the plaudits for a staggeringly long amount of time. When Finger died in 1974 at the age of 59, the world didn't know who he was. Kane waited literal years to acknowledge his involvement in creating the world's most popular superhero.

And yet, somewhere, out there, there exists a reality where Finger never got involved with that creative process. Batman would've sported a red and black suit with mechanical wings, Bruce Wayne wouldn't exist (neither would most of his villains), and there's every chance that he wouldn't become a popular superhero either, so integral was Finger to the character's success.

For more on Bill Finger, be sure to watch Batman & Bill, a documentary based on Marc Tyler Nobleman's book, Bill the Boy Wonder.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.