Artist Bob Kane is best known for his creation of The Batman, one of the twentieth century's greatest mythic heroes. Inspired by the success of Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster's Superman, Kane and his writer/partner Bill Finger developed a costumed crimefighter who struck a responsive chord in the American psyche. Using dark, grim images developed in part from 30s detective films, they created a hero whose realm was the dark urban underbelly of America.

Kane himself was born in the midst of urban America shortly after World War I. "I lived in a tough East Bronx neighborhood--Freeman Street and Westchester Avenue," Kane writes in Batman and Me. "These communities were melting pots composed of different ethnic groups and often one nationality would be pitted against another. In order to survive, if one were a loner like myself, he would have to join his neighborhood gang for protection...