Batman is one of the most popular and important characters created for comic books. In the entire pantheon of comic-book superheroes, only Superman and Spider-Man rival him in significance. Among the handful of comic-book characters who have transcended the market limitations of the comic-book medium, Batman has truly become an American cultural icon and an international marketing industry in and of himself.

Batman was born out of DC editor Vincent Sullivan's desire to create a costumed character to exploit the recent success of DC's first superhero, Superman. Taking inspiration from various Hollywood adventure, horror, and gangster movies, cartoonist Bob Kane prepared a design for a masked crime-fighter in the costume of a bat in 1939. He then consulted with writer Bill Finger, who contributed to the vigilante concept ideas derived from pulp magazines. The resulting character was thus visually and thematically a synthesis of the most lurid and bizarre...