21 Neil Gaiman’s Timothy Hunter Pre-Harry
In 1990, English writer Neil Gaiman introduced Timothy Hunter in DC’s “The Books of Magic,” a boy who wears glasses and loses his mother when he is young. He then learns he is destined to become a powerful wizard, which yanks him out of a normal life and into a much bigger magical world. He even keeps a pet owl. These details later caused people to do double-takes when “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was released seven years later.
22 Batman’s Counterphobic Bat Symbol
Batman’s fascination with bats fits a psychological response called a counterphobic attitude, where a person deals with fear by moving toward it instead of avoiding it. In this pattern, someone actively seeks out the very thing that frightens them, trying to master the anxiety and come out stronger. Framed that way, Batman does not just pick bats for style; he turns a fear trigger into a symbol he controls.
23 Antaeus Assassination Triggered 10,000 Deaths
In a 1999 DC comic, a new Justice League recruit named Antaeus decided the League’s rules moved too slowly, so he went and assassinated a Middle Eastern dictator written as a clear Saddam Hussein analogue. Instead of ending the suffering, the murder cracked open a power vacuum, and DC’s own recap says 10,000 people died in the chaos that followed. Crushed by what he set loose, Antaeus tore into his own cybernetics until he triggered his internal power source and killed himself.
24 Conrad Veidt Inspired Joker Grin
The Joker’s look traces back to “The Man Who Laughs” (1928), where Conrad Veidt plays a man grotesquely disfigured with a permanent grin. That film adapts Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel of the same name, which is why people point to it as a key visual ancestor for Batman’s Joker. Count it out, and that “inspiration chain” reaches back 157 years as of 2026.
25 Editors Spared Joker After Debut
After the Joker debuted in “Batman” #1 (1940), DC originally planned to kill him off in his second appearance. Editors quickly backed out of that ending, keeping him alive instead of closing the book on him. That last-second reversal let the Joker stick around long enough to become Batman’s signature enemy and a lasting pop-culture icon.
26 Nubia, Wonder Woman’s Black Twin
Wonder Woman has a black sister named Nubia, and early DC lore says Queen Hippolyta sculpted twin daughters from clay, with Nubia shaped from darker clay just moments before Diana. Nubia debuted in “Wonder Woman” #204 (January 1973) as Diana’s twin.
27 Batmobile Seatbelts, National Safety Council
In the 1960s “Batman” TV series, the show started putting seatbelts in the Batmobile after a complaint from the National Safety Council. Thereafter, Batman and Robin would visibly buckle up on camera before taking off to set a good example.
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28 Mattel Sold Empty Invisible Jet
Mattel actually sold Wonder Woman’s “Invisible Jet” as a real collectible after it started as an April Fool’s gag. The “toy” was basically an empty Hot Wheels-style package, because the whole joke was that the jet was invisible, so there was nothing inside. Enough fans asked for it that Mattel turned the prank into a product sold as a Comic-Con item, which made the empty package itself the punchline collectors paid for.
29 Jim Shooter Went Pro at 14
In 1963, a 13-year-old boy named Jim Shooter wrote comics at home and mailed his scripts to DC Comics, hoping someone would take him seriously. DC’s editor Mort Weisinger liked what he saw and quickly commissioned Shooter to write Superman stories. By 14, Shooter held a regular writing spot at DC, and he used the paycheck to help support his struggling parents.
30 Superman’s Amnesia Kisses and Wall-Vision
Superman once had some truly odd “powers,” including amnesia kisses that could wipe someone’s memory. DC even granted him a shapeshifting face, but later removed this ability as it seemed more characteristic of a villain than a hero. At one point, he also utilized “wall-rebuilding” vision, essentially repairing damaged structures with his eyes, akin to a living construction crew.
RE: Fact #46 (Gotham High Put Bruce in Homeroom) – Instead, we got Clone High, and it didn’t disappoint.
Actually, we got Batman Beyond instead. I’m still waiting for them to make a movie based on that version, it would be way better than rehashing the same Batman origin story every eight years.
RE: Fact #3 (Adam West Orgy Character Act) – It’s hard to imagine someone thinking their sex party would be better if they just kicked out Adam West.
RE: Fact #27 (Batmobile Seatbelts, National Safety Council) – Buckling up doesn’t just improve your own survival odds, it keeps you from becoming a projectile that could hurt someone else.
RE: Fact #13 (Batgirl’s $90M Movie Write-Off) – If Warner Bros hadn’t cancelled Batgirl, they might have had to shut down the whole DCEU. Wouldn’t that be terrible?
If DC keeps getting worse, Disney will probably just buy them out and fold them into the Marvel multiverse.
As a lifelong comic nerd, I keep watching DCEU movies thinking they can’t possibly get worse than the last one. I’m always wrong.
RE: Fact #6 (Early Superman Slum-Wrecker Vigilante) – I love that moment in the Kingdom Come comic where he attacks the UN and someone in the crowd shouts, “he welded the doors shut with his eyes! We can’t get out!” When Superman decides to stop holding back and just take everyone out, it’s pretty wild.
RE: Fact #26 (Nubia, Wonder Woman’s Black Twin) – So she was actually made of clay? I always thought that was just a myth her mother fed her as a kid, and I assumed her parents were just her mom and Zeus.
It depends on which run you’re looking at. The original creators, Marston, his wife, and Olive Byrne, based her on their feminist belief that the world’s problems stemmed from a male-dominated society. They made her out of clay so she wouldn’t have a father to complicate their vision of a female-led society. All the Amazons were supposed to be just as capable as her; she was just the one chosen to handle the world of men. Later, in the Silver Age, she got divine blessings, but the clay origin stayed. Years later, writers decided that was too cheesy and retconned it so Zeus was her dad. That’s the standard now, though Wonder Girl’s origin history is a total mess.
RE: Fact #47 (Justice Society Made Wonder Woman Secretary) – Apparently, that happened because her creator wanted to be the only one writing her stories. It was sexism fueled by creator meddling.
RE: Fact #19 (Bill Willingham Declared Fables Public Domain) – > In a press release, Willingham vented his grief about the way the property was being handled, against his wishes. Including trying to have a movie made, ret-conning lore, changing characters, and more. Something that’s an outrage to any creator.
I can totally see some clueless executive wanting to change a character’s backstory, forcing the writer to explain that the whole point of the series is just fairy tale characters living in New York.
RE: Fact #42 (Catwoman Disappeared for Comics Code Era) – Most of Batman’s recurring villains, aside from the Joker, didn’t show up much during that time. Under editor Jack Schiff, the Batman comics pivoted away from classic rogues like Penguin, Clayface, or Catwoman in favor of generic criminals, weird sci-fi, time travel, and gimmicky stories. It wasn’t just Catwoman being singled out as a female villain; most of the gallery was benched through the fifties and early sixties until an editorial shift in 1964 brought them back.
You can’t really blame them, given how dated those original portrayals of the villains were back then.
RE: Fact #21 (Neil Gaiman’s Timothy Hunter Pre-Harry) – losing a parent at a young age is practically a job requirement for becoming a superhero.
Tim did not lose his father young, he did not go to a magic school, and I am pretty sure his owl disappears early on anyway. More importantly, Tim becomes an incredibly powerful magic user, whereas Harry is a mediocre student who just has a mystical link to the villain.
RE: Fact #32 (Fleischer Cartoons Gave Superman Flight) – “Faster than a speeding bullet. Stronger than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!”
“Thank you for saving me.” “All in a day’s work, noble citizen.” *Leaps away* “Who was that, Mommy?” “Not sure, son. I think that was some kind of Frogman.”
They were still using that tag line when I was growing up in the 70s, and since Superman could clearly fly, the “leap tall buildings” part always seemed weird. I’ve always wondered about that until I saw this posted.
RE: Fact #14 (Whitney Ellsworth Brokered Black Bat Deal) – In Sweden, Batman is called Läderlappen, which means “Leather Flap.” Meanwhile, Superman is Stålmannen.
RE: Fact #19 (Bill Willingham Declared Fables Public Domain) – I did not know that. That means the world-building could become a massive, shared canonical base for fairy tale lore. That is really cool.
RE: Fact #32 (Fleischer Cartoons Gave Superman Flight) – For those who think he’s just jumping and it only looks like flying because of the gravity difference between Krypton and Earth: he’s shown countless times just hovering in place. He changes direction midair, goes from a hover to full flight, and stops on a dime. You see it in the comics, the classic movies, and even in ‘Man of Steel’. It’s definitely flight, not just a big jump.
RE: Fact #45 (Wise Men of Gotham Named Gotham City) – It was most likely named that because Gotham was already a nickname for New York, and the rest of the connection was made later. Bill Finger didn’t have Google to look up villages full of fools, but he did grow up in New York.
RE: Fact #35 (Zatara Debuted in Action Comics #1) – Let me nerd out for a second. Superman is either the second or third DC superhero, which makes Zatara number three or four. Superman wasn’t the first, just the first commercial hit. The first was either Doctor Occult or Zator, who appeared in the same story. I think Doctor Occult was around 1936? He was designed a lot like Superman, but it was an obscure story. Is Zator a ‘superhero’? Kind of, in the same way Howard the Duck is.
RE: Fact #21 (Neil Gaiman’s Timothy Hunter Pre-Harry) – The similarities are clear, but no more than in many other stories of this type. As Gaiman has said, he and Rowling were likely drawing from the same inspirations. There was even a story in 2000AD that came out before both of those that was very similar to both. It is just a genre, and both writers were playing with the same tropes.
At first, I thought 2000AD was referring to the time period, and I was confused why they felt the need to specify that it was AD.
When that magazine first launched, the name sounded futuristic. Now, it sounds like it is from the distant past.
RE: Fact #5 (Stetson Kennedy Exposed Klan) – I’d argue the arrest and trial of D.C. Stephenson, the Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan, for rape and murder was a bigger factor in the Second Klan’s decline than anything else.
And don’t forget that time a student at Notre Dame gave the Indiana Klan a proper beating.
That was in the late 20s. The Klan saw a major resurgence after WWII, and their eventual decline then was largely thanks to those Superman serials.
RE: Fact #35 (Zatara Debuted in Action Comics #1) – It’s interesting that Zatara was a standalone character for so long and appeared so early, even if he wasn’t alone in getting new family members during the Silver Age. Eventually, he just fell out of favor, and since the 90s, he’s been completely overshadowed by his daughter, Zatanna.
RE: Fact #50 (Leo Nowak Accidentally Balded Lex Luthor) – I’m pretty sure in Smallville, Lex loses his hair as a kid because of the meteor showers when Superman arrived on Earth.
My friend James used to get a kick out of the idea that Lex’s superpower from the meteor rocks was just “not being a ginger anymore.”
RE: Fact #48 (Joker’s Sane Moments, 2, 000 Death Toll) –
Holy sh*t.
RE: Fact #24 (Conrad Veidt Inspired Joker Grin) – I mean, superheroes in general are inspired by a lot of older sources. You could say Green Arrow’s origins are about 820 years old. Hell, it’s pretty easy to argue that Superman is directly inspired by the Greek heroes. Shazam/Captain Marvel even name checks Solomon and Achilles and a number of other ancient figures.
RE: Fact #5 (Stetson Kennedy Exposed Klan) – Sure, and that definitely had nothing to do with the FBI secretly sabotaging their leadership. The Klan would figure out who the leaders were, then threaten their employers until they got fired. They would dig up dirt to blackmail them or just expose them. There were even anonymous calls made to their wives. Interestingly, the FBI did the same thing later to members of the Michigan and Montana Militia after the Oklahoma City bombing, which caused many to quit or flee to Canada to escape the pressure.
RE: Fact #37 (JFK Posed as Clark Kent) – What if the assassin was a supervillain who really thought he was killing Superman? Were the bullets tested for Kryptonite?
While everyone was busy debating if the mob or the Soviets were behind Oswald, they should have been looking into Lex Luthor.
RE: Fact #34 (Constantine “Visited” Delano Milligan Azzarello) – “Approached by” is a strong way to describe most of these sightings. Jamie Delano saw him while strolling near the British Museum while writing ‘Hellblazer’. He said, “The figure caught my eye and cocked his head, flicked the ash from a ciggie, and continued without stopping. For a few moments I considered following but thought better of it. I mean, what the fuck would I say? And what trouble might one get into?” Peter Milligan saw him at a party in 2009 but he vanished, and Brian Azzarello saw him in a Chicago bar but intentionally avoided him, saying, “The thing is about John is, the last thing you’d want to be is his friend.” Alan Moore is the only one who claims he actually spoke to him. Moore said he ran into him years later and Constantine whispered, “I’ll tell you the ultimate secret of magic. Any cunt could do it.”
RE: Fact #20 (Crisis Researcher Read Every DC Comic) – That was a great event. I really liked the follow-up, Zero Hour, where Hal Jordan goes crazy and tries to destroy everything. If I remember right, there were five or six issues that went in reverse order, with the covers getting progressively whiter until the end.
RE: Fact #4 (Robin Williams Joker Baited) – Using him like a pawn was a total jerk move on their part. That said, Robin’s career turned out just fine without playing the Joker. One Hour Photo always makes me wonder what his take on the character would have looked like though. Such an interesting what-if scenario.
Disney pulled the same thing with Aladdin. Robin only agreed to it if they didn’t use the Genie or his voice as the main focus for marketing, and he took the role for scale pay. That said, I think Robin’s career did pretty well without being the Joker. I agree, but it’s still fascinating to think about.
It wasn’t exactly that they wouldn’t use the Genie, it’s that he didn’t want the character to be the marketing focus. He put a clause in the contract saying the Genie couldn’t take up more than 30% of print ads or get more trailer time than the lead. Disney technically followed the rules, but if you look at the poster, the Genie takes up exactly 30% while everyone else is crammed into another 30%, making it look like he’s the star.
If you want to see Williams being hilarious but also channeling enough menace to pull off the Joker, you should check out Death to Smoochy. I can totally imagine the Joker doing that rocketship scene.
As far as I know, he was slated to play Dr. Hugo Strange in an early draft of The Dark Knight Rises. That would have been amazing.
Damn, I just realized both DC and Marvel have a Dr. Strange. I’ve been aware of both for years but somehow never put that together. Either way, Williams would have been great as Hugo.
RE: Fact #27 (Batmobile Seatbelts, National Safety Council) – If they ever bring the show back, maybe they’ll do an Earth Day special where Batman and Robin skip the Batmobile for an Uber pool or public transit.
RE: Fact #46 (Gotham High Put Bruce in Homeroom) – JL8 by Yale Stewart is a really great adaptation of DC superheroes as eight-year-olds in school.
RE: Fact #2 (DC Comics Paid DC Shoes) – It sounds like those trademark applications were handled by the movie producers.
RE: Fact #35 (Zatara Debuted in Action Comics #1) – Batman didn’t show up for another year, and Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman followed later. Marvel’s first was Namor, followed by the original Human Torch and Captain America.
Funnily enough, most Marvel characters weren’t that well-known until the MCU. The Avengers only exist because they were the characters nobody cared about, so they thought putting them on a team would help. Until the late 2000s, the average person had no clue who Marvel heroes were besides Spider-Man and the X-Men. It’s wild that ‘Iron Man’ actually worked.
RE: Fact #41 (Batman Effect Boosted Kids’ Perseverance) – I remember feeling like I could run faster and go longer whenever I wore a costume as a kid. It was the same thing when my parents dressed me up in a suit and tie, I felt just like James Bond.
RE: Fact #8 (Teen Titans Go Admits Defeat) – I used to hate Teen Titans Go, but after catching parts of it while my kids watched, it’s actually pretty funny. It’s incredibly meta, too; you can see a ‘Robin II’ urn in the background. The Cyborg music episode is excellent, basically a love letter to 70s wasteland animation like Heavy Metal.
That was amazing. It definitely felt like it was made by an old-school, burned-out pothead who I’d love to sit down with and chat about the early 90s.
There’s also a crowbar right next to that urn. For those who don’t know, Jason Todd, the second Robin, was killed by the Joker with a crowbar.
RE: Fact #40 (Flashpoint Made Thomas Wayne Batman) – At this rate, DC and Marvel are going to prove quantum theory’s many-worlds interpretation by just churning out every single possible reboot, rehash, and alternate take for every character.
RE: Fact #19 (Bill Willingham Declared Fables Public Domain) – Does this mean the comics are free to read online now? I had heard they were good but never actually checked them out.
No, it does not. He did not put the actual published comics into the public domain.
RE: Fact #33 (Kevin Smith Hailed Batman Dead End) – What makes this so special? It’s just Batman getting into a brawl with a Predator who saves him from a xenomorph. There’s no real detective work, the martial arts aren’t great, and the cinematography is pretty dark. Plus, the alien doesn’t use any of its abilities, and the Predator doesn’t use its plasma caster or nets. It just drops down for a street fight. It feels like those Star Wars fan films where people just start lightsaber dueling for no reason. Batman wins by brute force and hits a pose, which feels silly. Even the Batman games have much better combat.
In 2003, the last thing we’d seen of Batman was the Joel Schumacher disaster. Anything newer that didn’t have nipples on the suit seemed like the best thing ever back then. My 16-year-old self thought it was incredible. It hasn’t aged that well, though, especially compared to the high-quality Batman content we have now.
That shot with the cape was epic. Joker was decent too. Everything else was just okay.
RE: Fact #17 (Red Son Made Soviet Superman) – Batman is in this too, and for some reason, he’s Russian.
Batman wearing a ushanka is honestly one of the funniest things I have ever seen in a comic.
RE: Fact #43 (Batmobile Ruled a Copyright Character) – Selling the vehicle was definitely the issue, which should have been obviously off-limits. It’s interesting that they labeled it a character to gain legal protection rather than just treating it as a standard vehicle design. It should be common sense that you can’t just build and sell a copy of a unique vehicle tied to a specific franchise. The guy was a talented idiot for thinking he could get away with that, and DC was right to shut it down.
Exactly. Once you move from “I built one for myself” to “I’m starting a business using someone else’s IP, ” you’re asking for trouble.
RE: Fact #4 (Robin Williams Joker Baited) – Genuine question: why would Nicholson even care if they were talking to someone else?
If he was on the fence, he could use the competition for leverage to get a better deal. If they were seriously considering another option, his own leverage would be pretty weak.
He ended up with enough leverage to negotiate a backend profit share and a cut of merchandise, eventually making close to $60 million from it. It’s considered one of the best deals in Hollywood history.
RE: Fact #5 (Stetson Kennedy Exposed Klan) – There was a recent adaptation called Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru. It’s good stuff. It’s set in the pre-Silver Age era, so you see him doing things like running along power lines because he can’t fly yet. That radio series is also how kryptonite was introduced to the lore.
RE: Fact #31 (Buried Alien Mocked Barry Allen Death) – Buried Alien joined the Mustice Leeg alongside MatBan, Flupersam, and Boner Woman.
RE: Fact #15 (Valencia’s 1919 Bat Beat DC) – This reminds me of when Fox used a YouTube clip in Family Guy without permission, only to have the original video taken down from YouTube for “copyright infringement.”
That’s definitely automated, but it’s a ridiculous edge case to check for.
RE: Fact #16 (Kryptonite Gave Clayton Collyer Vacation) – I’ve always felt Superman became less interesting as he got more powerful. If he can move planets and travel through time, nothing is a real threat to him. They should have just capped his power level instead of relying on Kryptonite.
RE: Fact #10 (Siegel Shuster’s Moses-Coded Kal-El) – It makes total sense. His world is destroyed, his parents put him in a life raft to save him, and he ends up being raised by a different culture that eventually needs his protection. Plus, the laser vision. The parallels are definitely there.
RE: Fact #15 (Valencia’s 1919 Bat Beat DC) – Think about it like this: I was using the name before you changed yours, so why should I have to give it up?
RE: Fact #29 (Jim Shooter Went Pro at 14) – His dad didn’t make much as a steelworker. Shooter once said: “My family needed the money. I was doing this to save the house; my father had a beat-up old car and the engine died, this is before I started working for DC, and that first check bought a rebuilt engine for his car so he didn’t have to walk to work anymore. I was doing this because I had to, working my way through high school to help keep my family alive.”
RE: Fact #28 (Mattel Sold Empty Invisible Jet) – Is it really worth thousands now? I have the toy, but I lost the packaging. Let me know if you want to make an offer.
RE: Fact #16 (Kryptonite Gave Clayton Collyer Vacation) – Wait, his name was actually Clayton Collyer? That’s a perfect superhero name for the guy who voiced Superman.
RE: Fact #23 (Antaeus Assassination Triggered 10, 000 Deaths) – That sentiment was definitely common among level-headed policymakers at the time, including George H.W. Bush. He wrote in his book about why they did not remove Saddam: “While we hoped that popular revolt or a coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state… Trying to eliminate Saddam… would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream… The coalition would instantly have collapsed… Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”
I have a relative who worked as a war correspondent. He was embedded with a British unit that was in contact with US forces. This was one of several units the West had tracking Saddam’s body doubles. This specific unit actually found the real Saddam; they confirmed it repeatedly. Their snipers had a clear shot, but when they requested permission to engage, they were denied. They kept tracking him until they lost him, but I was always shocked that moment happened, given how much the US talked about wanting to get rid of him.
Navy SEALs had eyes on Osama bin Laden less than a year after 9/11 but couldn’t get the go-ahead for a strike. Even years later, it took President Obama about seven months to pull the trigger on the raid. Military operations just require that level of certainty.
RE: Fact #18 (Michael Rorrer Found $3.5M Closet) – I do not have to worry about this happening to me. My mom is a total tosser; if she owned solid gold bars, she would probably throw them out because she considers everything clutter. At least her house will be tidy when she passes.
I deal with the opposite issue where my parents are hoarders. All my old video games and my brother’s Pokémon cards were either thrown out or donated without us knowing.
My grandfather collected expensive antique books, but he had the habit common to his generation of stamping his name and address on every single one. It means books that should be worth hundreds are essentially worthless now.
I doubt they are worth nothing. I have managed to sell plenty of rare books that had bookplates or writing inside.
RE: Fact #7 (Dave Fleischer’s $100K Superman Bluff) – We had a VHS of these when I was growing up. I remember the one with the robot really well.
Oh, absolutely! There were so many great ones on that tape. I’m excited to hear there were more than just the robot short.
There were definitely plenty more. In my opinion, they’re still really enjoyable to watch.
RE: Fact #22 (Batman’s Counterphobic Bat Symbol) – Alfred: Why bats, Master Wayne? Bruce: Bats frighten me. It is time my enemies shared my dread. – Batman Begins
I wish Katie Holmes had stayed on for The Dark Knight. I just could not connect with Maggie Gyllenhaal in the role.
“To conquer fear, you must become fear. You must bask in the fear of other men. And men fear most what they cannot see.” – Ra’s al-Ghul
RE: Fact #34 (Constantine “Visited” Delano Milligan Azzarello) – What is with comic writers claiming they’ve met their own fictional characters? Grant Morrison also claimed to have had a chat with Superman at one point.
It’s free advertising when a news site picks up the story. Since comic writers rotate so often, it’s a gimmick to try and gain credibility with fans who are already attached to a previous writer.
This happens a lot with fantasy writers. Tolkien wrote ‘Lord of the Rings’ as if it were his translation of the ‘Red Book of Westmarch’, which was supposedly a real journal by Bilbo and Frodo. Elminster from ‘Forgotten Realms’ has mentioned visiting Earth to talk to a writer about his adventures. And Ciri from ‘The Witcher’ describes visiting what we assume is Earth while traveling the multiverse. There are plenty more, but those are the ones that come to mind.
RE: Fact #6 (Early Superman Slum-Wrecker Vigilante) – It’s always worth remembering that Superman was created in 1938 by two Jewish guys. You’d expect them to have strong feelings about how the downtrodden are treated.
A fun fact people might not know: Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston, who invented the precursor to the modern polygraph. That’s exactly why her lasso forces people to tell the truth.
Also, if I remember correctly, he’s basically The Golem. That’s why he’s so cool.
He’s sent away by his parents in an ark to escape death, grows up among a different people, eventually realizes he’s not one of them, and then despite his humble nature, realizes he has the power to protect the vulnerable and accepts that responsibility. It’s Moses.
RE: Fact #3 (Adam West Orgy Character Act) – Let me set the record straight. We stayed in character the whole time and it went over great. We weren’t kicked out because of the bit, that’s a different story for when the kids aren’t around.
RE: Fact #49 (Kathy Kane Batwoman “Straightened” Batman) – I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just the homosexuality concerns; it was also the fact that he was living with a young boy.
Back in the 1950s, a lot of people couldn’t distinguish between pedophiles and homosexuals, largely due to educational videos shown in classrooms.
RE: Fact #17 (Red Son Made Soviet Superman) – It was written by Mark Millar, who also worked on Civil War, Old Man Logan, Kingsman, and Kick-Ass.
RE: Fact #31 (Buried Alien Mocked Barry Allen Death) – “Buried Alien” was obviously a jab at Barry Allen. Between the name, the tattered red suit, the lightning energy, and the fact that he remembered running himself to death, it was pretty on the nose. He was even crowned the “fastest man alive” just to drive the point home. It’s unlikely we’ll see him again now that Barry is back in the canon. It really feels like something a writer throws in when they’re totally out of ideas.
RE: Fact #4 (Robin Williams Joker Baited) – Robin would have made a better Riddler in a grittier Batman Forever. I don’t think Jim Carrey as the Joker would have measured up to Jack or Heath.
I agree. I can’t really picture Williams as the Joker, but he definitely could have played the Riddler. Maybe my perspective is just skewed by hindsight, especially after seeing how Ledger portrayed the Joker’s true, sinister mania.
RE: Fact #30 (Superman’s Amnesia Kisses and Wall-Vision) – Don’t forget that time he could turn his symbol into a giant cellophane trap to confuse and annoy the bad guys.
I think that was supposed to be a gadget. He also used to shoot miniature versions of himself out of his hands back in the Golden or Silver Age.
RE: Fact #29 (Jim Shooter Went Pro at 14) – The wild thing about Jim Shooter is that he didn’t mention his age when he first sent in those scripts. DC assumed he was a college kid. When they called him into the office for a meeting, he had to ask his mom, and they were completely blindsided. Shooter became one of the most polarizing guys in comics. His time at Marvel produced some legendary work like Miller’s Daredevil and Claremont’s X-Men, but he was such a micromanager that he burned out a lot of great talent and pushed them right over to DC.
Marvel was supposedly a nightmare in the 80s while he was running the show. A bunch of their top writers bailed for DC, and he eventually got the boot in ’87.
RE: Fact #22 (Batman’s Counterphobic Bat Symbol) – I am terrified of heights, but part of my job involves climbing water towers to install antennas. Facing my fears really does help.
RE: Fact #1 (Bill Finger Built Real Batman) – Yeah, the Batman v Superman movie was the first time he finally got a credit. Bob Kane was really a jerk for how he handled that.
His only Batman credit while he was still alive was for an episode of the 60s show that he wrote.
I was so happy to see that happen. I had no idea they had started giving him credit until then.
I think the TV show Gotham was the first time Bill got an on-screen credit at all.
RE: Fact #7 (Dave Fleischer’s $100K Superman Bluff) – I grew up watching these on repeat. Definitely one of my favorites as a kid.
Same here! I didn’t even realize how old they were back then; they held up way better than the cheap animation we got in the 80s and 90s.
the 90s Superman series was actually pretty awesome.
The 80s, maybe. But the 90s were actually a new golden age for animation. Batman: The Animated Series alone would prove that, but you also had stuff like Animaniacs, Freakazoid, X-Men, Ren and Stimpy, Powerpuff Girls, and The Pirates of Dark Water. The 90s really redefined what animation could be.
RE: Fact #38 (Adam West’s “Thrust of Manhood” Take) – “Well, Adam, doesn’t make many mistakes…but when he messed up 14 takes in a row, I knew there had to be another, alternative reason for that. So he’s really a very smart man. He knows the director at some point is going to panic and get to the point where the director, if we get through the shot, no matter what we say, he’s going to say, ‘Cut! Print! Let’s move on to the next shot.’ So when we got to that 15th take, and you have to understand, back in 1966, it cost about $30, 000 an hour to film Batman…he said, ‘You know, Robin, I’m glad that you noticed that. It shows the oncoming thrust of manhood.’”
RE: Fact #39 (Burton Blamed Jon Peters, Superman Lives) – One of Peters’ demands was that Superman fight a giant spider. He was obsessed with getting one into a movie, any movie. He finally got his wish with the giant mechanical spider in ‘Wild Wild West’ with Will Smith.
Oooooh, so that’s why there was a giant spider in the second-to-last scene of ‘The Flash’, right alongside that poorly CGI’d Nicolas Cage as Superman. Spoiler alert, even though everyone but me hates that movie.
It also helps that Kevin Smith, a huge comic geek, was involved in the early drafts and kept sharing stories about all the ridiculous demands Peters made. On paper, that project had such a wild team. You had Tim Burton, who made a weird but solid Batman; Kevin Smith, who really understood the character and knew how to tell a story; and Nicolas Cage, who is such a massive comic nerd he actually renamed himself after an obscure Marvel character. Just look at the suit test shots of Cage, they look incredible. This should have been a massive hit, but it fell apart in the most spectacular way. Kevin Smith loves spilling the tea on it because he was genuinely gutted he never got to make that Superman movie.
RE: Fact #37 (JFK Posed as Clark Kent) – I’m confused. Did they know Clark Kent was Superman? Also, wasn’t Clark usually pretty jacked? JFK had a much slimmer build.
He told the President and trusted him to keep it quiet. The last line of the issue is: “I knew I wasn’t risking my secret identity with you! After all, if I can’t trust the President of The United States, who can I trust?” It was a simpler time. Though, it hasn’t aged well considering Lex Luthor eventually became President.
RE: Fact #2 (DC Comics Paid DC Shoes) – It’s a bit like when Universal Studios sued Nintendo over “Donkey Kong, ” despite Universal having previously sued to make the “King Kong” story public domain.
Universal Studios actually ended up getting sued by Nintendo because they had licensed a King Kong video game that was just a ripoff of Donkey Kong.
Now I’m curious how often big corporations have sabotaged themselves by trying to bully other companies. Do you have any other good examples of this?
The lawyer Jack Kirby defended Nintendo in that case, and they were so thankful they actually named Kirby after him.
RE: Fact #20 (Crisis Researcher Read Every DC Comic) – Reading all of them took a long time, but compiling and cross-referencing all those details was probably just as much work.
RE: Fact #41 (Batman Effect Boosted Kids’ Perseverance) – Is this just a placebo effect for kids? I wonder if the same thing happens if they impersonate a character who isn’t known for perseverance. Is it about acting like someone who sticks to things, or is it just the benefit of taking a third-person perspective?
RE: Fact #9 (Batman TAS Made Cartoons Serious) – The Mr. Freeze episode was incredible, turning a gimmick character into someone so tragic. Batman knew Freeze was the villain, but he understood that the real bad guys were the people who created him. Then there’s Clayface, an aging actor desperate to stay relevant, who pulls off one of the best death scenes in cartoon history. Even the episode where Bruce Wayne is trapped in a slave camp was top-tier. There aren’t many shows that serious that are still accessible to kids.
“Think of it, Batman. To never again walk on a summer’s day with the hot wind in your face and a warm hand to hold. Oh yes, I’d *kill* for that.” I think Batman Beyond did a great job with Freeze too, especially by making him essentially immortal before killing him off. “You’ve got to get out of here, Freeze, the whole place is gonna go!” “Believe me, you’re the only one who cares.”
I loved the episode in the work camp when Bruce had amnesia. I still get goosebumps thinking about the moment he remembered who he was, kicked the box open, and called Alfred for help. Seeing him suit up, I just knew those slavers were in trouble.
Same here. When the show hit Amazon Prime, that was the first one I watched. I loved watching him terrorize the guy running the camp.
That slave camp episode was brutal. Didn’t they lock a guy in a steel box in the sun until he died?
I can still hear that harmonica soundtrack decades later. They really didn’t cut any corners on that show.
RE: Fact #25 (Editors Spared Joker After Debut) – They did the same thing with Two-Face. He was supposedly “cured” right after his debut, but the writers realized he was too good to lose and brought him back to his villainous roots.
They actually tried that again about a decade ago. Harvey got reconstructive surgery and real therapy, and he was genuinely reformed for a few years. He even did some vigilante work and earned Bruce’s trust. It was a shame when he inevitably relapsed and burned his own face again, it was the only time in the last 20 years he felt like a compelling character.
In Batman: The Animated Series, there’s an episode where Harvey Dent is supposed to get facial surgery, but he gets kidnapped on the way. Batman and Robin investigate, only to find out Two-Face staged the whole thing himself. It’s a great episode that really digs into his split personality.
RE: Fact #46 (Gotham High Put Bruce in Homeroom) – Thank god this didn’t happen. Sometimes these ideas work better as concepts than as an actual show.
RE: Fact #12 (Arleen Sorkin Saved Harley Quinn) – The Batman animated series really contributed so much to the best parts of the character’s lore.
– Harley Quinn. – It introduced non-comic versions of Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Bane, Ra’s al Ghul, and more. – Mr. Freeze was rebooted into a serious character, and that episode even won an Emmy. It was a huge deal for cartoons, not just Batman.
I’d be curious to see a comparison of how much Mark Hamill earned as Luke Skywalker versus his earnings as the Joker.
I had no idea Mr. Freeze wasn’t originally a serious character. It’s impossible to picture him with a different backstory now.
RE: Fact #48 (Joker’s Sane Moments, 2, 000 Death Toll) – Has anyone noticed how a major theme in Batman is that crazy people never actually get better? It pops up in the animated series too, a villain comes back, seemingly cured, but Batman is always there to say, “No, he’s still insane.” And then it turns out he’s right, and they never actually recover. It’s kind of disturbing.
There was a comic where Batman was convinced the Penguin was still a criminal, and he got so frustrated when the parole board wouldn’t listen. Batman trailed the Penguin, and after a whole series of events, it turned out the Penguin had actually reformed. But the situation led the police to notice he’d violated his parole by hiring old criminals at his umbrella factory. So, the Penguin went back to jail even though Batman testified for him. It was pretty sad.
The Riddler had a similar arc; he couldn’t pull off his crimes without a trail, so he eventually sought Batman’s help and became a PI. Harvey Dent also had a long period of sanity after Hush reconstructed his face, though his Two-Face persona eventually made a comeback.
RE: Fact #24 (Conrad Veidt Inspired Joker Grin) – Batman is basically Zorro. Even the Waynes were watching The Mark of Zorro the night they died. That puts the core of his origin at over a century old.
Most Batman and Zorro tropes, the wealthy guy with a secret identity, mask, custom gear, and a hidden base, actually go back to the 1880s. The real prototype was probably Spring Heeled Jack, that character from the penny dreadfuls who morphed from a villain into a proto-superhero. By the 1920s, that archetype was everywhere, but Zorro and Batman just happened to be the ones who really stuck.
RE: Fact #8 (Teen Titans Go Admits Defeat) – Who else remembers playing the Teen Titans Flash game? I remember rushing home to play that and the Gorillaz driving game.
Don’t forget the Kids Next Door platformer and those top-down adventures with the whole Cartoon Network cast. I wasted so much time on that site.
I remember a top-down Courage the Cowardly Dog game I loved too.
The one on the Cartoon Network site? I remember playing the version where you picked a character for a specific story. Raven had to jump up a building while throwing water barrels at an electric monster, and Beast Boy had to navigate a maze created by a villain inspired by A Clockwork Orange.
Switching animals with different keys was such a cool mechanic for a flash game.
Yes, that Raven game was a highlight. I’m surprised others remember it. I felt like the only one playing flash games while everyone else was busy playing CoD or Halo on a PS2 or Xbox.
Whoa, that game had me mashing keyboard combos like crazy. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
RE: Fact #27 (Batmobile Seatbelts, National Safety Council) – Because of that show, I was the only kid out of my six siblings who actually wore a seatbelt.
RE: Fact #10 (Siegel Shuster’s Moses-Coded Kal-El) – Actually, in Hebrew, “Kol” means voice, while “Kal” means light or not heavy.