Who is Bill Finger?

Who is Bill Finger indeed? Well, as history wound up making it, the third person to write a comics story featuring the Elongated Man. But, if you're familiar with comics at all, you know he's responsible for a lot more.

Milton Finger was born on February 8, 1914 in Denver, Colorado. His family shortly moved to The Bronx, and he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1933. At a party, Finger met fellow DeWitt alumnus Bob Kane and began working with his comics company in 1938, ghostwriting comics strips. He shortly took on the pen name "Bill."

The next year would see the comics world shakeup with the introduction of Superman. Now, every comics creator wanted a piece of the superhero pie.

Bill Finger revealed that Bob invited him to look at his new creation: the Batman. The character was dressed in red with black wings sticking out of his costume with a domino mask. Finger suggested some changes to the design: add a cowl, make the wings into a cape, add gloves, change the primarily red color scheme.

Batman would debut in Detective Comics #27. Finger wrote the first story and several early stories. This means that Finger established a lot of Batman lore: the Batcave, the Batmobile, Robin, Gotham City, the name "Bruce Wayne" and even Batman being a detective instead of just a costumed crimefighter. He would also co-create many of Batman's iconic rogues, including the Joker, Catwoman, the Penguin, Two-Face, the Scarecrow, the Riddler and Calendar Man.

That said, Finger was not officially credited for Batman's creation for a long time. Bob Kane got all of the credit. Kane eventually revealed that Bill was a major factor in shaping the beloved superhero, but he wouldn't receive credit in the comics until 2015. The first non-comics media credit would appear in 2015 in the second season of the Gotham TV series, and later in the 2016 film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. This was thanks to his granddaughter Athena campaigning DC to finally give her grandfather the credit he deserved.

The company behind Detective Comics was eventually acquired by National Comics, who would become DC. Finger followed and would write for many DC stories. He would also co-create the original versions of DC heroes Green Lantern and Wildcat. He was known for carrying a notebook to write down ideas. He inspired the villain Black Hand.

Finger had married a woman named Portia and had a son named Fredrick with her. They divorced, and he remarried to Edith Simmons, but their marriage eventually ended.

Finger was found dead on January 18, 1974 in his home. He'd already survived three heart attacks, but occlusive coronary atherosclerosis was ruled the cause of death. It was believed that he was buried in a potter's field, but Fredrick had actually had him cremated and the ashes scattered on an Oregon beach in a bat shape.

Despite not getting proper credit in his lifetime, Bill Finger is now a recognized DC Comics legend. If you want to know more about him, Hulu released a documentary about him titled Batman and Bill. And despite what modern trends and interests have turned to, his work should still be read and enjoyed.

Two Batmen Too Many!

Well, here's a first. This is a story where Ralph more or less appears in a cameo.

Batman #177 carries a cover date of December 1965. Carmine Infantino did the cover with inks by Murphy Anderson and Ira Schnapp provided the logo. "Two Batmen Too Many!" was written by Bill Finger with pencils by Sheldon Moldoff, inks by Joe Giella, lettering by Gaspar Saladino and Julius Schwartz served as editor. The issue is not currently available on Comixology.

Ralph does but doesn't appear on the cover, which doesn't reflect a scene in the story. It teases three different Batmen: regular Batman, a giant one and a tiny Batman.

The splash page sees all three of the Batmen taking on crooks in three panels. Only the regular sized one is accompanied by Robin, though.

The story begins with Ed "Numbers" Garvey feeling targeted by Batman. He used to run a numbers game, but became obsessed with a jewel heist. He flees to a cave and finds two figures seated on thrones, one very tall, the other very short. His torch reflects light into a crystal and turns the figures into clones of Batman, who say they'll be his slaves.

Ed takes the Batmen to his gang back in Gotham City. When the fellow crooks try to fight them, the Batmen make short work of them. They're about to have the Batmen do a job, when the little one says it needs to be revitalized with star light reflected through a blue-white crystal. The little Batman goes to help them knock off a carnival, but the robbery is stopped by the real Batman and Robin, though the crooks get away.

Back at the hideout, the Big Batman needs revitalized with a ruby. When Big Batman claims to be revitalized, Garvey has them knocked out, revealing he suspected the Batmen were frauds and that the ruby he just used was a fake.

Removing the Batman costumes, they discover that the Batmen were actually Elongated Man and the Atom.

Garvey decides to unmask the Atom to discover his secret identity (chances of him recognizing Ray Palmer at the time is very low, though), but Batman and Robin enter and begin fighting the crooks. Garvey tries to get away via a trap door, but Batman manages to catch him.

Now comes an explanation of the whole plot. Batman did indeed arrange things to make Garvey go to that cave and find Ralph and Ray in costume.

The "revitalizing" with a gem act was to get radioactive powder onto the gems so Batman could find them with a Geiger counter.

When the crooks left to knock over that carnival, Batman and Robin found the diamond in a clock, realizing that each gem was hidden in different locales.

Garvey thinks he's still got the rest of the jewel collection hidden away, but the ruby act worked because he held the fake gem in the same hand as the real one (just in case) and the radioactive powder got onto the real one, which Batman finds in a telephone.

The rest of the gems are found in spots in the hideout related to numbers: in a typewriter, behind the door's number, in a hollow in a desk calendar and in a dummy algebra book.

To be fair, anyone besides a mathematics whiz owning an algebra book outside of a school is already pretty sketchy.

With all of the gems recovered, it's now time to take Garvey to prison.

The story tries to keep it down to earth with a wacky concept, and luckily, Batman was given connections to Ralph and Ray prior to the story. It's just wacky that the crooks went with the concept at first of clay figures being brought to life that look like Batman. Silver Age stories, am I right?

Sheldon Moldoff becomes the first person aside from Carmine Infantino to draw Ralph in the pencils for a story, and he doesn't do a bad job at all. Except that he doesn't really show Ralph stretching. Most of the time, he's not drawing Ralph, but an oversized Batman.

Interesting is that you can see Ralph's face clearly a little deformed as he had to stretch his chin to mimic Batman's face. This marks the first time we saw him take on face molding, something that other writers would make use of much further down the line, and even make its way to The Flash TV series.

So, not a bad story, but not quite a memorable one. And my tease last time wasn't wrong, Ralph did get a new costume: a Batman costume!

So, next time, we're heading back to Detective Comics as Ralph completely fails to catch a criminal.