So we’ve been all about “Batman: Zero Year” and how it’s a big thing and all that. But, this being comics, there’s a rich history of Batman origins going back nearly 75 years.
We love our comics history here at Parallel Worlds, so here’s a look back at how we got here.
If you’re just joining us, Batman debuted in Detective Comics No. 27 in 1939, but it wasn’t until six issues later that we got a first glimpse of who he was and how he came to be:
All the basics are there: Bruce’s parents are killed by a gunman before his eyes. Bruce dedicates himself to fighting crime. Bruce sees a bat and, because this is how most people would react, decides to put on a bat costume and scare the bejeezus out of bad guys.
It’s a brilliantly tight origin, told in two pages and the core of the story has remained pretty much the same ever since. Only the details have changed.
In Batman 47 (1948), we get a more fully drawn version of events: Batman finds out that the guy who killed his parents, Thomas and Martha, was a thug named Joe Chill. So he decides to confront Chill, who’s become a successful criminal in middle age.
To prove he knows who killed the Waynes, Batman yanks his cowl back and dramatically proclaims that he knows Chill is the killer — “I know because I am the son of the man you murdered! I am Bruce Wayne!”
Chill, suitably freaked out, bolts and tells a bunch of gunsels (because that’s what they were in the ‘40s) that he’s responsible for creating Batman. Naturally, they blow him away for it — before they realize they killed him before he could tell them the Caped Crusader’s name.
Things became more convoluted after that. In Detective 226 (1955), for example, we find out that Bruce actually was the first Robin and as a boy worked under the tutelage of a detective named Harvey Harris. Harvey and Robin!
Then, the following year, in Detective No. 235, we find out that Bruce’s father Thomas was the first Batman (!). Because, see, Joe Chill was actually a hitman hired to kill the Waynes by a mobster named Lew Moxon. And the reason is because years earlier, Thomas foiled Moxon’s robbery of a costume party (!!) where the elder Wayne was dressed as … a bat (!!!).
And then, and then, in Batman 208 (1969) it’s revealed that Joe Chill’s mother — who changed her name to Mrs. Chilton — worked for Bruce when he grew up!
Oy.
By the time the ‘80s rolled around, it was time to start over again.
Which brings us to “Batman: Year One,” by writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli. All of the contrivances of the previous decades were tossed in favor of an intensely realistic, modern approach that laid the foundation for the next 26 years.
It’s the parallel tale of how Lt. James Gordon, a cop fresh to Gotham facing corrupt colleagues in a filthy town, and a vulnerably amateurish Batman ultimately team up to rid the city of its corrupt forces.
It’s easily one of the best — and to many THE best — Batman stories ever.
Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, whose Batman No. 21 (the title was relaunched with the rest of DC’s line in 2011) comes out Wednesday, have their work cut out for them.
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