Bill Finger

            On Sunday morning I searched for the chords to “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. and found a set for the first verse on La boîte a chansons (Song Box). I transcribed those and looked for more but none have been posted. I worked out the first three. 

            I worked out the chords for half of the first verse of “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and it was in tune the whole time. 

            I weighed 87.95 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since November 11. 

            Around midday I worked on getting caught up in my journal because last night I fell asleep at the computer again. 

            I weighed 88 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with caramelized onion hummus and a glass of low sugar iced tea. 

            I took a siesta at 14:00 and slept half an hour longer than I tend to. I needed to take a bike ride for the exercise but it was too late to go downtown and so I went to Ossington and Bloor. I stopped to get some guitar strings at Long and McQuade but they were closed. On the way home I stopped at Queen Fresh Market to get two baskets of raspberries. 

            I weighed 87.35 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:15. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I inserted the clips from Blackboard Jungle into the main video to fit with my line “Mom and dad want baby’s freedom, the child wants mom and dad’s”. Next for clips to correspond with my line “Man wants to be the angel that desires to be a man” I started downloading Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. I especially want the clip of the trapeze artist wearing the angel wings. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of my Kramer electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on October 5. The take at 42:30 didn’t sound bad. 

            I had a bowl of my lima bean and pea stew with a slice of multigrain sandwich bread and my last beer while watching the rest of the animated film, Return of the Caped Crusaders.

            After capturing Joker, Riddler and Penguin on the space station, Batman and Robin return to Earth. Batman tells Commissioner Gordon he’ll keep the replica raygun in the Bat Cave. Batman suddenly leaves without Robin, forcing Robin to borrow a bicycle. This is further evidence that Batman has been severely affected by the Batnip drug that Catwoman scratched into him. Back at Wayne Manor Bruce verbally attacks Aunt Harriet and makes her cry. Dick confronts him about his behaviour. Bruce shows Dick the door. Meanwhile we see Alfred apparently homeless on skid row and going through garbage cans. I doubt very much that after all those years of working for such a generous employer that Alfred wouldn’t have saved up a considerable nest egg. Gordon has been trying to reach Batman but Bruce rips the phone out. Batman has stopped fighting crime and now Gotham has become a criminals’ paradise. Finally Batman shows up at police headquarters and Gordon and O’Hara are deeply relieved until Batman tells them he’s dismissing them. Batman then uses the replica ray to make two copies of himself so that one becomes Commissioner Batman and the other becomes Police Chief Batman. Batman says to himself that he will now run Gotham and eventually the world. Batman has become Doctor Doom. Then another copy becomes Mayor Batman followed by many other important positions being filled by replicas of Batman. Meanwhile Dick is living in a cheap rooming house and suddenly realizes that Catwoman’s Batnip did work on Batman but only with a slow progression. Robin goes to a club called the Kitkat Kave and sits at the bar. The bartender pushes a button sending him through a trap door into a large bird cage in an underground hideout where a lounging Catwoman is enjoying a saucer of milk. She tells Robin, “I wanted Batman to be bad but not that bad. You do know the difference don’t you?” They go to the Catmobile and Robin drives because he has his learner’s permit. He puts Catwoman to sleep because they are going to the Batcave. Once there she wakes and Robin tells her Batman already knows they are there. Batman is glad to see Catwoman and invites her to join him. She asks, “What about Robin?” and he says what she always used to say, “We’ll kill him”. She blows the antidote to her Batnip in Batman’s face but it has no effect because he anticipated her move and took the bat-anti-antidote-antidote. Batman and Robin have a utility belt showdown but Batman eventually wins and subdues both Catwoman and Robin with knockout gas. They wake tied back to back above the Batcave nuclear reactor, slowly descending as Batman like a Batman villain leaves them alone. But just as the radioactive steam erupts, their ropes are dissolved and Robin swings them both out of the reactor. He explains that while she was asleep he sprayed her and himself with anti isotope spray. Robin plans a prison break and for that purpose he and Catwoman disguise themselves as prison inspectors. They distribute new pickaxes and balls and chains that turn out to be hand held helicopters and balloons that lift all the super villains over the walls, except for Joker, Riddler and Penguin, who Catwoman understandably refuses to help. Catwoman and Robin pick the escapees up in a van. Meanwhile back in the yard the guards keep a watch on Joker, Riddler and Penguin but suddenly they turn into piles of golden gloop. That night Batman takes over his favourite variety show Gotham Palace as host and even has the usual host Miranda Monroe bound and gagged onstage. He’s rigged every TV in Gotham to explode if viewers change the channel or turn off their sets. Catwoman and Robin arrive backed up by every super villain who ever appeared on the TV series. Batman is backed up by his army of Batmen. The big fight scene takes place. Some of the Batmen are defeated and some of the villains but eventually Batman wins. He tells Catwoman and Robin he’s going to kill them with his bare hands. Then a page who is obviously Alfred in disguise brings a tray with a bottle of champagne, saying it’s a special delivery for Batman. Batman who doesn’t drink, accepts it. He drinks it from the bottle and almost immediately the anti-anti-antidote-antidote takes effect and Batman is cured. The Batman copies are about to attack when they all suddenly become piles of golden gloop. Batman says the duplicates were always molecularly unstable. Despite Catwoman’s help, Gordon says she still has to do her time. She asks Batman for a kiss before she’s taken away and gets one. After Catwoman is led away Alfred comes forward. Batman explains that he and Alfred have a long standing arrangement that if he were ever to fire him it would only be because he was under mind control. In such a case Alfred had detailed instructions on preparing an antidote. Batman suddenly realizes that Joker, Penguin and Riddler knew the replica ray was unstable and never planned to duplicate Earth. Only their duplicates went to prison. He also deduces that the terrible trio knew the Batnip would work and spiked it with Joker gas to enhance its strength. They head for the Batmobile only to find Catwoman there. She says she wants to help and Batman accepts her offer. Meanwhile Joker, Riddler and Penguin are at the museum, each stealing artwork that is precious to them individually: Joker steals a clown painting, Penguin a jewelled egg, and Riddler takes the oldest known puzzle. Batman, Catwoman and Robin confront them but they fly away on a rocket umbrella. The heroes pursue them on whirly bats with Catwoman on Batman’s lap. The villains fly to the Penguin’s dirigible but baterangs take out the engines. The heroes board the zeppelin but the villains have moved on top. The big fight scene takes place up there. Catwoman even saves Robin when he falls off. After the bad guys are defeated Catwoman returns to her natural inclinations and claims for herself everything the villains stole. Batman begs her to reconsider. She says she’ll give up if he goes to Europe with her and if they kill Robin. She loses the loot when the dirigible lurches but then she says goodbye and takes a spread armed backward dive off the vessel and falls into a smoke stack. Later a birthday party is thrown for Harriet and she is led to understand that all Bruce’s strange behaviour had just been to throw her off from the surprise. As the credits roll Batman does the Batusi while Catwoman shakes her derriere to the Catusi. They finish the dance in each others’ arms.

            Although the artist Bob Kane first conceived of a hero named Batman, somewhat based on the Shadow, the main creator of Batman was Bill Finger. Kane’s original drawing was of a blond haired hero in a red costume with bat wings. Finger suggested making the character darker, adding a cowl with bat ears, a cape instead of wings, gloves, and the idea of Batman as a scientist and a detective. He wrote the early comics featuring Batman but he was an uncredited ghost writer and Kane got all the credit. Finger approached the Batman character while inspired by the Phantom, Zorro, Douglas Fairbanks and Sherlock Holmes. The secret identity of Bruce Wayne was Finger’s idea, as well as Robin, Dick Grayson (as well as his back story as the orphaned child of murdered trapeze artists), Alfred the butler, Joker (based on The Man Who Laughs), Joker’s laughing gas, Catwoman, Mat Mite, Clayface, Penguin and his umbrellas, Scarecrow, Two Face, Riddler, Hugo Strange, Gotham City and giant versions of everyday objects for characters to fight around. He co-created with Martin Nodell, Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern. Finger is the first comic book writer to use Kryptonite in a story when before that Kryptonite had only been used on the Superman radio series. He created the character Lana Lang for Superboy comics. For Timely Comics (the predecessor to Marvel) Finger created that company’s first super hero team, The All Winners Squad consisting of Captain America, Bucky, the Human Torch and his sidekick Toro, Namor the Submariner and Miss America. Finger co-wrote the screenplays for The Green Slime, Track of the Moon Beast, He wrote the two Clock King episodes of the Batman TV series. The silver age Green Lantern villain Black Hand was based on Bill Finger. Bill Finger died in poverty with no credit for his contributions to Batman. It was his granddaughter Athena Finger who finally won the case for Finger’s intellectual property acknowledgement. The first credit Finger received as co-creator of Batman was in the Superman-Batman Dawn of Justice film.