Welcome To The Batcave

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Just before the first World War Harry Donenfeld went to work with his brothers in their printing office, by the time the war was over there was  growing demand for magazines and being quite the "schmoozer", Donenfeld was able to make the printing office quite popular and ended up squeezing his brothers out of it all together, changing the name of it to Donny Press.  Then after the Great Depression, Donenfeld went looking for new publishing avenues with a new partner, former union accountant named Jack Liebowitz.  Meanwhile...........former army major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson figured there was more money in making original stories (owned by his own company, National Allied Publications) and characters in comics instead of using the weekly funnies, hence the birth of New Comics in 1935.  However, the piling up of debts led to it being taken over by Donenfeld and Liebowitz..  Together the three men made the first Detective Comics Inc, the comic that first introduced Batman, but that wouldn't be for a few more years yet.  By 1938, Wheeler-Nicholson was no longer a part of the company and in his place were editors Whitney Ellsworth and Vin Sullivan and they put together Action Comics, original home of Superman.  After Superman became such a hit the company decided they needed more Superheroes for the comic books and in 1939 Detective Comics Batman was born.

In 1944 Jack Liebowitz wanted to expanded but Donenfeld refused to, so Liebowitz went out on his own keeping his interest in Detective Comics. Liebowitz invested in Max Gaines company All-American Publications and by 1946, Liebowitz bought him out.  Jack immediately merged Detective Comics and All American together to form National Comics.  So during these Golden Ages of Comics we saw the merging of many different companies to form the DC Universe,  the birth of two of the most popular Superheroes ever, Superman in Action Comics and Batman in Detective Comics.  We also saw the birth of The Justice League of America combining both Superman and Batman along with Wonder Woman, The Flash, Atom, Hawkman, Aquaman and The Green Lantern all in the same cross-over comics from time to time.  We also saw the first couple of attempts at taking these Superheroes out of the comic books and putting them on television.  First in 1943 with Lewis Wilson as Bruce Wayne/Batman and then again in 1949 with Robert Lowery playing the Caped Crusader.  Until the late 40s when the second World War started.  The young boys who were so fascinated with the Superheroes of the comics were being sent off to be Superheroes themselves and by the time the War had ended, the interest in the comic books were fading.

After losing readers during WWII and then again after psychiatrist Dr. Frederic Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent blaming comic books for juvenile delinquents, all comic books had to be toned down to make them suitable for children and the younger generation. In 1952 Batman was teamed up with Superman finding out each other's secret identities which is what lead to the revamping of World's Finest Comics so this team could be featured together. Then in 1956 DC Comics decided to test the waters and they did a complete revamp of The Flash in the title Showcase.  This was the start of The Silver Age of Comics which would last until the 70s.  In the 1961 comic Flash of Two Worlds, editor Julius Schwartz introduced a concept that allowed slotting the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age heroes into this continuity via the explanation that they lived on an other dimensional "Earth 2", as opposed to the modern heroes' Earth 1, in the process creating the foundation for what would later be called the DC Multiverse.   This was also the introduction of Batwoman, Bat-Girl and Bat-Mite for the Batman comics in order to suppress the homosexual rumors of Batman and Robin that was insinuated by Wertham. With all the silly "adventures" that Batman was going through during the early to mid 60s, Batman sales were so bad that the "powers that be" of DC Comics were seriously considering killing off Batman all together.  That was until Julius Schwartz decided to kill off Alfred instead and bring in Robin's Aunt Harriet and he also thought it was time to get rid of Batwoman, Bat-Girl and Bat-Mite.  However, when Bill Dozier became interested in doing a television series on Batman and Robin, he wanted Alfred in it so they had to do a scramble to bring Alfred back to life which was the beginning of the campy 1966 Adam West and Burt Ward version of Batman and Robin in television.  Now I know everyone things it was a mistake for this type of Batman but if it wasn't for the 1966 version of Batman, I highly doubt Batman would be the icon he is today because I doubt The Dark Knight or Batman Begins would ever have passed the censors of the 60s. When the show started to lose ratings in '67, the producers thought to revive it again in the form of a female and brought back Bat-Girl.  But when the show started to lose it's appeal so did the comic book again and in 1969  writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adam had to distance the comic version as far away from the campy television series as they possibly could.  So O'Neil went back to read the originals on Batman and return him to the "grim avenger of the night."