Original subtitles

(Bruce Timm) I can remember my first encounter

with Batman when I was five years oId.

My dad had given my brother 50 cents, and he said, "Go buy some comic books."

And he put me up on his shouIders

because the rack of comic books went fIoor to ceiIing.

I saw an issue of Detective Comics.

And it was an issue with Batman.

He had, like, an assault tank as his Batmobile.

And I remember being simuItaneousIy a little scared and mesmerized

by what I was Iooking at.

(Denny O'Neil) It´s been estimated that 80% of the popuIation of the Earth

wouId recognize Batman.

(James Tucker) I have a theory that whatever point you see Batman,

if you're open to it, you're gonna cIick with that character.

And that's the way it was for me.

And the first time I Iaid eyes on the character, something cIicked.

I instantIy got it, and it was all about Batman.

(Dan DiDio) Batman is our most elastic character,

meaning he can be interpreted in so many different ways.

Batman is that campier character that peopIe recognize stiII from the '60s.

He's the Dark Knight that Frank MiIIer pushed forward in the '80s.

There's this grimmer avenger as it starts to deveIop

as you go into the '90s and to the new millennium.

(Timm) Anti-hero, vigiIante, you know, it aII kind of roIIs in together.

(Glen Murakami) It´s the good guy who dresses Iike a bad guy.

(siren wails)

(engine revving)

(Stan Lee) Bob Ioved Batman so much.

We'd go out to dinner every so often. We'd be in a restaurant,

the minute the Waiter Would come over, inevitabIy Bob wouId say,

"You knoW Who l am? l'm Bob Kane, l created Batman.

Here, give me a napkin. I'II draw a picture and sign it for you."

(laughs) And I used to say, "Oh, come on, Bob."

(Bob Kane over speakers)

(Jerry Robinson)

(Mark Hamill) I have a Iong-ranged appreciation of various

incarnations of Batman.

The books that l love were the ones I read as a IittIe boy in the '60s.

And the reprints from the 80-Page Giants,

l didn't realize they were oId at the time,

that I was reading books from the Golden Age, even.

And, you know, I have a fondness for the Adam West version.

I Iove aII of them, you know. I reaIIy do.

(O'Neil) Even from a very early age,

I knew that I was gonna do something with that character.

I was just... Not even obsessed as... Yeah, okay, obsessed.

You know, I drew him constantIy.

I mean, from six on, there was not a day

or not a week that went by that l at least didn't draW Batman,

or something from Batman's worId.

(Jim Lee) Batman, for me, is one of those creations

that's aImost bigger than the creator.

(DiDio) I Iove the detective aspect of Batman,

the idea that he's figuring stuff out.

And as a reader, you're discovering with him and you're reading with him,

and you're coming to the same conclusions.

"Therefore, l am Batman."

(thunder rumbling)

(Hamill) Batman notjust being physicaIIy imposing,

but being a detective on par with Sherlock Holmes,

l mean, that's tremendous.

(Timm) The reaI worId, right, is not that super harmonious pIace.

In fact, it feeIs Iike it's spiraIing more and more out of controI every day.

We have to do What We can,

even if at the end of the day, it stiII might not fix the probIem.

And to me, that is the essence of the character.

He's a character that basicaIIy wakes up every night, puts on the cowI,

goes out there fighting crime, even though he knows

that maybe this is an endIess pursuit that might not have finaI resoIution.

(Jim Lee) Batman is kind of Iike the anti-Superman.

You know, Superman's really bright, he's red, yeIIow, and bIue.

And Batman's gray and bIack and bIue, with a IittIe bit of yeIIow.

Superman has a zillion powers.

He flies, he can bounce bullets off of his teeth.

And Batman can't. Batman's just a guy.

(Kane over speakers)

My father had a saying.

"Tomorrow is one dream away."

Sentimental words, I know, but they stayed with me,

even after my parents were killed.

(thunder rumbling)

(Murakami) His story is a human story. You know, I mean, it's a revenge story.

It's way more reIatabIe than a Moses story,

from an aIien from another pIanet.

Batman's more accessible.

-(gun fires) -(clattering)

(Timm) You have this young boy

standing over the bodies of his parents.

l had never, at that time, even thought about my parents dying.

I'd never even thought about it.

So, as a kid who was eight years old,

now confronted with that possibiIity,

it shocked me to my core.

His origin story is so utterIy primaI

that it does transcend cultures.

To think of a kid who sees his parents murdered in front of him,

and then makes a commitment, sacrificing his chiIdhood at that moment

that he's gonna get the guy Who did this,

he's gonna get aII the bad guys,

even if he has to spend the rest of his Iife waIking through heII

to honor that commitment.

That is a powerfuI, powerfuI story.

(Kevin Conroy) But he´s so flawed, and he knows he's flawed.

He can't have personaI reIationships. PeopIe Iove that about him.

They Iove the fact

that he's not the square-jawed superhero who's perfect.

Because none of us are perfect, we're aII screwed up.

(Timm) He's aImost Iike the first anti-hero in comics.

Even though he's very good. He fights on the side of good and everything.

When Batman Was created in 1939, it was the era of the Depression.

WorId War II was right on the horizon. Things were grim in this country.

There Were criminals, racketeers that were on the loose.

Major figures that were becoming aImost mythic.

(engine spluttering)

(gun shots)

But to have then, the emergence of a modern day Zorro

in the urban center...

There was something

about these new things caIIed superheroes that was mythic.

They were fighting the demons and dragons of the day.

And it's why I've aIways contended

that comic book superheroes are our modern-day mythoIogy.

So whether you call Batman or Superman by those names,

-or by the names of BeowuIf... -(dragon growls)

...or UIysses, essentiaIIy, it's all the same.

(Conroy) The Greeks and the Romans, you know,

they had Orestes, we have Superman.

And they had AchiIIes, we have Batman.

They had EIectra, we have Wonder Woman.

lt all translates, it's just modern-day mythoIogy.

(Kane over speakers)

(Robinson)

(Robinson chuckles)

(Miller) Ifyou see these old Batman serials,

you know, you'II go, "Boy, this guy wiII never make it."

(chuckling) 'Cause those seriaIs Iook awfuI, fIoppy ears and stuff.

Well, he's turned into Batman, it's become fantastic.

(Timm) I wouId say the biggest infIuence for me, as a kid,

was watching the Batman 1966 TV show.

(Jenette Khan) Adam West, definitiveIy the best Batman of all time.

(Adam West) When we hit the air,

DC Comics began to sell more comics.

They soId more coIor TV sets.

They began caIIing me, "The Billion-Dollar Batman."

(Khan) I considerAdam West to be the Cary Grant of television,

because he's so charming, he's so weII spoken. He has hot Iips.

He has a Iightness of spirit.

(West) Nowadays, it's the Dark Knight.

Hey, I'm the Bright Knight,

and I'II bring a Iaugh, have some fun,

make peopIe happy.

-(phone ringing) -(DiDio) There was this incredibIe peak

in the '60s with Batman's show.

But the backlash aImost destroyed the character.

(Uslan) AII the fans that had been attracted in because of the TV show

deserted the Caped Crusader who, l still feIt, was a Dark Knight detective.

(DiDio) Detective Comics was on the cusp of canceIIation in the '70s.

And the onIy thing that kept him going

was the sense of embarrassment from the company

that if they canceIIed Detective, they've canceIIed the book

that the company was named after. (chuckles)

(Uslan) And, thanks to editor Julius SchWartz,

they instituted a brand new Iook to Batman,

returning him to his darker roots,

and making him, once again, a creature of the night.

(DiDio) And, Frank comes in with The Dark Knight Returns

and Batman: Year One, and aII of a sudden, Batman's cooI again.

(Miller) I was on fire to teII Batman's story because I feIt Iike

I had a story to teII, him coming out of retirement,

to go back to try to straighten out a worId

that was nearIy beyond redemption.

The effect he wouId have on other peopIe was reaIIy the subject of the story.

The idea was that the myth was Iarger than the man.

(Khan) Frank's ideas, Frank's writing and his art, and Lynn's coIoring,

they eIevated The Dark Knight Returns beyond a normaI coIIaboration,

into something that was magic, that was startIing, that was beautifuI!

And it Was dense, and it was compIicated,

and could be read again and again and again,

with many new notes and themes becoming apparent.

There was just something extraordinary about it.

(DiDio) It was the right moment, the right voice at the right time.

Turns the character around.

And then, all of a sudden, you get this movie in 1989,

and Batman has not looked back since. (chuckles)

(gun fires)

(Jim Lee) The Batman 1989 movie changed the worId cuIture.

It changed the worId's generaI perception

of comic books and of superheroes.

And for the first time, had their eyes open that,

"Maybe, comic books and superheroes are no Ionger simpIy being made

for 8 to 12-year-oId boys. Maybe, there's something more to this."

(engine revving)

(Conroy) What I've tried to do at the Comic-Cons,

if I'm doing a singIe paneI... (siren wails)

...I Iove to make the paneI about why is Batman important.

Why are you aII here? What has he touched in you?

And, hoW is that going to affect your Iife?

And, I hear some amazing stories from peopIe.

More often than not, someone just wants to hug me and says,

"You have no idea how rough my chiIdhood was,

and what a safe pIace you were for me."

And, I aIways wanted to hoId you.

I've heard that from so many peopIe, and l hold them.

And as I'm hoIding them, they'II just break down.

(Kane over speakers)

(Jim Lee) There are a very few characters Where,

the Iess you show them, the cooIer they Iook.

And Batman is definiteIy tops on that Iist.

There have been times When l've draWn Batman,

and then l've drawn the detaiI of the gargoyIe

and aII the buiIdings behind him, and l still...

Something doesn't look quite right, and I just get a brush, dip it in ink,

bIack ink, and I'm just erasing stuff.

LiteraIIy, by just covering him in his shadow.

The darker he gets, the moodier the image Iooks, the scarier he Iooks.

(O'Neil) WeII, Batman has the best silhouette.

You see an outline of Batman, you know exactly who that is. (chuckles)

There's not many other characters that work that way.

You see the outIine, you see the shadow.

(Jim Lee) The Iarge cape, the swirling cape, to me, speaks of, Iike,

The Phantom of the Opera, or Dracula.

The fact that he's got a mask with IiteraIIy, horns,

or IittIe ears that pop up.

So, it looks a little demonic, it Iooks fearsome, right?

He Iooks spooky, he Iooks creepy,

he Iooks Iike DracuIa, you know?

(DiDio) The whoIe is the sum of its parts.

-To understand Batman correctIy... -(phone rings)

...you have to understand the role of Commissioner Gordon,

the role of Alfred,

the role of Dick Grayson, the role of all the villains.

And I think why Batman endures is that

all these characters are so cIearIy defined in the roIe

of what they do to support Batman at the center,

that I think it's not just Batman as a hero,

as a character that exists outside of that,

but reaIIy works best in this ecosystem

that's created, and he can see how peopIe act against him.

(thunderclaps)

(Timm) I am a subscriber

to Stan Lee's theory of superheroes and superviIIains.

And as Stan told me many times,

the most popuIar and Iong-Iasting superheroes in history

have been the ones who've had the greatest superviIIains.

Because, uItimateIy,

it's the superviIIains who define the superhero.

Batman has the greatest rogues' gaIIery of superviIIains in history.

(Uslan) His supporting characters have their own specific issues.

His villains are all varied.

PeopIe identify with the Joker, they identify with HarIey.

(Kane over speakers)

(Hamill) Pruneface, The Brow, The MoIe, I Iove these grotesque viIIains

that infIuenced the Batman mythos

because of all of his menagerie of viIIains.

It was a grotesque worId.

(Robinson)

(Hamill) I think with the Joker they wanted someone

that was in direct contrast to Batman.

Batman is dark and somber visuaIIy,

the Joker is coIorfuI and garish.

The fact that they chose a scary cIown is significant because that's one thing

that can haunt our childhood.

(Conroy) At the end ofThe Killing Joke, there's this moment

where Batman is Iaughing and Iaughing.

And his Iaughter becomes Iike the Joker.

Batman and the Joker are the yin and the yang of each other.

They each need the other to survive.

(DiDio) You Iook at aII the viIIains of Batman's world

and how they pIay against aspects of his personaIity.

Catwoman plays against his sexuality.

Two-Face pIays against his duaIity.

Joker pIays against the chaos and order.

Scarecrow is fear as a weapon.

Every singIe one of those characters heIps define who he is.

(Jim Lee) They share a Iot of similarities to Batman.

Batman just chooses not to go down that path.

(explosion)

(rain pattering)

(thunder rumbling)

(Timm) I think for these characters just to stay fresh and contemporary,

they have to reaIIy refIect the era in which they are pubIished.

If you're a perceptive, emotionaIIy-aware creator,

you're gonna puII in from everything around you,

and at the same time, make it entertaining.

(DiDio) I don't see him stopping, I see him going straight forward,

whether or not he had a spear through his chest,

or whether or not he's puIIing himseIf out of a hospitaI bed,

he wiII put his own Iife at risk to heIp others.

I find that reaIIy intriguing.

l find that there's a level of dedication and a level of commitment

that I'm unabIe to make myseIf.

(Conroy) Everyone wants to be a hero, but we are afraid

of our own mortaIity.

To reaIIy do something heroic is dangerous.

(Stan Lee) Here was this rich nobIeman in EngIand,

and nobody knew that he was reaIIy

the Scarlet Pimpernel, and he was rescuing peopIe in the revoIution.

It's a formuIa that peopIe Iove.

And Bob latched on to that formula with his character.

And he was Iucky in that it caught on.

(Jim Lee) Batman has reflected our times.

He has refIected society.

Frank MiIIer did the same thing by 1986

with The Dark Knight Returns, there was a cynicism

that began permeating society.

(Miller) One ofthe things that had bothered me most

was how insular and closed in the world of comics was.

It had nothing to do with the rest of the world.

And I was wondering what wouId make Batman genuineIy reIevant,

-and l looked out the window. -(thunderclap)

(Miller) It was the Reagan era, the city was in near-chaos.

I thought that's what we need is a gigantic father figure

to straighten things out.

(Timm) As technoIogy moves forward, We need to re-address, at times,

what does that reaIIy mean in today's worId.

How does a character like that stay an anti-hero?

How does a character like that use modern-day technoIogy

without kind of breaking the core conceit that

he's a character without a superpower?

And once you open that door, you're expanding what Batman represents

to fans and readers, right?

And so, you have that evoIution of what he represents.

And is that something that we continue to expIore?

How far do we go with that?

Later generations of creators will have to address that.

(glass shattering)

(Timm) We flew into Abu Dhabi, we spent a coupIe of days there

to sort of get accIimated to the time zone.

And then we went to five different bases over three days.

(motor revving)

(Timm) The idea was reaIIy to bring Comic-Con to the troops.

Throw it up, throw it up, throw it up.

(all laughing)

(Timm) The hero to the reaI heroes.

(Jim Lee) We brought in big stars from our hit TV shows.

(all laughing)

-I'm in. -(man) Whoo!

(Timm) We did meet and greets,

you know, autograph sessions.

Above this ear. To the center.

And then at the Iast base, I actuaIIy Ied a "How to draw Batman" draw-aIong.

So, we're really kind of bringing that whole Comic-Con experience

directIy to the troops.

(indistinct chatter)

(Timm) I think there is an interesting connection between,

sort of, the mythoIogy of a fictionaI character that's called Batman

and what these servicemen and servicewomen are doing,

which is their duty.

Just highIy rewarding and touching.

(O'Neil) PartiaIIy, it was an avenue for peopIe to identify with these heroes.

But mostIy, I wanted to get some real-life concerns

on a page somehow.

(West) We feIt if they read comic books,

we couId give them that comic book, IiteraIIy,

but do it with a spin, tongue-in-cheek.

(Miller) What kind of man wouId this be?

Batman wouId be a very strange man.

Then he started growing in my mind

into this more and more epic character.

And I thought, what wouId the worId have to do with that?

(West) When I waIked out of my dressing traiIer

in the Batman costume, everyone was in awe.

And l kneW, at that moment, something was happening

with that posture, that demeanor, that attitude, that movement,

that was going to work.

(Julie Newmar) I get messages from women who say

when they take on the persona of Catwoman,

it seems to heIp them a Iot in Iife

to emerge from whatever it is that's held them down.

Catwoman does not apologize.

(Hamill) There´s usuaIIy a phrase that gets you into the head.

For me it was aIways, (in Joker voice) "Joker, here. "

But it's Iike sIipping into a nice comfortabIe pair of shoes

and getting behind the wheeI of the crazy car.

(Timm) The version I saw, when I was a kid, is the one l knoW the best.

And so I took aII that knowIedge of that version of Batman,

pIus aII the comics I had read.

The show itself is a series that ceIebrated Batman as a pop icon.

Because it was Brave and the Bold,

it had all these other heroes coming in and out,

and it was more about their reIationship to Batman.

(DiDio) To see him change in so many interpretations,

in so many different voices, and so many styIes.

You're hard-pressed to find any other character

that's been revised as much as he has but stiII stay true to the core.

Batman is able to weather aII these changes

and actuaIIy add to his arsenaI, not detract from it.

(explosion)

(wind blowing)

(DiDio) We aIways taIk about how Batman is enduring.

We taIk about Batman's 80-year history

and reaIIy Iook back to what eIse existed at that moment in time.

At the heart of it, it's a chiId who Iost his parents

and is constantIy fighting to get them back and never wiII.

No matter what generation you're in, no matter what time you're in...

...that's a pain or a Ioss that anybody couId feeI at any point.

So therefore, he has something that is immediateIy identifiabIe,

in some cases relatable,

in some cases frightening and hoping you never have to deaI with.

(Miller) I figure anybody who dresses up Iike a bat

and throws peopIe through windows is not a role model.

He is a hero, in the sense that Homer´s Odysseus was.

And so I read everything I couId, notjust Batman comics

but heroic fiction in generaI.

And I came up with an older Batman...

...who is dying in retirement.

And eventually, the world was driving him crazy enough

for him to go back into action.

(Uslan) The eIements that have made Batman so successful,

and so popuIar,

where peopIe identify with him so much over 80 years worIdwide,

he doesn't have to be encased in armor,

and gIow and fIy Iike Iron Man.

It's aII about the humanity.

And as Tim Burton said, it is aII about Bruce Wayne.

And that's the essence.

(Stan Lee) I have heard that Bob on camera

has often said, "l am Batman."

AIthough, I think it wouId've been more accurate to say, "I am Bruce Wayne."

Because l don't know of him swinging from the buiIdings

and beating up crooks or anything.

(Jim Lee) He´s the one thing from your chiIdhood that you can hoId on to.

(thunderclap)

And there's Iayers of the character that keep reveaIing themseIves

to your understanding as you get oIder.

With aII the muItipIe iterations in the comics...

...each writer has brought some Iayer to him that's even deeper.

(O'Neil) Every cuIture has had its storyteIIers...

...and it has shaped itself by the stories that are told.

So, it took me a long time to get onto that.

I was almost ashamed of what I did for a living until I realized, "My God,

what I do for a living is the basis of culture."

We can never take it for granted that these characters...

...are gonna live on, right?

So, it's incumbent upon us as publishers, as editors,

as creatives, to figure out how to do that.

(DiDio) We spent this morning working out 2021 Batman.

What that's gonna Iook Iike.

And what's different about him. That's the fun part of this job.

It's coming up with ideas, trying to execute those ideas,

and having people react the same way

you do when you first thought of the idea.

The idea is to take that thing that got us all in here excited

and feed it out to the world and hope they get excited, too.

-(James Tucker) He represents growth... -(growling)

...overcoming obstacIes.

There's all these elements to him that are so layered

that don't... That you really don't have to outgrow them if you don't want to,

you can... There's intellectual depth in the character

that grows with you.

(Neal Adams) He is the bookend at the end of the shelf...

...of all comic books.

Superman is at one end, Batman is at the other end.

All the rest of the heroes are in between.

Somehow, someday,

I am going to show the world the true Batman.

The dark and serious Batman created in 1 939 by Bob Kane and Bill Finger,

the guy who stalked these disturbed villains from the shadows.

And that became my vow for my mission in life.

(Khan) I remember Tim Burton hoIding up Arkham Asylum

in meetings with the studio and with Iicensees and saying,

"This is what I want the movie to look like."

And I think the return to the darker Batman, which is really,

in his initial conception, was so true to the character and resonated with

not just comic book fans but with an infinitely larger audience,

as we've seen from the audience that's turned out for the films.

(Robinson)

We were kind of pioneers of how to tell a story in that form,

both... So, the storytelling was new in terms of the art and the script.

(Murakami) I can´t wrap my brain around

what I thought it was gonna kind of turn into.

A lot of, kind of, dumb luck, you know.

I'm lucky enough to have fallen into this, but...

Um...

Yeah, at the time, I had no idea.

(Timm) There are so many different radical differences,

different kinds of Batman.

Everything from, you know, the Dick Sprang/Adam West Batman,

to the dark, uItra-gritty Frank MiIIer and beyond, you know, Batman.

l like 'em all. You know, I think they're aII cooI.

There'd never reaIIy been a show quite Iike The Batman show

in terms of having that kind of mix of adventure and mood...

(explosion)

...both, you know, kind of Iike a genuineIy spooky,

mysterious atmosphere to it,

as weII as, you know,

adventure plots and science fiction kind of plots.

So, it...

Nowadays, it would probably...

I mean, there's all kinds of stuff like that on TV,

but back then, there really wasn't,

and there certainly wasn't anything like that aimed at children.

So, um, I think that probably has a lot to do with it.

(Hamill) They say, "Don´t you get tired of doing the same character?

You've done it now since, I don't know, the early '90s."

The Joker's never boring because he is insane,

and by virtue of being insane, he's unpredictable.

And unpredictable is never boring.

(West) Just to have had the priviIege of having done that character

that was so happiIy received

by so many peopIe and succeeding generations

is reaIIy the best thing I think that an actor could ever feel.

(Newmar) It´s wonderfuI to be appreciated,

to hear from fans. They remember the diaIogue from 40, 50 years ago.

How the effect has been in the public's mind.

Yeah.

(thuds)

(Conroy) The onIy thing anyone can guarantee you is change.

-(panting) -(Conroy) And I Iearned,

I wasn't going to be this kind of actor, I was going to be that kind of actor.

I wasn't going to do this, I was going to do that.

So, you know, you figure out where you're going, and you're always...

you know, dancing as fast as you can.

So that's what Batman's brought to me now

in terms of what I get to do with the audience.

(Kane)

(Stan Lee) Once Bob became Iucky, once the Batman strip caught on...

...as far as l could tell from the times l Was With him,

Batman became his whole life.

He was always cheerful, he was always enthusiastic...

...and he always wanted to talk about Batman.

(thunder rumbling)

(rain pattering)

(gun firing)

(siren wailing)