On a messageboard I raised the topic of Bob Kane's degree of control over the BATMAN franchise. Here's what I know of the matter, culled from Gerard Jones' fine book MEN OF TOMORROW and various posts on the blog OZ AND ENDS.
First, from a 2009 post entitled "Bob Kane's First and Second Contracts," J.L. Bell wrote:
In 1938 Bob Kane (shown here, courtesy of NNDB.com) started supplying material for Detective Comics. That material was written by Bill Finger, but Kane kept his scripter's contributions quiet for as long as he could. As a hungry young artist, Kane signed some sort of work-for-hire agreement which granted the magazine publisher full ownership of his material and characters in exchange for some compensation.
Seeing the money that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were earning for their Superman character, Kane decided to create his own costumed crimefighter. In 1939 he and Finger came up with Batman. No one knew that the character would still be incredibly lucrative sixty years later. Kane sold the Batman character to the company that would become DC Comics under the same contract as his previous stories.
Jones substantially says the same, but with this caveat:
Kane would never talk about the deal he signed, but apparently it guaranteed him some security and control of the material.-- MOT, p, 150.
Bell and Jones tell subtantially the same story regarding Kane's second contract with DC Comics:
Kane started to renegotiate on his [contract], using a novel approach. He said that he'd been a minor back when he'd signed his original DC contract--which was therefore unenforceable...Other comics creators had met Kane as a fellow high-school student, so they knew he was lying. But DC couldn't prove it. There was no government record of Kane's birth, and his family was backing up his story. Furthermore, with the Superman lawsuit coming up and business going down, the company was eager to nail down rights to the Batman character.
Jones further speculates:
[Jack Liebowicz] reportedly returned partial legal ownership of Batman to Kane, including rights of reversion... then guaranteed Kane a certain number of pages a month at a staggering page rate... MOT. p. 247.
One thing Bell argues that Jones does not reference, however, is that in 1963 DC may have pulled the wool over Kane's eyes to ace him out. Bell shows that the Bat-sales in that year rated on average about ninth or tenth on he DC list of titles. He also points out that if Batman was so unpopular, why did DC keep featuring him alongside their big gun Superman in WORLD'S FINEST?
So why did DC's top brass tell Kane that they were thinking of canceling Batman entirely? I think the answer lies in his unusually expensive 1947 contract. The problem with Batman comics probably lay not in their income but in their costs.
The publisher wanted Kane to give up his high per-page rate and his stultifying creative control. I suspect its head, Irwin Donenfeld, used brinkmanship to open new negotiations, and that tactic worked. DC was able to move the Batman comics in a new direction.
Now, Kane continued his association with the Bat-comics for a few more years, so his most-used contract artist, Sheldon Moldoff, continued receiving assignments. But instead of using the cartoony style during the earlier Silver Age under editor Jack Schiff, Moldoff emulated the more realistic style of BATMAN's "New Look" approach under editor Julie Schwartz. However, one year after Moldoff published his most well-regarded story of the period, "Beware of Poison Ivy," financier Steve Ross bought DC Comics for $60 million. And Jones adds:
Because Kane owned partial rights to BATMAN, he could negotiate his own sale.-- MOT, p. 306.
Whatever the particulars of the deal, it ended Kane's professional association with the Bat-comics, though he sometimes parlayed his fame as sole credited creator to snag "advisory" status on projects like the 1989 BATMAN film.
More on the related matter of Bat-myths to come, same Archive-time, same Archive-channel.
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