Thursday, March 21, 2013

Blue Batman?



Some fans believe the colors of Batman's costume in the TV series are incorrectly interpreted, believing that Batman wasn't blue in the comics, but black instead. There's a belief that blue only meant to highlight the black. But was it really? It's safe to say it was both. It is possible that Batman truly did start  in black, but certainly in latter years he was officially wearing a blue suit.

The idea of Batman really being black in the comic books is supported by following quotes:

Bob Kane: The wings, trunks, and mask were black (Batman & Me 1989)

The cowl and cloak remained black, but since comics conventions demand that black objects be highlighted in blue, Batman’s uniform in effect became blue and gray.Batman: (The Complete History ~ Les Daniel 1999)

In Batman’s debut story, the key elements in his mythos were established; his eerie [black and gray] costume… Batman’s debut in Detective #27 has the estimable value of revealing Bat-Man (as he was called at first) exactly as envisioned by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. (Batman in the Forties ~ intro Bill Schell 2004)

However, some may point out that Kane's quote and first claim of Batman being originally black originated in 1989, coincidentally when the movie presented him as black for the first time. It's possible that it was just a retconning statement to support the movie. However, there are certainly elements in early comics which are undoubtedly black but colored in blue, such as Superman's hair. The early art also tends to support this thesis since Batman really was primarily black with small blue highlights



It wasn't later on when the colors were reversed and he was blue with black highlights. And then there comes a point in the artistic history of Batman where cops are shown wearing black uniforms highlighted with blue, and Batman is shown wearing a blue uniform highlighted with black. At that point, Batman is clearly supposed to be wearing blue
In this picture, for instance. If Batman is suppose to be wearing black, then what is Alfred wearing?


In the story The Super-Key to Fort Superman, Batman melted an identical wax-statue of himself to take it's place. And Superman clearly thinks to himself about the BLUE and gray blob of melted wax. He even tells it to Batman himself how the Batman figure is BLUE and gray.


 In The Strange Costumes of Batman! Detective Comics No. 165, Nov '50.  the suit is also described as blue: "Yes, it is the flashing figure of Batman, clad in the shadowy colors of blue and gray."


Verdict: It's very possible that Batman at first was black, but there is no doubt his costume was changed into blue down the road. therefore, Adam West's costume is spot on accurate with his comic book counterpart of the time


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23 comments:

  1. And what's more, West's mask has that darker front area, suggesting the look of the comics. Interestingly, that area was clearly meant to be in shadow - even though it usually remained dark in broad daylight when Batman was directly facing the sun.

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  2. Very happy to see a new post GA, we've all been waiting for one for a long time. Keep up the great work!

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  3. The Black Widow episodes of the TV series said his cape and cowl were purple.

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  4. Yeah, I knew its gonna come up sometime. Whether its blue or purple is a separate debate that Ive seen happening online many times. Personally in my opinion its a slight mix of both but mostly leaning towards blue. Im basing this opinion on the very recent pics of the costume from the show. Some are also posted in Les Daniels book. Imo its blue, but I can easily see why some would also see it as purple

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    1. Yeah, it's blue to me. I don't know why they said it was purple. I guess it was deemed funnier.

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    2. Hi there GA, I've been scrolling through your blog for like two hours now (Adios to my productive day at work) and I am amazed and impressed! I'd love to get in contact with you via email or something. I am working on a little Batman passion-project of my own and while the blog itself is a great resource it would be real helpful to pick your brain, or get ahold of your research references. Anyways, thanks for a great read, and I hope to hear from you soon!

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  5. Have you guys seen the chart with all variations of the bat suit? I found it on screenrant
    http://cdn1.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/batman-infographic.jpg

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  6. Batgirl was purple, batman was not. Its easy to see that when theyre next to each other:

    http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2011/06/batgirl05.jpg
    http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff97/batushka_photo/bats/carry_kick.jpg

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  7. I guess it depends on who's drawing him. I can only assume they changed his colour (and ears) to either make him less scary to children, and/or appear less "Satanic" and therefore less potentially offensive to religious groups (apparently Spock had this problem).

    If it matters, I recall reading Dennis O'Neil's Batman: Knightfall novelization years ago, where I'm pretty sure O'Neil described Batman's cape and mask as black.

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  8. IIRC, in the TV episode "That Darn Catwoman," she hypnotized Robin, and when she ordered him to beat up Batman, she said, "Slay the blue dragon." But many of us still had black-and-white TV's in the 1960's, and I thought of Batman's cape and cowl as black at that time.

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  9. There is no such thing as a black highlight. The word you're looking for is "shadows".

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  11. Gray/Blue is very iconic and cool looking, but I love an all-black batsuit more, like the ones by Tim Burton. As long as the yellow oval is in the costume, I'm fine.

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  12. There is no question that Batman’s cape, cowl, trunks and boots were originally envisaged as being black. You don’t have to guess. It’s explicitly stated in the text. He’s described in a caption in (I think) his second ever appearance as being “a black clad figure”. When his origin story was first presented, Bruce Wayne was shown musing about what his disguise should be, resolving that it must be “a creature of the night. Black, terrible”.

    Then there’s just the logical question of why on earth a guy dressing up as a bat would choose the colour blue. How many blue bats have you ever seen? Black makes sense. Blue doesn’t. His costume was black and grey. It just was. And in his earliest appearances there is little ambiguity about that. His costume LOOKS like it is black and grey.

    There’s no mystery about how the confusion happened. A shiny black costume was rendered how all shiny black objects were rendered - with blue highlights (just like Superman’s hair). Over time, the pressures of tight deadlines caused pencillers and inkers to fill in less and less of the surface area with solid black, eventually becoming highly stylised as mostly just the trunks and the face of the cowl being filled in black (clearly never intended to suggest the face was actually a different colour from the rest of the cowl, but misinterpreted that way by the Adam West costume designers)

    Eventually, he began to look more like his cape was blue than black, so that by the time the colour of his costume was explicitly referenced in the text again in the 50s, it would have seemed odd to say it was black when it clearly wasn’t.

    When creators wanted to take Batman back to his roots in the 80s and 90s, that original intention to emulate an actual bat so as to scare criminals, to be a “creature of the night”, the idea that he would choose the colour blue (and not even a dark blue - it’s literally exactly the same blue as Superman’s gaudy tights) again seemed ridiculous. So comic artists began unambiguously rendering him as black and grey again.

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    1. You're repeating things the author already stated in the article. Apparently you're annoyed that they rhetorically gave credence to arguments where, as far as fan discussion goes, have arisen from confusion or ignorance.

      "Then there’s just the logical question of why on earth a guy dressing up as a bat would choose the colour blue. How many blue bats have you ever seen? Black makes sense. Blue doesn’t. His costume was black and grey. It just was. And in his earliest appearances there is little ambiguity about that. His costume LOOKS like it is black and grey."

      Batman wears blue and grey partly out of artistic evolution, and partly because *he's a superhero*. I haven't seen yellow wolverines either. But there are "logical" as well as character reasons why he would wear blue:

      Blue is better for night urban camouflage. As Batman progresses in his crimefighting career, and criminals become more widely aware that he's just a guy in a suit, Bruce may start to prize being unseen over being "scary".

      Maybe, being unseen isn't the priority. Maybe, as he takes a brightly colored sidekick, realizes that scaring criminals isn't worth the risk of scaring children, continues crimefighting out of choice rather than compulsion, gains a bat-family, and joins a superhero team...maybe he realizes that blue better represents him as a symbol of inspiration for the people of Gotham.

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