For most uninitiated in Batman, the camp stylings of Adam West and Burt Ward of the 1960s was not the first time we’ve seen The Bat on screen. The credit for the first on-screen Batman was these 1943 movie serials. A movie serial was a short one-reel film that would play in front of the feature film. These serials, per their name, would be one in a part of several shorts in a full series and put together would play like a feature film. They were often separated due to their length and as a marketing gimmick. At the end of each was the note, “Come back next week for the next adventure” in the series in hopes that audiences interested in the story would flock back to the theatres. Roughly the length of modern television episodes, they often play as such.
You can expect that so early in the years of Hollywood film and the tales of Batman some things are obviously of a different quality with the Batman serials. Special effects, fight scenes, storytelling is all rather sloppy due to the technology and in terms of the story, well that’s where things get interesting. Burton’s first film was high profile and needed a high profile villain, so we got the Joker. The 60s series featured the whole host of Batman’s Rogues’ gallery, and Christopher Nolan focused on reinventing Batman, so his tone was the star feature of his film, reinventing the whole film franchise. By the time the serials rolled around in 1943, though, Batman as an enterprise hadn’t established such a powerful rogues gallery. Joker had been around since 1941, but he is absent from the serials. Who’s the villain?
See, near the end of 1941 the United States had found a reason to enter the conflicts in WWII. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor initiated the US presence in the war and much of the US conflict wasn’t with the Germans and what Hitler was doing at the time. Rather, the United States retaliated against the Japanese and growing resentment began to spread around the nation, but the United States needed to further spread these feelings. Our villain in these serials is a Japanese National Mastermind knows as Tito/Prince Daka. The conflict in the serials surrounds nuclear power and Nationalism; Batman and Daka battle over a Radium gun while Daka turns several American Civil Servants and Officials into “Electric Zombies” to do his evil biddings in order to thwart Batman and take over the United States.
These serials aren’t far from propaganda. When some of Daka’s American servants eventually turn against him they cite the strength of the American Will against the Japanese plot to take them over. Racial slurs abound, from mentions of “shifty-eyed Japs” and one of the series titles: “Slaves of the Rising Sun.” It’s clear from the anxiety surrounding the Japanese the Americans are aiming to turn the population against the Japanese and Axis powers, and what better way than to use one of the most popular recent heroes in Popular Culture of the time.
Batman is here to thwart the Japanese advances. Moreover, Batman acts as an agent of the government and not as a vigilante, while Daka represents Japan’s intentions. This is clearly a guided attempt to drive opinions through popular culture. If our hero–who is in this case a good honest American hero–is against the Japanese then clearly they must be evil.
The 1943 serials–along with the later 1949 serials known today as Batman and Robin–are a shining example of a different time where fear and dangerous ideologies plagued our world. We were more willing to turn against each other in these trying times and weren’t afraid to show it. The United States and Columbia pictures were working together to drum up support for the war efforts by creating hatred for the enemy.
As an example of early interpretations of the character, the Batman serials don’t really delve into the psychological or sociological questions that Miller, Loeb, or Nolan have discussed. It’s an example of how characters can be re-adapted. As an example of the time, the Batman serials are an early example of the manufacturing and marketing efforts of studios and producers. Notice the absence of Bob Kane’s name from the credits, how much input did DC comics have on this? But it’s not the first time comics and characters within have reflected almost racist and prejudice ideals, but this is such a glaring indictment and an example of the time while also showing in a backwards way that Batman can be used to reflect certain political ideas. How will The Dark Knight Rises reflect our time?
Next time: The Comics of Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb: Haunted Knight, The Long Halloween and Dark Victory.
Paul Sawchuk 