The Suffolk Gazette investigation finally unraveled the truth. Batman is not just a superhero or a muscular character sketched by some artist, instead, he was inspired by a real person. Recently a mysterious vintage-looking photograph circulating online has been reasoned to be the inspiration behind the caped crusader.
The image of the mysterious masked man has been claimed to be the original inspiration for the famed comic book vigilante. With many theories attached to the picture, the image seems to be blurry and of a bearded man in a leather mask, similar to the one worn by Batman.
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Who Was The Original Batman?
According to one of many stories attached to that vintage photo, it is of a butcher named Bill Smith and apparently, this photograph was taken in 1892, in New York. But Suffolk Gazette investigation has discovered the inspiration for the character was the true story of Bill Smith, who moved from Suffolk to America in 1870. Later he settled in New York where he worked in a butcher shop. It covers a remarkable story of how he turned a vigilante after his shop was repeatedly targeted by shoplifters.
DOES HE LOOK LIKE BATMAN TO YOU?
— @AndTartary and antiquity (@andtartary2) May 13, 2023
This photo was taken in 1892 in New York. It is an image of Bill Smith. He was not a rich man, philanthropist or playboy like the fictional characters in comics and movies. He worked in a butcher shop.
Bill Smith began his personal fight against… pic.twitter.com/ywARc87qY0
According to Municipal archives, Bill Smith was first charged in 1878 for catching and punching a thief who had run out of the shop with a leg of lamb over his shoulder. The episode inspired Mr Smith, according to parish records, and he left Suffolk where he worked as a farm laborer to board a liner from Liverpool to New York to seek a better life. Unfortunately, bad luck followed him. He went on to tackle more thieves and soon gained notoriety as a vigilante. It took four more years for him to adopt his famous head mask which made him look like a bat and to hide his real identity. He then patrolled his neighborhood by night looking for evildoers.
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Is Bill Smith Really The Inspiration Behind The Caped Crusader?
However, the bat-masked picture of Bill Smith was not actually an inspiration for the character of Batman. In 2020 the Suffolk Gazette posted on Facebook clarifying that the story was not real. According to the sources, Batman is created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. The first comic strip featuring the masked vigilante appeared in the 1939 version of Detective Comic. He was also inspired by a 1920s movie called ‘The Mark of Zorro’, a radio show called ‘The Shadow’, and a 1930 movie called ‘The Bat Whispers’. The movie featured a criminal with a cape who shines his bat insignia on the wall just before he is about to kill his victims. And also stands on the roof of a building as he spreads his cape out.
Bob Kane also credited artist Leonardo da Vinci for helping inspire him, “I remember when I was 12 or 13 I was an ardent reader of books on how things began […] and I came across a book about Leonardo da Vinci. This had a picture of a flying machine with huge bat wings […] It looked like a bat man to me.”
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