- There's a giant crossover event between the heroes
of the CW superhero shows, Arrow, Flash,
Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow.
And what what we'll probably not gonna see much of Superman
or Batman it did get me thinking about the first time
the two heroes crossed paths.
As we briefly mentioned in our video about why Marvel heroes
live in New York, DC characters back in the day hardly
ever teamed up with one another in actual stories.
They would appear together on covers, but that was about
the extent of it.
You can observe this with the first 70 issues
of World's Finest Comics,
originally titled World's Best Comics.
Batman and Superman often appearing with Robin
as an awkward third wheel, took part in many
wacky scenarios and activities like playing baseball,
surfing, playing baseball, fishing,
hitting people with baseballs, tug-of-war,
doing whatever this, hold on can we go back to, yeah, right.
How is Robin winning this match?
I mean they've got to be throwing it on purpose
just to boost his self esteem right?
Right?
Anyway, as far as I can tell the very first time the
Man of Tomorrow and the Caped Crusader teamed up
was in Superman number 76 from 1952.
World's Finest had been making all these fancy mundane
cover stories for 11 years at this point,
just teasing the fans that maybe someday
the two would meet officially, who knows,
stick with us for over a decade until you get your answer.
I mean it was essentially click bait right?
Tease Batman and Superman teaming up on the cover
to drive sales but none of that ever really
happened inside the comic book.
However in issue number 71 that all changed,
finally Bats and Sups were teaming up not just this once
but regularly.
Your two favorite heroes together in one adventure.
But there are three heroes on this cover so that means that
sorry, Robin, you've always got a promising tug-of-war
career to fall back on, you rascal.
Back on track, the comic itself is not super interesting
instead I want to highlight the reason
why Superman and Batman started teaming up on the regular.
It wasn't because the writers couldn't resist
the creative escapades that would ensue
by putting the two heroes in the same narrative, no.
It was because of money.
But not in the way that you might think,
DC Comics didn't start having the two heroes team up
because they thought it would sell well,
I mean that's what the covers were already doing.
They started telling stories with both the characters
because it was cheaper than telling two individual stories.
Even though the two heroes shared a cover the stories inside
would be separated.
Superman would get a story, Batman would get a story.
There would probably be other unrelated stories as well.
I mean these books were real long,
they were 96 thrilling pages in full color even.
At least at first thanks to inflation the folks at DC Comics
back in the day were left with two options to make a profit.
Either raise the price of the comic higher
than the original 15 cents or
simply shorten the comic use fewer pages and less ink.
And because every penny counts they also slightly shrunk
the physical size and dimensions of each comic book.
Well the title started out with about 100 pages
of comic book goodness that number started
to shrink over time, 92 pages, 84 pages,
76 pages, 68 pages then without any warning to the fans
Issue 71 cut the length of the comic almost in half
to a measly 36 pages.
Which is still plenty of comic,
they also brought the price down to 10 cents
so consumers wouldn't feel cheated but
a problem occurred, how were writers supposed to fit
two independent stories about Batman and Superman
in this shortened comic series, the answer is
they didn't, they couldn't.
Instead they simply wrote one story featuring both
the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel, and Robin I guess.
And this would happen for almost every single issue
afterwards that is right,
Superman and Batman only started to team up regularly
because DC's money saving practices
basically forced them to.
And ever since the two have become an iconic duo
like Tom and Jerry, Bert and Ernie,
Batman and Rob, oh.
(page turning)
Sorry.
Robin.
What do you guys think?
Do you like having Batman and Superman team up?
Or should they stay in their own separate cities?
How good are you at tug-of-war?
Let me know in the comments down below.
Bit of a shorter video this week,
we'll be back to longer episodes next week.
The holidays made our schedule a little chaotic so
forgive us. In the meantime if you like
this video we've got a whole
playlist specifically about Superman and Batman
that you might be interested in.
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My name is Scott reminding you
to read between the panels and grow smarter through comics.
See ya.
(techno music)