The Batmobile

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1

NOLAN:
There's something incredibly primal

about the relationship...

...between man and machine.

It's extraordinarily powerful.

It's almost like the myth becoming reality.

Well, you look at the comics themselves

and how much they've changed over the years.

When you see it, you go,

"That's so cool! I wish I had one of those."

We wanted to raise the bar and build

the best Batmobile there ever was.

USLAN:
The origin of Batman is so primal

and emotion filled.

[GUNSHOTS]

When Bruce Wayne was a young boy...

...he saw his parents murdered

before his eyes.

And at that moment, in the belief

that one person can make a difference...

...he made a vow to get the bad guy

who did this...

...and to get all the bad guys...

...even if he had to spend the rest of his life

walking through hell...

...to honor that commitment.

As a man, I'm flesh and blood,

I can be ignored, I can be destroyed...

...but as a symbol...

As a symbol, I can be incorruptible.

I can be everlasting.

One of the attractions of Batman as a

superhero is that he doesn't have superpowers.

RA'S AL GHUL:

You are just an ordinary man in a cape.

- I never said thank you.

- And you'll never have to.

WHITE:

He dedicated his life to fighting crime...

...so no one else in Gotham City

would have to suffer the way he did.

SCHUMACHER:
He is an ordinary person

doing extraordinary things...

...to stop injustice.

The Batmobile is the way he gets there.

I've got to get me one of those.

The very first Batman story was in

Detective Comics, number 27, May 1939.

And right from the get-go, Batman needed

to get from place to place in the city...

...so he drove Bruce Wayne's red sedan.

And in 1941, Bill Finger, the writer...

...decided to take what Bob Kane

had been drawing...

...and dub it the Batmobile,

and then working with Jerry Robinson...

...craft it as something that began

to look a little darker...

...a little bit more serious,

and a little bit more bat-like.

The Batman! Come on.

When the movie serial started,

you had real cars.

Let's go.

USLAN:
The 1943 Batman movie serial

was a 1939 Cadillac...

...which was the car

Bruce Wayne was driving.

But it seemed like if the top was up,

it was the Batmobile.

If the top was down,

it was Bruce Wayne's car.

Come along, fella,

you're going with us to the Bat's cave.

It didn't have any bat symbology...

...they didn't have any budget

to build fins for it. It was very simple.

DIDIO:
When you hire a new artist for DC

to work on Batman...

...one of the first things they want to do

is they want to invent the Batmobile.

USLAN:

What was happening around 1950...

...was an editorial decision

to modernize Batman.

The existing Batmobile has a crash...

...Batman breaks his leg,

and as he's recuperating...

...he's sitting there drawing up plans

for a brand new Batmobile.

The Batmobile elongated,

the Batface on it grew in size...

...and was far more prominent...

...and the various artists through the years

of the 1950s continued to modify that.

It had different kinds of weapons...

...different kinds of devices

from story to story...

...depending on what the writer needed

to get him out of some kind of a fix.

I actually have seen a Batmobile

in real life.

I've actually seen the '60s

Adam West Batmobile.

Still one of my favorites

just because it's the first one.

The first iteration of the Batmobile

I ever saw was the TV show.

I remember as a kid

that was a massively important part...

...of what the appeal of Batman was.

The TV Batmobile was created

by George Barris...

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