The Batman

Happy 75th anniversary to the Batman, first published in Detective Comics issue 27 in 1939. Back then, he had a hyphenated name, an apartment instead of a cave and an ordinary car instead of a Batmobile, but he was already “a mysterious and adventurous figure”. His identity remains unknown... for about six pages. Which is all it takes to establish that Looking Really Cool And Scary is about as good a superhero as flight or the strength to throw a train. And so a subgenre was born. (Give or take the Phantom.)