Related
AlthoughBatmanhas had many sexual love interests throughout the years , one of his earliest and most iconic romantic partners , Vicki Vale , may have been inhale by none other thanMarilyn Monroe .
Making her debut inBatman#49 by Bill Finger , Bob Kane and Lew Sayre Schwartz , Vicki Vale was initially little more than a Lois Lane knockoff , a photojournalist who was obsessed with unveil Batman ’s hugger-mugger identity . She was a regular character in the Bat - deed of conveyance until the 60 , when editor Julius Schwartz did away with many of the previous supporting cast like Bat - Mite andAce , the Bat - Hound . Vicki Vale would go on to make sporadic appearance in the next few decades , until appearing as a major character in 1989’sBatman , where she was impersonate by actress Kim Basinger . Although she never settle down in as Bruce Wayne ’s one - truthful erotic love , the character still reappears in comic storylines every once in a while , and has also been adapt into animation and television games . However , Vicki Vale ’s blood in the veridical world are perhaps too foreign to believe .
Related : Batman / Catwoman Highlights Why So Many Superhero Relationships Fail
According to Bob Kane ’s autobiographyBatman and Me : The Bob Kane Story , the Batman co - creator title to have met a unseasoned Norma Jean Mortenson in 1943 while confer with on thefirstBatmanmovie serialin Hollywood . The two reconnected again in 1948 when Kane was back in Hollywood for the motion-picture photography of the serial publication ’s sequel , Batman and Robin . By that time , Norma Jean had die her hair blond and renamed herself Marilyn Monroe . Kane run on to put forward that the two drove down to the beach , where he proceeded to sketch Monroe in her bathing courtship . He took the resume back to New York and showed them to his editor in chief , using them as the basis for Batman ’s new love interestingness , Vicki Vale .
It should be noted that Kane ’s claims are to be taken with a considerable grain of saltiness . First of all , his timeline of result simply does n’t tot up : in 1943 , Monroe was 16 years old , still marital to her first husband James Dougherty and had n’t yet embarked on her acting or molding vocation . moreover , Batman dearest interest Vicki Valewas around long enough for her theatrical role to appear in the 1949 serialBatman and Robin- the very same set Kane exact to have reconnected with Monroe on while in Hollywood , and done the sketches which he used as the inspirationforVicki Vale . Kane ’s news report becomes even more dubious when count he also exact to have had a brief intimacy with Monroe . Even if such an liaison were true , it seems improbable that no one other than Kane himself would have made mention of it in a love life as well - document as Marilyn Monroe ’s .
However , there may be some truth to Monroe acting as the initial breathing in for Vicki Vale . Kane and his Batman atomic number 27 - creator Bill Finger often looked to remote sources when come up with characters to inhabit Batman ’s world , most notably withthe Joker , who was famously based onThe Man Who Laughsactor Conrad Veidt ’s show in that 1928 moving-picture show . It ’s not impossible that Kane and his stalls of creative person would have based Vicki Vale ’s appearance on Monroe . The actress was n’t quite a household name yet , but she was a popular manikin appear in rafts of publishing across the nation , so it is entirely possible someone in the Bat - offices would have come across her face on a magazine cover and used that as a simulation forVicki Vale . Whatever the truth is , it ’s still interesting to consider that a 20th century icon likeMarilyn Monroemight have wreak a part in theBatmanmythos in some fashion .
More : The Bat - Family ’s Most Important Member Is n’t Batman , It ’s Bruce Wayne
beginning : Batman and Me : The Bob Kane Storyby Bob Kane and Tom Andrae
