Batman predecessors in pulp fiction, comic strips, newspaper headlines, and autobiographical details referring to Kane himself. As an aristocratic hero with a double identity, Batman had predecessors in the Scarlet Pimpernel (created by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, 1903) and Zorro (created by Johnston McCulley, 1919). Like them, Batman performed his heroic deeds in secret, averted suspicion by playing aloof in public, and marked his work with a signature symbol. Kane noted the influence of the films "The Mark of Zorro" (1920) and "The Bat Whispers" (1930) in the creation of the character's iconography. Finger, drawing inspiration from pulp heroes like Doc Savage,
By His Bootstraps By His Bootstraps "By His Bootstraps" is a 20,000 word science fiction novella by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It plays with some of the inherent paradoxes that would be caused by time travel. The story was published in the October 1941 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction" under the pen name Anson MacDonald; the same issue has "Common Sense" under Heinlein's name. "By His Bootstraps" was reprinted in Heinlein's 1959 collection "The Menace From Earth", and in several subsequent anthologies, and is now available in at least two audio editions. Under the title "The Time Gate", it was also included