Bob Kane devised the character's civilian name, Bruce Wayne, wrote the first Batman story, while Kane provided art. Kane, who had already submitted the proposal for Batman at DC and held a contract, is the only person given an official company credit for Batman's creation. Comics historian Ron Goulart, in "Comic Book Encyclopedia", refers to Batman as the "creation of artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger". According to Kane, "Bill Finger was a contributing force on Batman right from the beginning. He wrote most of the great stories and was influential in setting the style and genre other writers would emulate
The Prisoner in other media series fascinated comic book artist Jack Kirby, who created a four-issue homage in 1969 in "Fantastic Four" #84-87, in which the superhero team finds itself in Doctor Doom's Latveria, a city like the Village in many respects. In the "Bullpen Bulletins" page in Marvel Comics cover-dated July 1976, Marvel announced a comic book based on "The Prisoner", to be written by Steve Englehart and drawn by a then-unchosen artist and scheduled to be "starting this summer". The artist assigned to the project would be Gil Kane. When Jack Kirby returned to Marvel in the mid-70s after a run at DC