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The time the city of 'Batman' said movie producers stole its name and sued for royalties.

When you think of Batman, you probably think of this guy:

Image via Thinkstock.


Or this guy:


Image by Evening Standard/Getty Images.

Or this guy:


Image by Junko Kimura/Getty Images.

Or, maybe even this guy:


Image via Thinkstock.

But you're probably not thinking about these people:

Image by Ferhat 72.

That last image is an aerial view of the center of the town of Batman, Turkey.

It's home to about 370,000 people and is less than 100 miles from the Syrian border. Before the discovery of oil in the region in the 1940s, Batman wasn't much of a city — it was only home to about 3,000 people.

And it wasn't "Batman," either; it was a village named Iluh. Iluh was renamed in 1957, nearly two decades after the comic book character debuted, and took its name from a nearby river called the Batman River.

The name of the river and, therefore, the city has nothing to do with the comic book character. But in 2008, a man named Hüseyin Kalkan tried to change that.

At the time, Kalkan was the mayor of Batman (the town), and he wasn't too happy about “The Dark Knight," the film written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale (he's the third Batman pictured).

"The name 'Batman' belongs to us. … There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us."

He told a Turkish news agency (via CNN) that "the name 'Batman' belongs to us … There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us."

And then Kalkan sued — according to various press reports, he brought an action against Nolan seeking untold royalty amounts.

But he didn't sue Warner Bros., who produced the movie, or DC Comics, for that matter.

Absurd, certainly, but the spark for the idea was even stranger.

A few years before the movie came out, Batman (the town, again) had fallen upon hard times. And worse, a few years before that — and horribly — the town was in the news due to a spate of “honor suicides."

As the New York Times reported, these occurred because when young women were engaged in premarital affairs, the culture sickeningly called for their brothers to kill them. To avoid this, in the words of the Times, "parents [were] trying to spare their sons from the harsh punishments associated with killing their sisters by pressing the daughters to take their own lives instead."

Bad news attracts reporters and, in this case, reporters led to crazy legal theories.

During one of Mayor Kalkan's many interviews during that period, a reporter facetiously (one hopes) asked him why the city hadn't sued the comic/movie/cartoon franchise seeking royalties.

After all, those dollars would go a long way toward balancing the city's books. (According to a Turkish news source.)

Kalkan took the question as a critique of his administration, and, as he told the media when announcing his lawsuit, “we found this criticism right and started to look for legal possibilities of a case like that."

And “The Dark Knight" was the first to fit the bill.

The lawsuit almost certainly went nowhere, of course; as of this writing a year later, there are few if any news reports discussing it further.

Nolan, on the other hand, wrote and directed "The Dark Knight Rises" for a 2012 release, without any reported legal threats from Turkish cities.

Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.

Planet

Easy (and free!) ways to save the ocean

The ocean is the heart of our planet. It needs our help to be healthy.

Ocean Wise

Volunteers at a local shoreline cleanup

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The ocean covers over 71% of the Earth’s surface and serves as our planet’s heart. Ocean currents circulate vital heat, moisture, and nutrients around the globe to influence and regulate our climate, similar to the human circulatory system. Cool, right?

Our ocean systems provide us with everything from fresh oxygen to fresh food. We need it to survive and thrive—and when the ocean struggles to function healthfully, the whole world is affected.

Pollution, overfishing, and climate change are the three biggest challenges preventing the ocean from doing its job, and it needs our help now more than ever. Humans created the problem; now humans are responsible for solving it.

#BeOceanWise is a global rallying cry to do what you can for the ocean, because we need the ocean and the ocean needs us. If you’re wondering how—or if—you can make a difference, the answer is a resounding YES. There are a myriad of ways you can help, even if you don’t live near a body of water. For example, you can focus on reducing the amount of plastic you purchase for yourself or your family.

Another easy way to help clean up our oceans is to be aware of what’s known as the “dirty dozen.” Every year, scientists release an updated list of the most-found litter scattered along shorelines. The biggest culprit? Single-use beverage and food items such as foam cups, straws, bottle caps, and cigarette butts. If you can’t cut single-use plastic out of your life completely, we understand. Just make sure to correctly recycle plastic when you are finished using it. A staggering 3 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans annually. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone recycled!

The 2022 "Dirty Dozen" ListOcean Wise

If you live near a shoreline, help clean it up! Organize or join an effort to take action and make a positive impact in your community alongside your friends, family, or colleagues. You can also tag @oceanwise on social if you spot a beach that needs some love. The location will be added to Ocean Wise’s system so you can submit data on the litter found during future Shoreline Cleanups. This data helps Ocean Wise work with businesses and governments to stop plastic pollution at its source. In Canada, Ocean Wise data helped inform a federal ban on unnecessary single-use plastics. Small but important actions like these greatly help reduce the litter that ends up in our ocean.

Ocean Wise, a conservation organization on a mission to restore and protect our oceans, is focused on empowering and educating everyone from individuals to governments on how to protect our waters. They are making conservation happen through five big initiatives: monitoring and protecting whales, fighting climate change and restoring biodiversity, innovating for a plastic-free ocean, protecting and restoring fish stocks, and finally, educating and empowering youth. The non-profit believes that in order to rebuild a resilient and vibrant ocean within the next ten years, everyone needs to take action.

Become an Ocean Wise ally and share your knowledge with others. The more people who know how badly the ocean needs our help, the better! Now is a great time to commit to being a part of something bigger and get our oceans healthy again.

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