My wife has been encouraging me to get back into writing, as it was a passion of mine, so I've decided to dust off the old blog. I spent a half hour just finding out which old email address I used for it. In addition to my wife's encouragement, my friend Bridget also just asked out of nowhere if I've been writing seven minutes a day. Sadly, the answer has been no. Well... unless I'm arguing with people on some comic book forum. And then it hit me! I had an apostrophe (I think you mean an epiphany). I love writing about comic related things, and I haven't blogged since long before I had a wife or a friend named Bridget. So my first bit of writing will be a comic related article on my old blog.
And what comic related item should I discuss? Well, it's May of 2014. What else could I possibly want to write about but...
Yes, my friends, Batman has turned 75 years old. And anyone who knows the first thing about me knows that I love Batman. Honestly, that's a literal statement. It's usually the first thing anyone finds out about me. I've loved Batman for as long as I can remember. What American boy hasn't? In the last 75 years there have been only short periods of time during which there wasn't some iteration of Batman standing front and center in pop culture. I could write a detailed history about the character, but then this would just be a wikipedia entry. Screw that. I'll just write about MY history with Batman. Or is it with BatMEN? The character continues to evolve rapidly. The Batman in comics and film today, in some ways, barely resembles the Batman I first knew...
There was a long period between 1966 and 1989 when one image of Batman stood out as definitive to the public at large. That was the image of Adam West. In the comics, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams had firmly returned Batman to his dark roots in the 70's, and Frank Miller changed the entire genre with his Batman titles in the 80's, but I was four. I didn't know about that stuff. And, to me, there was nothing ridiculous about this spandexed hipster running around in broad daylight with his domino-asked ward bashing Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith with the accomanying "POW's" and "WHAM's" and I'm pretty sure I saw a "BIFF" in there at least once. Even at that age, I thought it was absolutely moronic of the villains to constantly leave Batman and Robin unsupervised in elaborate deathtraps, but that was easily explained away by a universal truth Batman ingrained in many children. Bad guys are dumb. And I would smile, roll my socks down until they resembled pixie boots, and treat swing-set swings as ropes for me to sail across a Gotham which looked strangely similar 1960's Los Angeles. It was a version of Batman that many fans desperately wanted the world to forget (myself included for a time). That it made Batman campy, colorful, and stupid. I'm glad it has, instead, been recognized as a perfectly legitimate interpretation of Batman, to be remembered fondly. Because we all enjoyed it.
And, yes, that is an autographed Adam West picture made out to me. It is one of my most prized possessions.
Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight?
In 1989, "Batman" starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson came out and I wasn't allowed to watch it. It was rated PG-13 and I was five. And that sucked. It sucked until Christmas time that year when, during Christmas vacation, my brother and I came into possession of a copy on VHS. And we watched it at least twenty times in a four day period. It was scary and exciting. It was a Batman I never knew existed... and ultimately it would be a Batman I liked less when I got much older. Batman himself wasn't really the star of his own film, and he killed people left and right (a giant no-no for Batman). Still, it was visually mesmerizing. Keaton brought a danger to the character never seen on film before and not matched again for over a decade, and Nicholson was so charismatic that no one thought anyone would ever touch his performance (we ended up being wrong on that one). I loved Batman, but my love turned into an obsession thanks to Bruce Timm...
I am vengeance! I am the night!
How lucky we all were to live in a time when Batman: The Animated series was on TV! The first episode I saw was "Heart of Ice." From the opening sequence, the style (a new kind, termed "dark deco") was so unique and engaging. I felt like I was watching a twisted, more violent Dick Tracy. Then the episode began. It was about a guy in a chryo-suit who sought revenge against his former employer with a freeze ray. It was also as emotional and tragic as anything I had seen before or since. I was hooked. Not just to the series, but to the character and the mythology, in a way I had never been before. Through that series, I was introduced to Dick Grayson. REALLY introduced to him. Yeah, Robin was on the 60's series and Superfriends, but those shows never had an episode like "Robin's Reckoning."
That series eventually gave us Mask of the Phantasm: a theatrical animated film that was truer to the character's mythology than anything Burton or Schumacher gave us in live action. Bruce Timm's animated Batman grew into a massive shared DC Animated Universe. Really, it's thanks to Batman that I was introduced to all of those characters (except Superman. C'mon. Every American is fed Superman at the teet). Last but not least, Batman: TAS gave us Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as Joker.
At this point, I was sold. I was diving into Batman comics, graphic novels, new animated series, new films... In fact, I have to mention...
The training is nothing! The will is everything! The will to act!
I followed production on this film every single day from long before it was even in production. A couple of Batman reboots were being shopped around. One was an adaptation of Frank Miller's "Year One," to be directed by Darren Aranofsky, and the other was called "The Intimidation Game," being pitched by Chris Nolan. Both Nolan and Aranofsky were artsy indie directors at the time, so it was hard to get behind either of them... until hearing about what Aranofsky and Miller actually had planned for Year One. Let's just say we're better off without that film. Chris Nolan's on the other hand, was the perfect film for the time.
In anticipation for it, I bought about 12 seats for the midnight screening, so all my friends could sit with me. At the film's conclusion, when Batman and Gordon discuss escalation in criminal activity, and this new guy called "The Joker," I felt a chill as Batman soared off the roof, Gordon smiling behind, and the screen went black with the title "Batman Begins." I stood up and hugged my friend Andy, who was sitting behind me. I was almost in tears. To me, it was the first time they finally got Batman right in a movie. Three years later, my brother and I would be sitting in a fans-only pre-screening of a sequel called "The Dark Knight."
It's what I do that defines me.
But that's enough for now. I've already told about just HOW I got into the character and a brief history beyond that. It's time to wrap this up. Let me just say that my love of this character may seem extreme, but a few things should be understood. Fictional characters resonate with the masses in ways that few actual people can. I grew up without a father, and Batman became a male role model that could never let me down. As Kevin Conroy once said, "He always does the right thing." Moreover, as we all know, Batman is just a mortal man like us. However, he shows how we can be extraordinary. He saves the day time and again using nothing but his wits, body, and will. For Batman, more than any other hero, the point is that NOTHING is insurmountable. Whether he's stopping a mugger, or going toe-to-toe with Superman himself, Batman will triumph. He always finds a way. What better role model could a kid ask for? 25 years after I first watched his adventures, he's still my hero.
During the next few weeks, I'll be posting my own personal recommendations of movies, shows, or books having to do with Batman. Or I'll post about other stuff because it's my blog and I hate being restricted to a single theme. Thanks for reading!
