“Something, something Joker doesn’t have a face, something something Batman is so Edgy and Dark, something, something it’ll be AWESOME!” –Creative notes scrawled on a crumpled napkin by a DC exec during a coked-out party.
Somebody give Glen Weldon a high-five.
The best thing about The Caped Crusade, Glen Weldon’s book-length ode to Batmania, is Glen Weldon himself. Sure, the actual book is informative and well thought out, organized and insightful. But it’s also got a personality to it, thanks to Weldon, who impregnates even the most mundane sentence with his dry wit and his enthusiasm for his two subjects (Batman, the nature of nerdery). His twin theses? Nerdery isn’t about what you love, but loving what you love with a staggering, vacuum-sucking passion. And that […]
The Best Version of Batman
If you are of a certain age, your favorite version of Batman is Batman: The Animated Series Batman. Kevin Conroy’s voice is your platonic idea of what The Batman sounds like. I was eight years old when that cartoon debuted on Fox, and I still get goosebumps when I watch the opening credits. The show perfectly harmonized the darkness, the fun, the quiet mystery, and the hardboiled noir that makes Batman great. There’s more to Batman than the campy 1960s show, and Batman is a better person than […]
As through a glass darkly …
Gotham is a monster. Gotham is the dark. Gotham lives and breathes and eats. It creates the Bat and the Bat creates it. And no one knows for sure if either deserve saving.