Batman-related media

One of my 8-month goals is to consume as much Batman media as possible. Yes, I like Batman (whoever doesn't: you're dead to me). With some ingenuity and the power of the internet to access pirated digital copies of comics, I'm heading down that road. Batman being the awesomest character ever, it wasn't all that hard. Based on some reliable sources (DC Comics Database, the 'List of Batman comics' and character-specific Wikipedia entries were the most complete), I've pretty much gathered every Batman, Gotham City, and Batman-related comic there is. There was only one graphic novel that eluded me (1983's Batman: Dreadnaught, if you choose to keep your eye out), plus some peripheral things (newspaper strips, some promo and advertising comics, and Star Spangled Comics, a 1950s Robin team-up comic).

Needless to say, I used a lot of bandwidth torrenting comics: about 6900 separate issues or books. With such a daunting amount, I probably should pick and choose where I start. I want to get some essence of the origins and change in the character over the years. I began to read from the beginning, but that was problematic. First, I started on Detective Comics #1, but Batman doesn't appear (and take over the publication) until two years later in DC #27. Second, Golden ('30s - early '50s) and Silver Age (mid '50s - early '70s) comics are *huge*. Most are at least 80 pages of content (50-60 towards the end), monthly or quarterly. That's a lot of crap to take. A in many ways, it is crap. Those comics have no continuity, and character development is nearly nonexistant. It's pretty dire.

Case in point, I read Detective Comics #1 & #2. No Batman yet, just, well, detectives. Most of the stories are pulled straight from the pulps, and while that's a thrill for a story or two, reading an issue with 8-10 of them is beyond boring. At least there's the amazing amount of stereotyping to outright racism to entertain you, and allow you to point and hoot at an earlier era's sense of what's okay to print. To the left, we have some just straight up offensiveness. Okay, so white drug distributors aren't very kind to Asian-American customers. I can see that. But below, we have a more insidious an common issue that crops up: the ridiculous stereotype ("You people sure talk funny!"). The best part though, is that the guy on the left in that pane is the protagonist of the entire story.




So to avoid boring myself to death before I get to the interesting parts (such as: continuity, crossover events between comics, the explosion of Batman and Gotham City media after the 1989 movie), I've decided to have a different starting point. I've chosen 1970: specifically, I've chosen when Dennis O'Neil took over as Batman group editor at DC, and Neal Adams began doing much of the Batman artwork. O'Neil steered Batman back to the darker vigilante aspects, away from the camp and sci-fi trappings he had in the '50s and '60s. Neal Adams is also responsible for 'the look' that we generally attribute to Batman these days. In fact, the DC 'house style' is pretty much Adams' artwork. So it's only natural to begin with the January 1970 Batman comic, written by O'Neil and drawn by Adams. I'll periodically go back to check out the early work, but I'm concentrating on moving towards the present. I'll keep the blog posted.