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Batman and Robin (Wham! Pow! Ouch!)

The upcoming new installment of the newest Batman chronicle, The Dark
Knight, got me to thinking about all the Batman movies over the years.
The original one (to the best of my knowledge) was the 1966 movie based
on the television series starring Adam West. That movie, if you've never
seen it, I highly recommend. It is one of the funniest movies I've ever
seen. The rest of the Batman movies since then have taken a more serious
turn more in line with the original comic book. There was a series of
Batman flicks in the 90s that starred (consecutively) Michael Keaton,
Val Kilmer, and George Clooney. I thought all of them had their good
points. In 2005 the newest series began with Christian Bale.

Batman is my favorite Superhero. There are several reasons for that, but
the main one is that he is just an ordinary guy. Rich, thinks he's a bat
maybe, but an ordinary Anatomically Modern Sapien. He didn't get bit by
a spider and go through some strange transformation; he doesn't have
mutant genes; he didn't come from an alien planet which gives him superhuman
strength on this one. He's just an ordinary Joe, a guy who saw his parents
murdered and who developed a fear of bats and who eventually decided that
he was pissed as hell and wanted to fight crime.

I suppose his choice to become the Caped Crusader was a little unusual.
Most guys who want to fight crime just become cops or prosecutors. But
you have to hand it to Bruce Wayne — he did it "his way." Working
outside the system of justice, he goes after a wide variety of punks and
scumbags and evil madmen (and there seem to be quite a few of those in
Gotham City). In truth, he's a kind of weird vigilante. Very weird.

But he's human. He's like us, more or less. Like us if we had any guts
— and were totally obsessed with bats.


Batman: What's in your closet?