Adam West Is Batman
By Rocko Jerome
Here's a timeline of how I felt about Adam West's Batman
through the years:
Age 8: Batman, cool!
Age 12: Batman's better when he's
dark and Joker kills people all the time.
Age 15: Adam West's Batman hurts
the general impression of comics. More people should know Batman is a creature
of the night. And Joker kills people.
Age 18: Comics, what? I don't
read comic books. Who told you that?
Age 25: The Adam West Batman is
great. If only it wasn't supposed to be Batman, because Batman should always be
a creature of the night.
Age 34: Adam West is a genius.
Life is hard enough without Batman bumming me out.
The Batman mythos these days
takes itself so very, very seriously, but the older I get, the more patently
absurd the entire concept looks, the more OK with that I am, and the less
interested I become in brooding darkness, which looked so much more appealing
when I was a pampered kid longing to be a grown up so I could be sad and look
cool.
There's long been a sensibility
among comics enthusiasts that the adaptations in other media fail to retain the
weight of the books. The old Batman show might have failed to treat its source
material with any respect (actually, it definitely failed to treat its source
material with any respect) but DC comics of the period are not exactly great
literature. Comic books can certainly be a glorious, viable art form, but
panels like the one above certainly make them hard to defend unless you just
toss your hands in the air and say "Alright, what the hell?"
The idea for creating a prime-time
Batman show in the Sixties began with the news that The Playboy Club had been
screening the '40s movie serials late on Saturdays to great success, with
everyone in attendance getting into the corny action and having fun. The idea
began to germinate—if this spirit could be captured again, it could be a hit
with kids and adults alike, if the jokes were just sly enough that kids didn't
know they were jokes but adults would get a kick out of it. And, largely thanks
to Adam West, they were. He elevated goofy earnestness to the level of absolute
genius.
Even after the show, Adam West
continued to appear as Batman at car shows and conventions around the country,
even though he was contractually no longer allowed to wear the full costume.
This resulted in scenes of an aging and somewhat portlier man wearing the hood
along with a casual tracksuit on localized UHF late night shows and televised
wrestling events, babbling about bat-fans and weather-control devices well into
the '80s. Batman here (I don't even feel like he should be referred to as "Adam
West," when he's this far in character) displays such a disconnect with
even what passes for reality in these environments that you wonder if he's high
or crazy or both. The answer is simple.
He is Batman.
Today, Adam West is
enjoying a resurgence. Warner Brothers, who now owns DC, made the necessary
deals to get the rights to Adam West Batman paraphernalia. This summer, toys,
shirts, bed sheets, bottle openers, plus-size costumes and what have you will
be available, adorned with the Sixties Batman's zany face. And today's fans,
spoiled by a pop-cultural universe that revolves around the comic book culture
that takes itself so seriously, have finally fully embraced Mr. West. It was
about time.
Rocko Jerome has lived many lives. Right now, he's a writer. You can read Rocko's work at his blog and at Atomic Wanderers.
Labels: Adam West, Batman, Guest Blog, Rocko Jerome
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