BATMAN ’89 WEEK: A look at a classic comic based on a movie based on a comic… — It’s BATMAN ’89 WEEK! Tim Burton’s groundbreaking Batman was released June 23, 1989. All this week, we’re publishing a series of retrospectives and celebrations spotlighting various aspects of a movie that was less a film and more a pop-culture phenomenon. Click here for the complete index of features. — In this BATMAN ’89 WEEK edition of REEL RETRO CINEMA, columnist Rob Kelly shows you how the Batman comics adaptation veers from the Tim Burton film — often for the better: — By ROB KELLY In an age where movies based on comic books (specifically superhero comic books) come at you every few months, if not weeks, and literally dozens of other superhero films are available on the phone in your pocket, it’s hard to convey to those too young to remember just what a pop culture-shattering event the 1989 Batman movie was at the time. Other than the Superman film series (which crashed and burned two years earlier), superhero movies were mostly excuses to poke fun at the characters, the medium they came from, and sometimes even the fans that loved them. Comic book readers had to learn to accept some pretty rickety contraptions just to see some of their favorite characters in live action. All that changed when a build-up of unprecedented proportions crested on June 23, 1989, with the nationwide release of Batman, directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Kim Basinger. I was a teenager when the film was released, and this dark, serious take on the Darknight Detective was, at the time, pretty much everything I wanted out of a Batman movie: an all-star cast, eye-popping visuals, and a tone that respected the source material. Don’t get me wrong: I loved the 1960s Batman TV series (13th Dimension major domo Dan Greenfield probably wouldn’t speak to me if I didn’t), but I couldn’t stand how it became the avatar for all things comic books to the wider world: some iteration of Bam! Sock! Pow! was featured in every single article written about comic books in the Western world, because headline writers just couldn’t imagine anything else. So here was the chance to reestablish Batman in a way we all knew he could be:...
Let’s go shopping in the past — with hope for the future! — UPDATED 6/14/19: I was poking through the 13th Dimension archives when I happened upon this piece from 2018. I looked through it and realized that not a single one of these has been re-released in the time since I wrote this. Not that I was really expecting it. But still, it reminded me how much I’d love to see these out there again. So dig this list — because hope springs eternal. — Dan — We’re living in a Golden Age of Toys and Collectibles. Between modern technology and an unprecedented, insatiable hunger for comics-related TV, movies and video games — not to mention comics themselves — you can pretty much find any collectible you can imagine, depending on your budget. The one thing you can’t do is turn back time and go buy that awesome toy you had as a kid but lost, played with into oblivion, or couldn’t convince Mom or Dad to get you to begin with. I mean, you can, but often it means paying big money on eBay or at comics conventions. Now, I say this knowing that we collectors are still a spoiled lot. If you’re a Mego fan like me, for example, the last few years have been an orgy of excess: Companies like Figures Toy Company, EMCE and Diamond Select Toys have not only reproduced beloved figures, vehicles and playsets with unerring accuracy, they’ve released characters we always wanted but were never made the first time around in the ’70s. Still, there are plenty of items that would be great to see get re-released all sparkling and new, and I was kind of prompted to come up with a list of 13 by reader Tyrone Biljan, who began messaging me with all sorts of ideas. (A couple of his ideas are incorporated below.) Now, the best part is that my list will probably look a lot like yours — but also differ substantially. If you’re five years older than me, chances are you’d have a few Captain Action selections, or items from Marx, or what have you. If you’re five years younger, I imagine it’d be Super Powers or Secret Wars. I didn’t even include everything I’d want to see, like Bend ‘n Flex figures, simply because I didn’t...
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