BATMAN WEEK: A colorful tour through the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages… — It’s BATMAN WEEK! We’re celebrating Wednesday’s Detective Comics #1000 — and Saturday’s 80th anniversary of the Caped Crusader. For the complete index of features and tributes — many by some of the top creators in comics — click here. — For BATMAN WEEK, we’re looking at all sorts of interpretations of the Caped Crusader and one of our favorites is the show Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which is a love letter to the Caped Crusader’s Golden, Silver and Bronze Age roots. The animated series celebrated its 10th anniversary last fall and producer James Tucker — who is one of our expert panelists for the 80th Anniversary TOP 13 BATMAN COUNTDOWN (click here) — dropped by to share some of the show’s concept art (click here) and to list his Top 13 episodes (click here). Well, we’ve got one more to add: Travis Meidell, who on Instagram chronicles the history of Batman in animation — click here for his great video on the Joker — has put together a list of 13 Easter eggs to be found in B&B. (Actually, there are more than 13, but you’ll see.) Groovy. — By TRAVIS MEIDELL When I first stepped into comics in the early ’90s, the Silver Age had ended its run decades earlier, yet something drew me to it. It was probably because my exposure to comics didn’t come with foil variant covers or million-plus issues printed. It came from my stepdad’s vintage collection, which had classic Superman titles like Action Comics, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Adventure Comics and others. But it wasn’t the many Super-titles that really caught my eye. It was a single Batman issue — #183. The idea of Batman leaning back, ignoring his duties to watch his own show was ludicrous. Yet, as the cover blurb promised, there was a clue on the cover as to why Batman was doing this. I was sucked in. While I would continue to get current Batman titles, my love of the Silver Age never faded, and to this day, I still spend most every convention digging through back-issue bins of Batman, Detective Comics and Brave and the Bold. The reason I mention all this is because when the animated show, Batman: The Brave and the...
Real world, real problems, real hero. — In celebration of Detective Comics #1000 and Batman’s 80th anniversary this month, we’re counting down the 13 GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER — from all media — as selected by a panel of 16 experts, including such luminaries as former DC publisher Paul Levitz, legendary Batman artist Neal Adams and Batman: The Brave and the Bold producer James Tucker. For a complete rundown of how the vote was conducted and the full list of panelists, click here. The countdown will run daily across 13 days and culminate in THE ULTIMATE BATMAN READING AND VIEWING GUIDE, which will feature every single Batman story cited by our panel. — PICK #9 was Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman” Next up on the countdown: 8. THE DARK KNIGHT (2008) Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan. Story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer. Directed by Christopher Nolan. In 1989, Tim Burton gave hardcore Batman fans what they wanted — a vision of a Caped Crusader who lived in a world of blacks and grays, steamy streets and grimy alleyways. But in the distance of 30 years, it’s easy to see how fanciful that world actually was. Really, Burton was intent on playing in a fun-house version of reality — a larger-than-life place of larger-than-life good guys and bad guys. You can still detect the DNA of the 1966 TV series hidden amid the shadows. Nearly 20 years later, however, director Christopher Nolan pushed the line forward by borrowing the simple premise of Watchmen: What if superheroes really did exist in our world — the “real” world. The answer was a trilogy of films exemplified by its creative peak — 2008’s The Dark Knight, which underlined the futility of dressing up like a bat to combat crime and chaos. But unlike Watchmen, The Dark Knight doesn’t look down on its protagonist — rather it finds honor in the fight, especially when your adversary is a nihilist who just wants to watch the world burn. So much has been said about Heath Ledger’s riveting, Oscar-winning turn as the Joker that it seems almost pointless to highlight it again. Besides, the movie isn’t about comics’ greatest villain, anyway. It’s about comics’ greatest hero. The Dark Knight has myriad quotable scenes and notable moments. But you can find its heart in a...
13 days, the 13 best Batman stories. It all starts with some Batman ’66…
“Chosen from among all others by the immortal elders — Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury…”
Can someone get Quentin Tarantino on the line?
