Glen Weldon “The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd
Culture” (Simon & Schuster, 2016)
Glen Weldon has taken a large task upon himself. Who is Batman? Remember, there are comics dating back to the
1930s, plus spin offs in basically every possible form of media – TV, movies,
games, etc. It is no small thing just to
give an overview to all of these—and that’s without attempting to have any sort
of narrative that goes through.
Weldon sees Batman as moving on a spectrum from dark and
grim to light and fun. Additionally,
there’s a cyclical change to the character:
from loner to father figure to team member. Over and over again, Batman hits moves from
one of these beats to another.
Who is the real Batman? That in part depends on the
reader. Weldon groups the readers into 2
broad camps: the nerds & the normal. The nerds are obsessive comic fans who tend
to feel like the grimdark borderline psychotic Batman is the “real” version of
the character. The normal are people who
have probably seen some TV shows or movies and may have occasionally read a
comic. They aren’t concerned with canon
or authenticity except as it relates to their enjoyment of the character.
Before I give any evaluation, I suppose that I should let
you know where I stand in terms of Batfandom.
I don’t think of myself as being a particular fan of the character. But I’ve been reading the comics since about
1970, & have read most of the significant runs both before & after that
time. I’ve seen the TV shows & the
movies. But I’m not one of Weldon’s
typical nerds in that I don’t like grimdark Batman or the Batman that can beat
anyone with preparation time.
Weldon does a fantastic job of covering all the high points
of the character’s history and evolution while giving it a context. I was amazed at how he was able to work in
things like games & animated series as well.
This is somehow a book for nerds AND normals. I think that there’s something here for
everyone. I found it to be a very quick
read. My only complaint would be that
really illustrations are required (and were not included on my eARC).
No comments:
Post a Comment