Michael Davis: The Death Of Batman
From the second I saw the original Batman television show I was hooked.
Just that quick, Batman had replaced Spider-Man as my absolute favorite superhero. Bruce Wayne replaced Peter Parker, Dick Grayson replaced Gwen Stacy and the Joker replaced Dr. Octopus.
When the TV show became corny to my friends, I was still a fan. I didn’t care that they had all switched to the Green Hornet. Yeah, Kato was cooler than Robin and the Green Hornet was just, well he was just cool, but Batman was still my guy.
When Michael Keaton was cast in the 1989 film I was all in. When people started bitching that Mr. Mom was going to play Batman like a joke I didn’t care. I just wanted to see Batman on the big screen. Batman the movie was one of the first DVDs I ever brought and this was when DVDs cost a lot more than they do now.
I’ve seen every episode of every Batman animated series. I own hundreds – maybe even more than a thousand action figures. Without a doubt the single action figure I own more of is Batman.
I write this in my office under a framed 1966 Batman movie poster. To the left of the poster is a cabinet full of porcelain and bronze action figures, of the 18 figures in the cabinet there are four Batman’s and that is the only figure that is represented more than once.
I was very close once to buying a replica of the 1966 Batmobile. How close? I was filling out the paperwork when I realized I was buying a fucking Batmobile.
What kind of asshole buys a fucking Batmobile when he lives in Manhattan and rarely drives the car he already owns? Hell, what kind of asshole buys a fucking Batmobile anyhow? For about two hours I was that type of asshole and a few years later I regretted not buying the car and yes, on occasion I still think I’m that type of asshole.
I own every single Batman movie on DVD and some even on VHS. I’ve watched and own every single Batman TV episode. On many occasions during late nights in my studio I watch from episode one until I stop working. I once did more than 24 hours of watching the show. I was high on coffee and Adam West and loved it.
There has not been one Batman movie I have not seen the opening weekend. In most cases I’ve seen the movie the day it opened, except for the current one. I had every intention of seeing The Dark Knight Rises the opening weekend. I wanted to go to an all day screening of all of the Christopher Nolan Batman films with my dear friend and business partner Tatiana El-Khouri that would climax with The Dark Knight Rises but I was too busy.
I missed that boat and with it I think I missed my one chance to see the film I’ve been waiting well over a year to see. I hear the latest Batman may be the greatest yet. I fear I may never know because I have no intention of seeing it.
I was unable to write my column last week and it’s most likely a good thing that I didn’t. Undoubtedly because of the Aurora shootings and my personal experience with violent crimes my article would have been a hate filled call for revenge against the shooter and his friends and family.
Yeah. His friends and family also.
I’m well aware (now) that makes no sense, but in my initial rage it made all the sense in the world. My piece would have been filled with all sorts of reasons to just beat the living shit out of the crazy motherfucker who committed this sick act.
My heart goes out to the victims of the massacre. There is nothing and I mean nothing that can prepare you for the news that someone you love has been murdered. Trust me. I know.
Because of my history and the way my stupid mind works I simply cannot bring myself to go see The Dark Knight Rises.
I hope and pray that I’ll get over this but I fear that is not to be. I have issues and as much as I love my ComicMix audience I’m not prepared to give you the low down on the details of those issues that prevent me seeing The Dark Knight Rises because of that revolting motherfucker’s actions.
Alas, the people the madman killed and their families are what is important and what we should be thinking about. On a much and I do mean much lesser note that coward with a gun also killed Batman for me. My favorite superhero has now been corrupted in my mind.
To many I’m sure it seems silly for me to give that asswipe the power to corrupt one of my favorite things but unfortunately I have no defense over how I feel. If I associate something with something that’s bad I’m powerless to stop it as much as I try to do so.
I take some comfort in the knowledge that America has rejected the bastard and the hold he has over me is insignificant for America has made The Dark Knight Rises a big hit.
Bravo America. USA!! U S Fucking A!
My demons are mine alone and I rejoice in the fact that the film is doing well in spike of the doings of a limp dick psychopath.
I stop people from telling me about the movie. Not because of my issues but because I’m going to make every attempt to see it. If I don’t manage to see it on the big screen then I will endeavor to watch it when it’s available on pay for view if not then I’ll try and see it on DVD. If those efforts fail I’ll try and watch it on HBO.
Somehow, somewhere I’ll see that movie. That sick motherfucker may have won the battle in his demented mind, but America has already won the war and as for me, I’m determined to win my personal battle.
I don’t know a lot but I do know this, crazy sick assholes do not make the rules, they just make noise. Today that bastard may have killed Batman for me but everyone knows that killing a superhero is just temporary.
I’m sure that Batman will be back in my life and I’m just as sure that the shooter will be forgotten and his victims remembered at the same bat time on the same bat channel, forever.
WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold Goes To A Party!
This spooked me pretty badly when it happened to. I was in Ohio visiting family the whole opening weekend so it wasn’t till Monday that I saw it right after work. I got in kinda last minute and took an aisle seat higher up than usual. I knew nothing would happen but I still couldn’t stop from feeling a little uneasy and looking at the doors every so often
For me it’s not just that a person can do these terrible things, but its so often in the aftermath we see copy cats who think they can get famous doing the same thing. It happened with two people who sited Aurora so far, it happened with some other kids after Columbine, it even happened with two guys who tried killing women after Son of Sam was caught (so it’s nothing new). That’s what makes me most uneasy when something like this happens and gets such attention it latches onto the psychies of everyone in different ways. Some far more dangerous.
I was gonna wait a while to see the film, just out of inertia, being old, and not wanting to brave the crowds.
When I woke up to the news, I bought my tickets online for a showing that night.
AMC theaters had put a ban on cosplay. My local AMC theater clearly didn’t get the memo – the lady in the booth was dressed as Batgirl.
I was pleased to see no news crews outside, eager to get people’s feelings about the event.
I’m hoping the massive amount of pro-bat reaction (especially from the victims, many of which have since gone to see the film) will help break the lock he’s put on the gate to enjoying the film.
Bravo Vinnie! Bravo!
Maybe she really was Batgirl…
I still think a lot about buying a replica of the 1966 Batmobile. Like, when my kids are all off in college, I might be that embarrassing dad who spluges on myself then goes to visit them, pulling up in that ridiculous thing and not caring at all about them dying inside.
Reggie,
You buy one and I’ll buy the Batman and Robin outfits to go with it. That way we can fight crime on the way to visit your kids.
*laugh* okay, I have to ask, who will be the one rockin’ the robin outfit?
I think it’ll be two out of three falls.
OK, how do I burn THAT image out of my skull?
This column is so egoistic… I really don’t see its point…?!?
Not that anyone cares will you see the movie or not…
And YOUR point?
And what’s *your* point, Michael?
Honestly, with respect for whatever personal history you have, you start by building up to saying how that history means you simply can’t bring yourself to see The Dark Knight Rises.
And then almost immediately declare that you’re going to make every attempt to see it.
Which is it? Have the events in Colorado corrupted one of my favorite things because you have no defense over how how feel, or are you sure Batman will be back in your life?
You column this week is a rambling jumble.
I’ll go slow.
1. The shootings have affected me (because of my personal history) to a point where I don’t want to see the film now.
2. I hope that I can overcome that and sooner or later do get to see the film.
3. Next week I’ll write a article on about rather Superman can beat the Hulk. That better?
Thank you for the condescension. I was missing my dose of that today.
If you’d rather not get responses to your columns, you should turn off comments.
His point, Mr, Foxx, is that this is his column, and he will write about what he wants – within editorial constraints, of course. If you don’t care for Dr. Davis’ writing style, you’re perfectly free to go haunt some other corner of the Web, but unless you somehow become an editor at ComicMix you don’t get to tell him how to write his column.
Christopher,
I welcome your comments-really. I simply responded to your ‘rambling jumble’ statement in kind.
No, Jonathan, that wasn’t his point in this column. Neither Dr Davis nor I said anything about what he can/can’t or should/shouldn’t write about or how he should do it. But thank you for taking me to task for something I didn’t say.
Contrast my comment to Asha’s. Asha was impolite and insulting and I see why Davis responded as he did. In mine, I explained why I found the column rambling and his point harder to determine.
I’ve been reading Davis’s columns regularly. I have no problem with his style or choice of subject matter. In this particular case, I thought he wasn’t clear and said so. And, again, I briefly explained why.
Though you chose to be overly defensive and insulting, at least I can get your point: Michael Davis’s columns are masterful, his opinions are never to be disputed, and anyone who finds any fault with them should exile themselves. I don’t know Davis personally. But from what I’ve read in his columns I suspect he’s not so thin skinned that he needs you jumping in with that kind of reaction.
Michael –
I tried, perhaps less delicately than I could have, to explain why it struck me as a jumble.
And I was responding to your “I’ll go slow” statement in kind. Just because someone doesn’t “get” a particular column doesn’t make them stupid.
What are these “editorial constraints” of which you speak?
I do. After a couple hundred of these columns, I think we’ve got some insight into the writer and his reactions to an event that so clearly is on-topic on a comics-oriented pop culture website are valid. It’s a column, not a news story.
Well, then, you’ve allowed the terrorists to win.
Christopher,
I wasn’t calling you stupid-it was satire. However, I see your point.
Troll Asha must never have visited here before.
Michael, one other thing that may give you heart, and which I enjoyed seeing on the news last night – several of the survivors showed up at a hearing for the asshole, all wearing various Batman T-shirts.
Johnathan-now THAT is bad ass!
I am a pretty big Batman fan myself and that is why I can’t stand the Adam West version. West seems like a nice enough guy. I think he be fine in comedy or Broadway show. But no way in hell was he right for Batman. Of course the parody that that show was wasn’t entirely his fault but his name is forever connected to what is in my mind the nadir of the character.
George,
One of the biggest disappointments in my life was meeting Adam West. I was a H U G E fan when I met him at a small convention. I told him so and he was just a DICK to me. I try and tell myself he was having a bad day and that’s why he ruined mine.
I think for a while there, Adam West was in the “slightly embarrassed” part of his life when it came to Batman. But like Shatner, he found a way to come to peace with it, and sort of own it. With Shatner it started with the “Get a Life” sketch on SNL, and with West, I think it was not Family Guy, but the episode of Johnny Bravo he did, also written by Seth MacFarlane.
I’ll lay odds he’d be much cooler about it now. Or at least fake it enough to keep you happy.
That show was, when it debuted, a lot closer to the Batman comic book than fans of my age want to believe. I’m grateful to it for two reasons: 1) it arguably saved the comics industry at a time when the traditional sales base of mom-n-pop stores was on its last legs, and 2) after it was over and Warners had bought DC, Julie and the new management (Infantino) took the character 180 degrees away from that teevee show.
And I like that Batgirl costume.
Yeah, well the “Batman” books were pretty lame in them there days – the Joker couldn’t kill people, for ghod’s sake.
But the teevee show was done by people with a deep and abiding contempt for the “trash” they had to work from.
Quoting WIkipedia:
From the standpoint of making money, Dozier was probably correct. That was the time of trivia, pop art and camp. Actually, it was the time when the Depression Era culture was about to lose control of our culture to the Boomers (right on!). Dozier took a somewhat straighter approach with Green Hornet, but his Dick Tracy pilot was a godawful piece of shit that made Batman look like Boardwalk Empire.
Mike, the wondrous Julie Newmar comments on the new Batman…and Adam West.
http://www.ontheredcarpet.com/Julie-Newmar–original-Catwoman–sounds-off-on-Dark-Knight-franchise/8752954
Make sure you watch the clip. The Lady is a bad mamajama.
Do you mean Mike (Gold), Michael (Davis) or mike (weber)?
There are a LOT of us from the front end of the Baby Boom – i had one class (second grade?) with five Mikes in it.
.
At the ’86 WorldCon, here in Atlanta, i sat down to play Hearts with a friend and a couple of strangers … and, as i was trying to set up the scoresheet, we discovered that every one of us was named “Michael A[something]”.
Just wanted to post a positive meeting with Adam West. I was at a Mid-Ohio Con back in the late 90s or early 2000s. Adam West was there and he was really nice to me as he signed a picture for my Dad. He even said, “I think it’s great that you’re getting this for your father.”
Also, I hope you do go to see the movie, Michael. Not going at all is letting Joe Chill win.
Randy,
Thanks for the Adam West story, maybe as I said in my post, when I met him he was just having a bad day. I laughed out loud over your Joe Chill comment then I quickly realized that in a very real way it’s was also dead on point.