The Caped Crusade

It's 1939, and tired of The Shadow getting all the love, a host of comics similarly tried their hand at millionaire vigilantes. You've probably heard of The Green Hornet and of course his fellow copycat crusader The Batman. Now The Bat-Man, as he was known back then, didn't come out of the gate quite the cultural phenomenon we recognize now. In his first year alone he would kill 24 men, 2 vampires, a pack of werewolves and several giant mutants - often with the help of a gun.

But as Glen Weldon works out, Batman over the years became more than just a character but an idea. One that has room for Adam West's pop art infused camp, Lego Batman's self-absorbed parody, Christopher Nolan's gravel-voiced Dark Knight and Tim Burton's twisted outsider - just maybe not Joel Schumaker's bat-nipples.

It's a comprehensive history of Gotham's greatest hero that non-nerds can follow along with hitting all the gleeful classic comic stops like Neal Adam's gritty new take in the 70's, Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns in the 80's, to Scott Snyder's recent run with the series.

Wheldon also carefully prods at the idea of nerd culture, already fully rabid back in the 80's but with the addition of the internet, becoming toxic. Gnashing of teeth over the casting of Mr. Mom in Burton's Batman to full on conniptions over Schumaker's bat-nipples there is this protective ownership of the character that will emerge wherein only the badass Batman of comics should exist and those that tamper otherwise will suffer their righteous indignation. A microcosm of the various trolls that scream behind their computer screens over video game reviews, Star Wars canon, and whether Idris Alba could ever play James Bond.