The Caped Crusade

The Caped Crusade

2016 • 324 pages

Ratings9

Average rating4.2

15

Prior to picking up this book, I would not have called myself a Batman fan, or a Batman enthusiast, or even a Batman kind-of-interested-in. I'd only ever seen (parts of?) the 1966 Adam West Batman movie, somehow missing out on literally every other iteration that's been created over the last 30 years.

Basically, I just like Glen Weldon's dry humor on Pop Culture Happy Hour, and so I picked up this book with zero expectations.

I was kind of surprised at how much I enjoyed learning the back story of the ZAP POW Bat-man, but this book also covered a lot of stuff that I am definitely interested in outside of just Batman: fandom and love for a thing and how it changes (or doesn't) over time and how time changes (or doesn't) the thing you loved in the first place. We've got history of comic books, we've got Comic Con and cosplay here, we've got behind-the-scenes on all the Batman movies and TV series (at least, the ones that came out pre-2016), including Lego Movie Batman. And we've got Internet fandom, and we've got fan-fiction, and inclusivity in fandom.

Plus, Weldon just knows how to turn a phrase and make me chuckle.

The bonus of reading this book is that Matt and I are now starting to work our way (totally out of order) through the movies, and I can toss out fun facts while we watch. I love fun facts.

January 5, 2018