Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon

Like James Bond, Robin Hood and Dracula, Batman stands as a cultural icon whose malleability from era to era reveals much about our changing social preoccupations. This heavily footnoted volumeDwhich will appeal to avid students of pop culture and comics, and a gay cult audience, though it's unlikely to break out to a wider audienceDallows Brooker (co-editor of Post-Modern After-Images) to examine the famed DC Comics character in greater depth, benefiting from access to DC's own library plus interviews with long-time Batman editor Denny O'Neil. Invented by artist Bob Kane and scripter Bill Finger in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), Batman has since branched into every form of communication: newspaper comic strips, radio, TV, short stories, graphic novels, magazines, movies, merchandising, and now the Internet. Brooker's impressive overview of Batman's history reflects on the masked one's origins, early arch rivals and the introduction of Robin, and concentrates on four periods: WWII, the mid 1950s, the '60s and the '90s. In 1954, child psychologist Fredric Wertham attacked the comic book industry in Seduction of the Innocent, noting homoerotic undercurrents between Batman and Robin; Brooker's lengthy and fascinating ""gay reading"" supports Wertham's claim, albeit with a positive, postmodern twist. After recalling the campy image of Batman spawned by ABC's 1960s TV show, the author takes a look at Batman writers, fans, fanzines and the Net, concluding with a hilarious chapter on how his research was ridiculed by the British media. 20 b&w illus. (Nov.)