Batman '66 #5 (DC)

writer: Jeff Parker
art: Ruben Procopio, Colleen Coover

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the Adam West Batman.  It was the whole reason I became obsessed with Robin, why when I referenced the Boy Wonder to 1989 people who suddenly knew only the Tim Burton Batman, they had no idea who I was talking about, because there was no room for Robin in Burton's Gothic landscape.

Just as there was suddenly no room for West's Batman.  By the time of Joel Schumacher's Batman, this had become painfully obvious.  It's the whole reason movies have to take superheroes more or less seriously these days ("more or less" because Tony Stark and Joss Whedon and a bunch of their friends take considerable liberties).

Does this mean there really isn't room for the so-called Camp Crusader?  All of a sudden there does seem to be room again.  The West Batman is finally going to be released on DVD.  And there's Batman '66, a digital-first series DC has been releasing since last fall and subsequently publishing in print.

Does it work?

Actually, you know what, it really does.  It's not even all that different from the famed Bruce Timm/Paul Dini animated Batman from the '90s.  This may be the most shocking admission ever made on the Internet.  Remember this moment for posterity.

The Timm/Dini Batman famously grafted as much of the Burton Batman as it could into its adventures.  If you remember the theme music, you may know the most obvious element of this Dark Knight exchange program.  It was the Timm/Dini Batman who first acquired a Robin, and then Robin showed up in the movies, too.

Famously, Batgirl first appeared in the West Batman.  She appears in the backup feature from this issue, too, matching wits with Catwoman (the Eartha Kitt version!).  The lead features Sandman, not the Wesley Dodds or Neil Gaiman version, but very much the West Batman version, only with trippier storytelling, more visual, than was possible on 1960s TV (unless you had chemical enhancement).

The best moment in the comic when Sandman makes this comment: "Even if he's a popular athlete, why would I care about such trivia?  He only matters because he's Batman."

It comes in the classic moment of any West Batman story, when the villain has Batman and Robin safely under wraps (for the moment).  It seemingly happened in every West Batman story.  Yet the West Batman only existed as Bruce Wayne when he needed to...um...I'll get back to you on that.  Simply put, Bruce Wayne didn't really matter.

If Batman existed only in his own right, wouldn't it make equal sense for his adventures to be as outlandish as the West Batman presented them?

So it's probably safe to read these comics.

Cover via Comic Book Database.