Dominic Wells of The Times has written a cross-section of Batman as seen on film through the past five decades.  I can’t believe I didn’t know this was being written under my nose.

He takes us back to the serials of the mid-to-late 1940s and into the “Pow!” and “Bam!” psychedeliq of the 1960s TV series, through the Michael Keaton protests of Tim Burton’s re-imagining as well as Joel Schumacher’s disintegration of the franchise, before bringing us up to speed with Christopher Nolan’s vision of the character.

I especially liked this bit of insight following an aside on Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” (and the subsequent push for a film adaptation):

The book was a critical and commercial smash, and plans were laid for a film. Adam West, now 58, lobbied to reprise the role, which would have suited the Dark Knight Returns storyline. I met him in 1988, when Britain was again gripped by Batmania (TV-am’s ratings leapt 25 per cent after screening the Sixties episodes), and he sounded as though he’d given it considerable thought: “In the final scenes of the film, if it’s bizarre and mysterious, you can still have Alfred the butler driving the old Batmobile to the rescue. We’d have been using all hi-tech, wonderful slick new stuff, and at the critical moment, there’s Alfred, driving the old Batmobile. People would stand up and cheer.”

But he kind of gets testy with me on this assessment of Burton’s 1989 elseworld take:

Even so, it’s not particularly good. There are strange holes in the plot where the producer Jon Peters and Tim Burton didn’t see eye to eye, and Kim Basinger, then the producer’s real-life girlfriend, is a waste of space.

Easy now, Dom.

Read the rest here.  One of the commenters mentions Sandy Collora’s “Batman: Dead End,” which has always been a fun watch.  If you’ve never seen it, have a look:

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