Hope fuels Batman’s longevity

Batman has been a lot of things during the past 77 years: A gun-toting vigilante, an object of panic at the height of American homophobia, a campy ’60s television icon, a grumbly middle-aged antihero and a mass media star.

But through all of these iterations, what has given Batman his longevity? The answer lies in the pages of “The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture” by Glen Weldon, a sharp, deeply knowledgeable and often funny look at the cultural history of Batman and his fandom.

As Weldon writes, Batman’s longevity has less to do with “relatability” and more to do with the oath a young Bruce Wayne makes to spend the rest of his life “warring on all criminals” after witnessing the murder of his parents: “(F)or all the character’s vaunted darkness, he is now and has always been a creature not of rage but of hope,” Weldon writes.

Weldon, an NPR critic and the author of “Superman: The Unauthorized Biography,” offers readers a tour through the annals of Bat-history — his origins as a ripoff of the Shadow, other kid sidekicks at the time of Dick Grayson/ Robin’s debut, “The Dark Knight Returns,” the death of second Robin Jason Todd — as well as adaptations in mass media, including the 1940s movie serials, 1960s TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward, Emmy-winning cartoons, video games and memes.

Weldon is more interested in cultural reactions to Batman, such as “the gay stuff,” as he jokingly calls it. The 1940s and ’50s saw increased scrutiny of comic books during a “fervid species of paranoia that ... effectively conflated Communism, juvenile delinquency, and homosexuality.” The 1953 Kefauver subcommittee hearings and psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent,” which in part argued Batman stories offered a “subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism,” added to that paranoia.

Weldon argues Batman, while never intended by creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger to be anything but heterosexual, is a character who comes “factory preinstalled with rich and varied ideas — ideas in which gay men historically find affinities.” More to it, “Batman is an inkblot; we see in him what we want to see — even if we aren’t ready to admit it to ourselves.”

“The Caped Crusade” is a great read for those who are proud Gothamites, those less initiated, and those who flip the switch on the Bat-Signal in order to find themselves.