March

31, 1939
José Miguel de la Viuda Sainz

On the day that the Spanish civil war was coming to an end, the twenty-
seventh number of Detective comics magazine (DC comics for insiders) appeared
on newsstands all across the United States. On the cover, under the red band that
frames the title of the magazine, a creature with wings lies over the roofs of a city.
It is grabbing a man who, in the struggle, has just lost his hat. On a rooftop, two
men, one of them with a colt in hand, gaze at the scene in astonishment. The reason
for the yellow colour of the sky still puzzles me. In a small white strip an
announcement: From this number, the amazing and unique adventures of the bat
man. The Batman words are written in thicker red letters. The fact that the
magazine is dated as the issue of the month of May, common practice at the time is
a minor detail.
The adventures of the batman begin on page 3: "The case of the chemical
syndicate" The irst cartoon is ground-breaking: the silhouette of the batman on a
roof, open wings and a legend : "The Batman, a mysterious and adventurous igure
ighting for righteousness and apprehending the wrong doer, in his lonely battle
against the evil forces of society... His identity remains unknown." In a small red
rectangle, in black letters, the name of the creator "Bob Kane"
Over the next six pages, Bruce Wayne catches three criminals and confesses
to his friend Commissioner Gordon that he is the Batman. And he leaves the
readers salivating. After Batman, readers can enjoy, or get bored, with readings of
"Tenderfoot", a boy-scout, "Speed Saunders" the ace investigator and assassins of
Kurdistan, a topic that seems more fashionable today than in his day. The
investigator captures a brunette "vamp", dressed in a low-cut red out it that is the
only sexy woman in the entire magazine, where women are scarce. The adventures
of Bruce Marshall, a cowboy detective, followed with a cartoon titled "Spy", another
one, "The Scarlet Avenger" presents a guy with a cape of the aforementioned colour
and a blue hat armed with two 1914 model automatic pistols. A short story (not
Illustrated) by Paul Dean titled "Death on the airwaves". Then follows Bruce
Nelson, a handsome man from New Orleans who takes on voodoo wizards. The
adventures of Dr. Fu-Man-Chu, a hot topic today, those of a clumsy policeman called
"Flannigan Flatfoot." "Cosmo the Ghost in Disguise" who also ights against the
yellow peril, this time in San Francisco and a chubby plainclothes detective named
"Pete." The magazine ends with the adventures of a handsome man named Sam
Bradley who has the inancial means to go to Europe by lying boat (the cartoon
shows a "G" class Shorts, small mistake, because Pan-am used Sikorsky, Martin or
Boeing planes that do not look like the one in the drawing)
You may wonder why I have bothered to list all the detectives that appear in
the magazine. The reason is obvious: apart from Fu-Man-Chu, they have all been
forgotten. All. The reception of the public to Batman was such that the following
year he would have the right to his own magazine, like Superman. During the war,
Columbia would make a "Batman" movie, which showed a Batman who acted
within the law and chased Japaneses. "Batman and Robin", the sequel, would
appear in 1949. Over time, the magazine's sales began to decline and in 1964 DC
comics considered the unthinkable: to kill Batman. They didn't go that far but they
did do a re-styling and they killed Alfred. And suddenly, with the airing of the
television series, epitome of the "camp" style, the magazine's sales took off again,
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 although, or despite the fact that the cartoonists did everything possible to depart
from the "camp" style.
And in September 1989, yours truly, who was living in Paris at the time,
came across the newsstands with Michael Keaton's face partially covered by a
mask on the front page of "Premiere" magazine. The title could not be more
premonitory "Batman, you will not escape." Ay least, I did not escape and the ilm
with the " lyover" of the camera inside the Batman logo, the music of Danny
Elfman, the songs of Prince, the histrionic interpretation of Jack Nicholson, the
more than correct interpretation of Michael Keaton and Kim Basinger. Awesome.
Thank you Mr Burton. And that at that time there was no CGI (nor did they need to
have it). Then the saga began to decline and several actors ended up playing
Batman. As unbelievable for the role as Val "Iceman" Kimer or George "Nespresso"
Clooney, yes, yes.
Fortunately Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Hans Zimmerman, Michael
Caine Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman came to the rescue. That's a "dream
team". And I'm not including Maggie Gyllenhaal, because I'm sticking with Kim
Bassinger. Someone at Warner Brothers or DC Comics must have thought they had
done too well and screwed up. Making a seedy Batman devoid of all credibility,
something like the sketch "Top Gear" made about Peugeot. So they gave the role to
Ben "Jlo" Af leck. It was already "borderline" to see him as a Latino in "Argo", so the
Batman thing its him like two shotguns to an "Ecce Homo".
Now they have put a certain Robert Pattinson as Batman, whose movies I
have not seen, sorry I cannot report. And in 2034 copyrights are released: it's going
to be the Bat-xplosion.
In a world where going to the movies is scary because you can be
bombarded with advertisements for the next Disney-Marvel movie, in which the
extravagance of CGI kills the magic of the movies, in other words, in a cinematic
world with an overpopulation of superheroes, it is worth remembering that Bruce
Wayne does not have super powers, he has money, which is a power-power, albeit
scarce, and he also has thirst for revenge, something more ordinary. But the
combination of both is deadly.
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