How on earth do we wrap-up this amazing month we’ve spent with the Caped Crusader himself? We could recommend which Batman films are worth seeing, but the truth is, you probably already know. We could try to talk about the impact and legacy of the Bat franchise, but one teeny blog post could never do the whole thing justice.

Instead, we’re headed back to the beginning, to the medium where the Bat first took flight: comics. We offer you a selection of, in our humble opinions, some of the greatest Batman comics we’ve ever read.

Batman and I clicked on a level I’d never quite expected. The film was a dark summer blockbuster, aimed at kids and adults, and kids who thought they already were adults. The kind of film that said, “Children are smart enough to handle this.” That was something great about the 80s and early 90s; There was very little pandering to my age set. We grew up on W.W.F., G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe, Beavis & Butthead and Ren & Stimpy… not SpongeBob SquarePants, or even Barney. Our heroes weren’t perfect, sex symbol teeny boppers on the CW or Disney channel. They kicked ass and took names.

Our resident action figure photographer, Rhea Dee, is back with another great photo essay. Previously, she broke the story of Godzilla’s life after Godzilla; this time around, she spends the day hanging out with Batgirl!

Every prolific directors oeuvre seems to include a cinematic dud. For the lucky few, it’s a film that’s well received critically that underperforms at the box office. A film that just never finds its audience no matter how much praise is heaped on it. If you’re Martin Scorsese it’s more than one film and if you’re Tim Burton, it’s just Ed Wood.

Warning coulrophobics, the scariest clown to hit screens may not be Nicholson’s or Ledger’s versions of The Joker. It might not even be good old Pennywise (as played by Tim Curry) from Stephen King’s television production of It. Behold the true and original inspiration for The Joker, Conrad Veidt from the film The Man Who Laughs.

Here at TFL headquarters, we’ve discussed several ways to write about the Batman soundtrack — not the Danny Elfman score but the all-Prince album entitled Batman released in conjunction with the film. It is, we find, one of the strangest aspects of Burton’s whole project. Was it all an elaborate pop-art joke? Did Prince just make the thing because he was told to? And if so, why the hell is he running around the “Batdance” video dressed as both Batman and the Joker? And who told him it was a good idea to do a dance number in full-out superhero costume?

The Batman trailer inspired a frenzy of speculation on a level not seen since Star Wars, and like Star Wars it was reported people were buying tickets to movies simply to see the trailer and then walking out. Spurred by the buzz, merchandising for Batman started to flood stores around the world months in advance of the film. As fans were frothing with anticipation, it seemed every company was scooping up the license.

As Josh teased in this month’s intro post, the main reason I wanted to write about Batman this month was my discovery, upon rewatching the 1989 film a few months ago, that it participates in a much larger contemporaneous debate about artists and public art, especially in America.

While the 60s tv show and the 1966 movie reveled in their pop art imagery, Burton’s first take on Batman is much more suspicious about contemporary art. In a number of images and plot happenings throughout the film, a deeply conservative message about art, collecting, museums, and publicly funded art projects is broadcast almost subconsciously.

Meet Bob and Carl: Sci-Fi Janitors. They clean up the mess when the con is over. They also chat to themselves about geek culture, Batman included.

Bob and Carl are the creations of a handful of puppeteers and writers in Atlanta, notably Matt Nitchie and Beau Brown. Matt and Beau are Bob and Carl, respectively, and their voices, thoughts, and geek interests fuel the skits.

The Film League recently chatted with Beau and Matt about their show, their other projects, and the Caped Crusader himself.

In all the documentary does a great job of shining a light on what misery it must have been for Michael Keaton. Without his bat-mask, the actor was forced to wear a stocking cap and have his eyes blacked out. In the cowl, he couldn’t hear the other actors or turn his head.

This mini-documentary confronts head-on the controversy surround the films production and features interviews with Tim Burton, Danny Elfman and even the creator of Batman himself, Bob Kane.

As we kick-off our month long salute to Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, we thought it important to help preserve a bit of nostalgia for the time period in which the film was released. Surprisingly, the film had something of an uphill battle ahead. At the time, comic book properties were (of course) not the typical fare for your average summer blockbuster.