Title: Batman Unauthorized: Vigilantes, Jokers, and Heroes in Gotham City
Editor: Dennis O’Neil

Thoughts: This is a collection of essays written on the pop culture phenomenon of Batman. Some of the essays addressed the latest of the Batman movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. As this book was published before the release of The Dark Knight, one of the essays wondered if they could really capture who the Joker is and the movie did, in the end, proved up to the task in my opinion as well as in the opinion of many others.

Some essays were amusing (such as the one about the cost of being Batman) and sometimes not amusing despite the attempt to do so (I was sorely dissappointed by the “To the Batpole!” essay as there are probably fanfiction out there that does a better job). One of my favorite essays was about Arkham Asylum as I’m always quite interested in the exploits of the insane in Gotham.

There were also some essays that just weirded me out. One was the essay written by whom I refer to in my head as “the rabid Frank Miller fanboy” which gave me so many reasons not to read his newer Batman books despite the fact that the essay tried to argue for them. Sorry, I’m just not interested in ridiculous graphic novels that have Superman and Wonder Woman having sex in the sky and crashing an airplane in the process. Then there’s the essay that claims that the campy 60’s Batman is the real Batman, based on the idea that Batman is seen as a commercial symbol by most. I disagree, mostly because I grew up with a different Batman than the one he did. I grew up with the Batman of the more serious animated series from the early 90’s. I have yet to see why so many people from older generations even consider the 60’s campy TV show as good. Perhaps I just don’t have much of a sens of humor (nor does the Batman I grew up with). Another article that confused me was the article comparing Batman to George W. Bush. It confused me a lot until the end because it was not clear to me that the author did not like George W. Bush, but still liked Batman. Other than that, I found many of the essays to be fascinating and enlightening as I am still some what new to the comics canon and several of the essays discussed it.