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    The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture
    The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture
    The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture

    Written by Glen Weldon

    Narrated by Glen Weldon

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    About this audiobook

    “A roaring getaway car of guilty pleasures” (The New York Times Book Review), Glen Weldon’s The Caped Crusade is a fascinating, critically acclaimed chronicle of the rises and falls of one of the world’s most iconic superheroes and the fans who love him—now with a new afterword.

    Since his debut in Detective Comics #27, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy Pop Art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim ninja of the urban night. Yet, despite these endless transformations, he remains one of our most revered cultural icons. In this “smart, witty, and engrossing” (The Wall Street Journal) cultural critique, NPR contributor and book critic Glen Weldon provides “a sharp, deeply knowledgeable, and often funny look at the cultural history of Batman and his fandom” (Chicago Tribune) to discover why it is that we can’t get enough of the Dark Knight.

    For nearly a century, Batman has cycled through eras of dark melodrama and light comedy and back again. How we perceive his character, whether he’s delivering dire threats in a raspy Christian Bale growl or trading blithely homoerotic double entendres with Robin the Boy Wonder, speaks to who we are and how we wish to be seen by the world. It’s this endless adaptability that has made him so lasting, and ultimately human.

    But it’s also Batman’s fundamental nerdiness that uniquely resonates with his fans and makes them fiercely protective of him. As Weldon charts the evolution of Gotham’s Guardian from Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s hyphenated hero to Christopher Nolan’s post-9/11 Dark Knight, he reveals how this symbol of justice has made us who we are today and why his legacy remains so strong. The result is “possibly the most erudite and well-researched fanboy manifesto ever” (Booklist). Well-researched, insightful, and engaging, The Caped Crusade, with a new afterword by the author, has something for everyone: “If you’re a Bat-neophyte, this is an accessible introduction; if you’re a dyed-in-the-Latex Bat-nerd, this is a colorfully rendered magical history tour redolent with nostalgia” (The Washington Post).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMar 22, 2016
    ISBN9781508223283
    Author

    Glen Weldon

    Glen Weldon has been a theater critic, a science writer, an oral historian, a writing teacher, a bookstore clerk, a movie usher, a PR flack, an inept marine biologist, and a slightly-better-than-ept competitive swimmer. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Slate, The Atlantic, The Village Voice, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and many other places. He is a panelist on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour and reviews books and comic books for NPR.org. The author of Superman: The Unauthorized Biography and The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, he lives in Washington, DC.

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    Reviews for The Caped Crusade

    4/5

    67 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Entertaining pop-culture history! A few shortcomings related to how the author handles other critics: he mostly mocks them, seldom finding one who offers insight into Batman. Maybe there are none, but it makes the discussion seem dismissive of other voices. Also, the author reads the book himself and you can tell he is enjoying himself, doing funny voices and accents galore. I like the sense of fun, but I don't love it when readers of audiobooks do funny voices and accents. It takes me out of the narrative every time. But maybe that's just me. Anyhow, these minor issues did not get in the way of the pleasure of an immersive tour through 20th-century comics culture and Batmania. Funny and fascinating.
    • 3/5
      Okay, I finished this, and it was really interesting if a little depressing. The audiobook is read by the author and he did a great job with really entertaining voices. I liked the in depth look at a specific slice of nerd culture and all the bat facts (so fun!). It was all the bits about the insular nature of fandom and trolls that were kind of depressing and reminded me that as much as I love comics there will always be guys in fandom who are the worst.
      -----
      I'm, like, 80% of the way through the audiobook and it just returned itself and I had to go back on the hold list so WHO KNOWS when I'll finish this bah OverDrive is a nuisance.
    • 5/5
      In The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, Glen Weldon argues, “For the last three decades, the American superhero has been trapped in a perpetual age of adolescence, with fans and creators peevishly avowing that these spandex-clad fantasy characters created to entertain children must now be taken seriously, by which they mean they should be mired in joyless nihilism: badass. It was Batman and his fans who brought this benighted era about, and there are hopeful signs that Batman and his fans may soon be responsible for ending it” (pg. 7). Of the character’s origins and first year of publication, Weldon writes, “It’s the raw-element Batman of this one brief year that continues to cast the longest shadow over the character, more than three-quarters of a century later” (pg. 21). The violence was such that DC used Robin to allay parent groups fears.Turning to the 1950s and 1960s, Weldon writes of the comic book moral panic, “Fredric Wertham’s book and Senate testimony arrived precisely at a historical moment when, according to historian Chris York, ‘a cultural emphasis on the nuclear family and a containment approach to both foreign and domestic affairs fueled a homophobic fire’ that spread through all levels of society” (pg. 50). Though Wertham cherry-picked his examples, the Lavender Scare ensured they would be taken seriously. Further, these fears about Batman’s sexuality were further flamed by the 1960s television series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. While fans bemoaned the show’s campiness, psychologists feared that it glorified violence (pg. 72).The stories of the late ’60s through mid-1980s saw what Weldon terms comics’ Great Inward Turn, with an examination of what made characters unique. Writers like Denny O’Neil and artists like Neal Adams could begin to redefine characters while publishers took advantage of new venues for sales. Weldon writes, “Publishers realized that these stores, known as the ‘direct market,’ provided them with better feedback that allowed them to tailor their print runs more precisely. Miniseries, one-shots, and prestige formats with higher-quality paper stock were now possible – and could be priced higher for the eager collector” (pg. 124). Stories from Alan Moore like The Killing Joke and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns began to further redefine the character and what comics could do using the format. Meanwhile, Tim Burton’s film series garnered mainstream appeal beyond the usual comic book fanbase.Discussing the backlash that followed Joel Schumacher’s films and how it exemplified nerd culture, Weldon writes, “Nerd culture is often open and inclusive, when it is powered by the desire to seek out others who share common interests and enthusiasms. But nerdish passion is strong and unmindful; its very nature is to obliterate dispassion, nuance, ambiguity, and push human experience to either edge of a binary extreme: My thing is the best. Your thing is the worst” (pg. 216-217). Christopher Nolan’s films helped to revitalize the character again while Grant Morrison deconstructed Batman in the comics. Following the rise of the New 52 and Morrison’s departure, the writer challenged fan’s preconceived notions of that Batman. Weldon writes, “In the May 2012 issue of Playboy magazine, just as he set out wrapping up his story lines, Morrison offered a parting shot to the hard-core Bat-nerds who were only too happy to see him go. ‘Gayness,’ he said, ‘is built into Batman. I’m not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There’s just no denying it’” (pg. 277). The resurgence in interest for the Adam West version of Batman shows a new acceptance for queering the character, even as fan culture continues to involve a level of toxicity (see Tom King’s need for a bodyguard at San Diego Comic Con 2018).Weldon’s book is excellently researched, tracing the entire course of Batman’s history up through 2016. He writes primarily for a popular or undergraduate audience, with both literary theory and comics minutia to appeal to both.
    • 3/5
      Wasn't going to keep picking up books at the library (since I have over 400 to read at home yet), but I found this on the new shelf (despite it coming out sometime last fall) and for some reason, had to read it.

      I have to also preface this stating that, I'd like to give this a 3.5 probably.... I'd say it started out as a 4 star, but as I read it, it more or less became a 3 star, but would probably finish at a 3.5 if GoodReads allowed that (LibraryThing does, and I'll give it a 3.5 there).

      Firstly it's a very good long look at the Batman character, dating back to his debut in the 30s in Detective Comics #27. It leads up to the announcing of Batman vs. Superman (but doesn't tackle the movie yet; not sure if it was out or not yet by the time of this book's printing).

      I think the first thing that becomes very apparent is that the book primarily is based of Adam West's 1960s Batman. Basically linking every incarnation of Batman to *THAT* Batman, although not-so-much with the pre-1960s Batman, but still he finds a way to link Batman of the past to a Batman of the future that are different incarnations and how the one would have no way of interacting with the other in a printed/done medium.

      And this forms a lot of the basis for the book, in how he relates all versions of Batman ultimately back to this one. Especially in a homophobic way too. The more and more I read the book I found it almost seemed like he was attacking the gay community and was writing it very overhanded anti-homosexual.... and then it dawned on me about 3/4ths of the way through; that the writer himself has to be gay, that no non-gay writer would use the terms and the terminology that he does; especially in this PC era. Especially in such a derogatory way that he does. (And lo and behold when I read the acknowledgments I find out that he is indeed gay.)

      I don't think there's anything wrong with the discussions of Batman and homosexuality. There is a lot of.... innuendo, entrendre, wink wink, subtlety, and underlying contextualities about his orientation and undertones of his _not_ orientation. I do however think the way this work goes about it.... is a bit overhanded, a bit rude even one say, to his own group. Kind of in a misogynistic way of how women will be judgmental of other women.... there's that kind of anti-gay but still gay undertones to how sections of this reads. And I think some of that feeds into the "snobby" "holier than thou" attitude that this book has at times. I also think there is a lot of over-contextualizing Batman and Batman characters into homosexual/heterosexual camps and situations that aren't really relevant at all.

      There is definitely an attitude to the work. A definitive snobbyness to it, ala "my fandom is better than yours" style that nerd culture definitely has. And he even discusses that very symptom, but in a posh 'no, that can't be me' kind of way. I also think, despite his talks of "there is no one true Batman" he clearly has his own version, and he expresses it and pushes it a bit. But, there is always a hidden bias and agenda to everything anyway. I think tying into the snobbyness, is another anti-nerd but still nerd hatred thing at play. Almost like Comic Book Guy from Simpsons writing from his own basement calling out all the nerds who they themselves live in their parent's basement, eating cheetos and doritos and binging Mountain Dew as they decry a minute detail of some random minutia of a comic book. Here's a guy doing THAT and also yelling at those who do THAT.

      Overall though I think its a valuable book to the nerd culture, and especially Batman fandom. A lot of interesting information that I didn't know before (though I'll never confess to having an encyclopedic knowledge of DC Comics or the behind-the-scenes workings of comics in general). Still definitely a must-read for any "true Batman" fan.
    • 5/5
      Batman has been around for a long time, longer than I was aware of before giving this book a listen. I knew he had been a comic book hero before the Adam West Batman series, but I hadn’t realized how many versions of him had graced the comic book scene. Now I do. This book is a treasure trove of Batman info that entertained this Batman fan.The book is laid out in a mostly linear timeline, though once the movies come on scene the author did focus on a movie at a time (including production time and stuff that leaked to the internet) interspersed with what was going on elsewhere in Batmania world (cartoons, comics, etc.). I didn’t know the original Batman started off toting a gun and several of his earliest comic escapades were lightly veneered copies of Dick Tracy or The Shadow storylines. I think this might have irritated The Shadow fans of the time, just as knock offs of Tolkien’s works irritate Tolkienheads today. So I’m glad that Batman eventually grew into his own.I found it very interesting that Batman cycled throughout the decades from dark crime fighting vigilante, without a side kick, to a kind of campy, more kid friendly version and back again….. and again….. and again. For me, I have always gravitated more towards the darker versions. I am surprised that Batman did not start off with an origin story, but leaped on to the pages of a comic strip doing what he does as a full grown man with his own objectives. Later, he ditches the gun and gains a cape, a sidekick, and an origin story. I’m a bit undecided as to whether or not the trade actually assisted Batman in solving crime.So let’s talk about the underlying gayness (or not) of Batman and Robin. My first thought is, who cares? Whether or not Batman and Robin have had an intimate friendship doesn’t stop them from fighting crime, having torn up psyches, or looking buff in tights. I hadn’t realized this was such a big point for Batman fans until I read this book. If Robin and Batman came out of the closet, I would still be a fan. Their sexual orientations don’t detract from them being interesting characters. Batman has had many, many adventures, in the future and the past, in other worlds, magic and science fiction colliding, being a good guy and a bad guy, so I don’t see why there isn’t some alternate universe out there where Batman is gay. Anyway, it was interesting to see all the fan comments on the movies, cartoons, and comics concerning Batman’s personal relationship with Robin.This audiobook comes with a downloadable PDF that features examples of Batman art & comics throughout the ages. Each image has the related text from the book making it a great addition to the audiobook. I had fun reading through it and seeing how Batman changed throughout the ages. Over all, this was a very entertaining and enlightening book and now I’m inspired to go out there and track down some Batman goodness that I haven’t seen or read before.I received a copy at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.The Narration: Glen Weldon does a great job narrating his own book. He’s a true nerd with a passion for this topic and that comes through clearly in his narration. I really appreciate him using silly voices for quotes by other Batman fans, fanatics, and experts throughout his book. His humor is on display, though I like that he delivers it succinctly without laughing at his own jokes.
    • 5/5
      Who would have thought a sociological work on Batman could be written, and that it would be even half as interesting as this? Like many people, I know a little about the character (how could one not, somehow, at least be aware of Batman), but wouldn't call myself a big fan of the guy. Where does this character come from, in terms of society's needs (real and fictional), and how did he get created / re-created / re-re-created / re-re-re-created…? Why is he so long lasting, and what is our fascination with him based upon? Glen Weldon answers all of these questions and more which you wouldn't even have thought to ask. It's an intelligent and very fun read; Weldon can make comparisons to Lysistrata and describe Batman as first appearing as though "the dude is wearing an umbrella" (which he totally does) with equal aplomb and genuine glee for the topic. Read this, give it to someone, do both, anyone will enjoy it; guaranteed.