“Batman” Originator and Producer Michael Uslan Share Stage at IU Cinema

Some prefer Batman silly, others sinister. Comic book fans and filmgoers have seen him depicted both ways. Batman executive producer and rights holder Michael Uslan doesn’t like the silly part. On Aug. 30, Uslan comes to Indiana University Cinema to celebrate three and a half decades of 1989’s “Batman,” the movie that led to one of the world’s most victorious franchises. Uslan is eager to meet his cohort — “my tribe” — of comic book fans when he leads a Q&A after the Aug. 30 showing.

In 1939 Bob Kane helped create Batman, an unbreakable self-appointed law enforcer bent on expunging bad guys. In the beginning Batman even killed his enemies with a gun, something he later swore he would never do. (His parents had been murdered with a gun.) Although, and maybe because, he has no “super” powers, as do other super heroes, Batman remains one of fiction’s most cherished characters.

Batman debuted in Detective Comics and earned the name “Batman” in 1940, as Bill Finger and Bob Kane designed the mask-wearing saver of the day. With Batman’s ward, Robin, the story became a little less severe. Next came Alfred Pennyworth, then Catwoman and Batman’s nemesis the Joker. Gotham City, the bat-family’s home city, was taking off.

In 1966 Uslan got to meet both Kane and Finger. This was the era when Uslan noticed a change to Batman. The Batman Uslan has loved since he was 8 exuded gravity. Now, however, producers and directors were turning his hero into a 1960s TV series funnyman. Something inside Uslan roared. He set out to fix it.

“From the beginning, I knew Batman was dark,” Uslan said in a recent video call. But Batman’s persona had gone from audacious to cornball, and as Uslan watched one afternoon, after 20 minutes an epiphany struck: “Batman is (now) a joke!” Even worse, he said, was that this was the public’s only version of Batman.

In 1966 Uslan was in his 20s, which didn’t stop him from raising the money — “I’m not from a rich family” — to buy the film rights to Batman from DC Comics, which he did in 1979.

For the next 10 years, studios turned down Uslan’s interpretation of the Dark Knight. But in 1989, director Tim Burton and production designer Anton Furst teamed up with Uslan and his dream. Uslan and Benjamin Melniker are named as executive producers on all Warner Bros. Batman films up to Melniker’s death (in 2018), including “The Batman” and straight-to-video films.

Uslan also was the world’s first person to teach a for-credit college course in comic books, having persuaded a skeptical panel of deans and other academic judges.

“It started at IU,” he said, explaining how he used the story of Moses to explain to Indiana University faculty how comic book heroes relate to Greek and Roman mythology, Bible stories and other history.

“Comic books are folklore. They are a legitimate art form,” Uslan said, citing Poseidon, Hermes and others and likening them to today’s super heroes. IU’s dean of the College of Arts and Sciences tried to refuse but ended up agreeing with Uslan. Uslan got his course approved and accredited. “The Comic Book in Society” was the first accredited course on the scholarly application of comic books.

He continues to teaches a three-week course each year at IU.

In 2005, Uslan donated his 30,000 comic books to IU’s Lily Library. “This is my payback to IU.”

One reason comic books are expensive, Uslan said, is that “everyone’s mother threw them away.” Not his, though. When psychologist Fredric Werthham wrote his book “The Seduction of the Innocent” in 1954 about the supposed evils of comic books, many people believed him. Uslan knew only two other boys still allowed to read them.

The Comics Code Authority resulted, tightening rules for what comic books could show.

“My mother read some of my comic books and realized not only that there was nothing wrong with them but that they were what probably accounted for my advanced vocabulary,” Uslan said. That’s even though many of the local kids weren’t allowed to play at Uslan’s house, for fear of the dreaded comic books.

His expanding collection was not only spared but valued. “My father built shelves in our garage to hold them and finally had to park elsewhere when my 30,000 comic books took over.”

It seems ironic then that Batman’s parents were murdered by a gun, (which is why Batman came to eschew gun violence).

“(The industry) learned that their having allowed Batman to use that gun early on was a mistake.”

Early on Batman had no compassion for his enemies. According to Batman.fandom.com, he first murdered in Detective Comics No. 27, when he dissolved Alfred Stryker with acid. Batman kept on killing malefactors or at least encouraging their deaths and sometimes carried a gun. After all, he was competing with The Shadow and Green Hornet.

Uslan’s memoir, “The Boy Who Loved Batman,” is now a Broadway-bound stage play, titled “Darknights and Daydreams.” The memoir is Uslan’s account of a working-class New Jersey boy who saves his superhero from ridicule and debasement.

“We open Oct. 1 in Tampa. It’s so incredibly exciting. In the last two weeks I had to cast my mom and my dad,” he said. He sounded happy, sad and full of memories.

WHAT: 35 ^th anniversary of the release of “Batman.” This is the 1989 film directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger. After the film a Q&A with Batman executive producer and originator of the Batman film franchise, Michael Uslan, will be conducted.

WHEN: 7 p.m. Aug. 30

WHERE: Indiana University Cinema, 1213 E. Seventh St.

TICKETS: $5 at https://am.ticketmaster.com/iucinema/buy

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: “Batman” and originator, executive producer Michael Uslan share the stage at IU Cinema

Source: The Herald-Times, IU Cinema, Batman.fandom.com