Bat-books Are Everywhere!

art by Gene Ha

As any trip to your local comic shop can tell you, there are a lot of comics featuring or related to Batman on the shelves. The competition is close but most months there are probably more “bat-books” available than for any other character in comics. Not to be limited just to comics, it also seems more than any other superhero, Batman attracts writers and publishers to create non-comic book literature about him as well. Part of this can be tied to the various animated projects, television shows, and movies that offer additional subject matter for these books. Since he has no superpowers, maybe he is just easier to relate to for non-comic readers and writers. But this isn’t about why there’s so many books about Batman on non-comic shelves; instead it is about some of the interesting ones you might find.

Batman And Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul was released in 2008 amid the buzz and merchandising of The Dark Knight. It is one of a group of books from the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series that look to examine popular media based on classical and modern studies on ethics, morality and philosophy. Some of the other media subject this series has tackled are: Metallica, Family Guy, South Park, 24 and The Office. At first glance I think it would be easy to file these under the heading: “die hard fans will buy anything, so let’s sell them something”. But since I haven’t read any of those books except the one on Batman I won’t be that harsh. If you bought this book looking for a deep study on the inner working of the heart and soul of the Dark Knight, you would be looking in the wrong book. This is more of a fast food serving look at some of the characters relationships and questions that many people have asked about him in the past. For a casual fan this is probably serviceable stuff for a lot of these subjects. But if you are more of a hardcore fan like myself, you’d probably rather discuss these things with Mark Waid than read most of this book.

Speaking of comic creators, you can also find a variety of well known comic book scribes like Denny O’Neil and Greg Rucka who have written novelizations of popular storylines from the Batman comics. These books are often the truest transition from one media format to another for Batman, even if you don’t consider picture books to non-picture books a huge format transition. I have a few books like this on my shelves, including No Man’s Land by Rucka and usually enjoy them. Great concepts can work in many different formats and much of his history as well as Batman himself feature concepts and stories that can be shared a variety of ways effectively. For most of these adaptations of well known tales, the overall story itself will not change. But the freedom for the author to no longer being limited by panels and page counts can lead the story in new directions. Comic books don’t usually have remakes of stories like the movie industry but this is a way for that to happen without really stepping on the toes of the original story. I can think of a dozen or so classic storylines I’d like to see “redone” in this format.

Sometimes instead of being adapted from a comic a novel featuring Batman will travel the opposite path. This was the case with Batman: The Ultimate Evil by Andrew Vachss. In this story, the well known crime novelist alters the Batman’s origins to connect him to the abuse of children, which usually is the focus of his work. While hardcore fans might not be a fan of that sort of change, it does work in context of this tale and is really no different than many of the origin alterations Batman has had in the pages of DC’s various Elseworlds titles. While I have not seen many novels like this, about the comic book Batman but not from a comic book itself, the success of the recent Batman films has lead to several novels set in this new Batman movie continuity. I can only imagine that with the huge success of The Dark Knight and the introduction of the Joker into that continuity that this trend will continue.

With “do it yourself” books and self-help programs being so popular these days it was only a matter of time before Batman was also the focus of this genre of literature. Scott Beatty, himself no stranger to writing comics, has tried to fill that void by writing The Batman Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manual. Given the types of things Scott has written with DC Characters, as co-writer of Robin: Year One & Batgirl: Year One with Chuck Dixon and primary writer for several of the Ultimate Guides or Handbooks of DC characters for DK publishing, you would think he’d have the ability to cover this from all angles. In my opinion, he does a great job with the book as it is both informative and hilarious. Written as if it was a true “how to” guide, everything from building your own Batcave to training your own sidekick is discussed without ever blinking to let you consider it is anything but a legitimate manual. I certainly would not say this is a must for any comic fan, but if you are a Batman aficionado or just want to know how to win a fight with Catwoman, then this book is for you.

This is honestly just a small selection of the kinds of books you could find in your local book store or online about Gotham’s favorite son. There is a litany of books cataloging the thousands of toys and collectables featuring all things Bat-related. There are also many texts focusing on the production of numerous TV shows and feature films. And you even have books like The Batcave Companion that examine certain periods in Batman’s comic book history. So that brings us back the beginning, while the comics will always be the favorite, there seems to be no shortage of other literature about Batman out there. And at least to me that seems like a good thing.