In the memorable 1976 story, “There’s No Hope in Crime Alley,” young Bruce Wayne witnesses his parents brutally gunned down before his eyes. A social worker, Leslie Thompkins, reaches out to the traumatized boy with the comforting “Come with me. I will do what I can.”
Michael Uslan, in his memoir, “The Boy Who Loved Batman” relays how he also came to the Dark Knight’s rescue, but in the aftermath of the 1960s television series. For years, the Batman was perceived as literally a “comic” character due to the phenomenon of the show and later, believed as unsalvageable, even by Warner Bros. who owned the DC Comics character. Uslan championed a dark, gritty film version of the hero but, despite the huge success of 1978’s “Superman: The Movie,” the studio laughed off the idea. Undeterred, Uslan and partner (and former MGM studio head) Benjamin Melniker purchased the film rights and began a crusade that would take ten years before Batman would appear on the big screen.
Uslan’s passion for the Batman film, as well as its sequels and rebirth with 2005’s “Batman Begins,” is the culmination of a decades-long relationship with the character. Long-time comic readers will travel back in time to the spinner racks in mom-and-pop stores. They will experience the author’s constant good fortune which comes as a result of self-confidence used to withstand the Hollywood lesson of rejection. Passion, combined with the analytic knowledge of the appeal of these characters, serves him well. A young Uslan had been berated by a store owner for “thumbing through” the new books that he claimed he could not re-sell. The boy, forced to come up with thirty more cents to buy four copies of his discovery, is ultimately rewarded as these copies of “Fantastic Four #1″ become worth thousands. We also see the impact of Dr. Frederick Wertham’s 1950s tirade that comic books were psychologically damaging, which led to Uslan’s school friend losing a collection of pivotal issues after his parents burned them.
But much more prevalent than the financial benefits of the books and films, Uslan demonstrates the power of loving your work at a time when career security was essential. He followed his dreams towards what now appears to be an inevitable success. The book is filled with personal and public namedropping. The author knows their invaluable support brought forth rewards that one lone boy from New Jersey could not. Uslan’s overwhelming joy for life permeates the memoir from his childhood adventures to his proud contributions for a beloved pop-culture icon. His simple philosophy that one must strive as most dreamers rarely try is timeless advice.
If anything, the reader is left by the Bat-signal wanting more stories. The post-Michael Keaton Batman era is covered in a few remaining pages of the book. There were undoubtedly more challenges for Uslan in the re-casting and re-imagining of Batman which lead to another long road of development hell before Christopher Nolan’s modern Dark Knight trilogy. Uslan’s theme of resilence reflects both author and character so perhaps he, too, has a sequel in mind.