The Batcave Companion

The Batcave Companion by Michael Eury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Batcave Companion tells of the evolution of Batman, from Carmine Infantino revitalizing him for the 1960s to Neal Adamd and Denny O'Neil to Steve Englehart's epic run.

The Batcave Companion is a collection of essays and interviews with Batman creators, giving a look behind the cape and cowl to the events behind the scenes.

In this day and age, when DC shoehorns Batman into damn near everything, that he was ever in danger of cancellation but that's just where the Dark Knight Detective was at the dawn of the Silver Age. Carmine Infantino, fresh off a stint on the Flash, was tasked with working his magic on Batman. Carmine toned down the zanier aspects, put the yellow oval around the bat, and it was off to the races.

While Bob Kane is credited as creating Batman, the modern incarnation has many fathers.
This book collects interviews with Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, Denny O'Neil, Steve Englehart, and many other Bat-Dads.

I'm not even a huge Batman fan but I found this book very interesting, reading about the various contributions people have made to the character over the years. The Batman of the late 1960s/early 1970s has long held my interest and that is the era that gets the most attention.

It's crazy that villains like Catwoman, Two-Face, and the Riddler were left fallow for years at a time when they've been so over-exposed in the last twenty or thirty years. The creative process of yesteryear is also quite different. I found it fascinating that Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams had little to no contact during their Batman run. Denny handed in the scripts and Neal drew them. The End. It's also crazy that DC editorial hated Rogers and Austin's collaboration on Batman when it's now looked upon as one of the great runs.

Lastly, the Batcave Companion shows how far the current Batman has veered away from his detective roots, a paranoid uber-planner with the intellect of Reed Richards.

As with all of Two Morrows publications, The Batcave Companion is a great book about the history of comics. Four out of five batarangs.

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