Bat-Link: Good NPR Read on Batman
By Skip Harvey
If you’re a fan of National Public Radio or even just know it by the satirical Saturday Night Live skit “Delicious Dish”, you may still be unaware of an engaging column in the NPR Books section of its website. My Guilty Pleasure is a guest feature that highlights ’embarrassing, but addictive reads’ recommended by published authors.
On January 12th, Kim Fu, author of For Today I am a Boy, wrote a piece for the column where she dishes about her guilty pleasure: Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. The fact that she cited the Batman classic isn’t all that remarkable. Her reasoning behind the ‘guilty’ part is why I point you in this direction.
From NPR.org:
"The first time I read Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, I dismissed it in just that way. Its thrill-seeking, bloodthirsty sadist was definitively not my Batman. But rereading it as an adult, I felt a surprised, grudging admiration.…The Dark Knight Returns is provocative, but not unprecedented. It underscores grim questions already present in even Batman’s campiest and most kid-friendly versions; it explores the core of a complex literary figure. And of course literary figures don’t need to be moral or likeable to be great. Think of Lolita‘s Humbert Humbert. The questionable nature of a hyper-violent vigilante, the thin line between my Batman and Miller’s, only makes the series richer."
Fu’s perspective of judgement being seen through the lens of ‘My Batman’ is, I think, a common sentiment among true fans. No matter who you are or when you began loving the Caped Crusader, you undoubtedly have ‘Your Batman’. Kind of like being a fan of Dr. Who; we all have ‘Our Doctor’.
Do yourself a favor, read the article. Then think about what makes ‘Your Batman’. Feel free to discuss in our comments section.