In January 1966, the overnight success of the Batman TV program led to a miscalculation in the entertainment industry.
The archly comical ABC show created to be “camp,” a term defined by Merriam-Webster as “…something so outrageously artificial, affected, inappropriate or out-of-date as to be considered amusing.”
The early TV stories, virtually lifted right from the comic books, didn’t sit so well on actual human beings in tights — even though it was fun to see Adam West address each crazy scheme involving puzzles, umbrellas, Rube Goldberg death traps and brightly colored knock-out gas as if it were the imminent detonation of a hydrogen bomb.
A 12-year-old then, I understood that the show was laughing at Batman, not with him. And I didn’t appreciate it one little bit when that same attitude backwashed into superhero comics — not just the Batman comics, but many other bandwagon riders.
Take the revived Archie Comics MLJ superheroes, for example. Subjected to the faux-Stan Lee writing of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and the indifferent art of Paul Reinman, 1940s stalwarts like the Web, the Shield, the Fox, Steel Sterling and the Black Hood became goofballs as the Fly-Man title turned into Mighty Heroes in 1966-67.
Only the Web — now a henpecked, middle-aged superhero making a comeback attempt — had the seeds of a real story, touching on themes that would be developed in superhero stories 20 or more years later.
But finally, once all the publicity dust settles, things that are said to be “…so bad they’re good” are usually, after all, just bad.
The Batman show, and the comic book superheroes that copied it, all quickly fell victim to the problem that afflicts every camp melodrama.
You can’t generate concern about the fate of characters after you’ve encouraged the audience to laugh at them by making them appear ridiculous. The ticking time bomb can’t be suspenseful when we know it’s really a jack-in-the-box.
Michael Kelly Schurman wrote, 'To me, 'camp' destroyed the Silver Age. What Stan Lee pulled off with Marvel was too idiosyncratic to be imitated, too naturally his schtick to be copied.
ReplyDelete"That said however, I have an affection for the Mighty Crusaders. Of course I was disappointed to see a good character like the Fly so treated, and the Jaguar and the Pvt. Strong version of the Shield ignored, but the old MLJ heroes brought back to life was somewhat of a good thing. Like with a great piece of music degraded by a terrible arrangement, one could still see the worth of those characters."
As a child I remember being concerned that the Batman TV show was not true what I knew about Batman from the comics. But, who listens to a five year old, right?
ReplyDeleteAnd with the Mighty Crusaders, I never saw it then as campy. After all I was so young. But I did see so much colorful potential that they were favorites of mine.
ACP has never been able to get a handle on their heroes - they abandoned the last two revivals, DC did ok with their two licenced revivals (but why they didn't use the Fawcett or Quality heroes rather than licnced the ACP heroes is beyond me. Supposedly !MPACT was supposed to be the Fawcett heroes but DC didn't want to take Cap/Shazam out of the DCU)
ReplyDeleteThe 1980's "Red Circle"/"Adventure" series WAS well done - only because it had some good talent that worked at DC and Marvel! ACP should have given it a better chance.
I should clarify here that the Archie superheroes actually predated and anticipated the camp trend that showed up in the Batman TV show, by about a year.
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