Spotlight: The Knight Shift... (Part One)

On August 22, 2013, at exactly 9:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Warner Bros. Pictures filed a press release revealing Ben Affleck not only as the new big-screen Bruce Wayne but also as the first Batman ever set to share a cinema marquee with Superman in the July 17, 2015 follow-up to director Zack Snyder's MAN OF STEEL. 

The Internet responded swiftly... and not entirely sanely. Before tackling that reaction, Impact takes you back in time to Batman's cinematic beginnings in this exclusive look at the actors who have brought this beloved hero to life on screen.

Batman first appeared swinging across the cover of DETECTIVE COMICS #27 in May of 1939 and then on film in 1943 via actor Lewis Wilson in a 15-episode serial pitting him against a Japanese scientist with a pit of crocodiles and a device that turns people into zombies. Its wartime heritage is obvious in its derogatory views on Japanese and German characters, and its costumes left a lot to be desired. 

The next batch of serials arrived under the title BATMAN AND ROBIN in 1949. The Batman of these 15 episodes was Robert Lowery, who was no stranger to audiences of adventure on film and television; he was particularly gifted at contrasting Bruce Wayne's bored public persona with Batman's no-nonsense dispensing of rough-and-tumble justice. Johnny Duncan convincingly called upon his background as a dancer to create an equally physical Robin, making this serial's frequent fight scenes strong enough to overcome barely adequate costumes and a Batmobile that was simply, well, an automobile with Batman behind the wheel. (It was a 1949 Mercury; the 1943 serial actually had the Dynamic Duo zipping around in a limousine.) This time the villain was The Wizard, a hooded malcontent whose gimmickry involved high-tech devices, and the episodes were a lot of fun despite their obvious budgetary shortcomings.

Adam West was up next, starring as the Caped Crusader in three seasons totaling 120 episodes of television from 1966-1978, a theatrical film in 1966, and two live-action DC Comics television specials (titled LEGENDS OF THE SUPERHEROES, one of which involved host Ed McMahon moderating a superhero roast) in 1979. As intentionally campy as West's Batman may have been, the show's ubiquity in syndication (and his subsequent voicing of Batman in numerous animated series throughout the '70s and '80s) assured that West was the best known incarnation of the character for generations of fans. (Check the BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES episode "The Gray Ghost," a moving mystery in which West voices a character much like himself who was once famous for playing a masked hero and struggled to be perceived differently.)

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