Probably since the first appearance of Dick Grayson as Robin: the Boy Wonder, the publishers of the Batman comics tried hard to give kids a ‘window’ in to the Batman mythos. After Robin, there have been two other Robins, two Batgirls, Alfred, Huntress, Damian (his son), many lovers, and even Ace the Bathound to make up the ‘Bat-Family’. With the exception of his son Damian, all of these characters have been essentially adopted by Bruce Wayne, but then one gets the feeling that he wants these people near him, but he doesn’t want them too close. As for his biological son? Well, it shames me to admit that my favorite super hero of all time is essentially a deadbeat dad. So Batman as family man is a dead end.

It seems that the creators of Batman: The Brave and the Bold understand this about Batman, so given the format of the show: Batman teaming up with other heroes, the creators have turned to other characters to give us the family feel. Plastic Man has  adventures with Baby Plas, all while trying to convince his wife that they are on a regular family outing.

Batman, Plastic Man, Woozy Winks (Plastic Man's sidekick), and Baby Plas are ready for action!

Mera asks, 'Are you even listening to me?' as Aquaman daydreams of super heroing on his family vacation.

Aquaman takes his wife and Arthur Jr. on a family vacation, complete with RV.

It all begs the question: are super hero fans just getting old? As a family man myself, of course I identify with these characters’ desires to have a family, but hang on to what they love to do. While promising his wife that he will not participate in any super heroics, Aquaman lets slip, ‘But we’re super heroes! It’s what we do!’ I think that ‘Brave and the Bold’ is acknowledging the fact that, yes, the super hero fans are growing up and having families of their own. But it also is allowing kids to watch not just good guys beating on bad guys, but super heroes that have lives and families too.

I love this show for being amazingly fun and for giving us a Batman that’s not afraid to smile and crack jokes and hang out with dopey dads like Plastic Man and Aquaman. I hope this show has a very long run, and continues to poke fun at super heroing and family life.

For as long as it lasts, you can watch Aquaman’s family vacation here: ‘Aquaman’s Outrageous Adventure‘.

Batman makes a pretty good tiger, don't ya think?

We had a great time last night, and thank goodness for the extra hour’s sleep! (Not that I got to bed at a decent hour, mind you, Calli was too wound up for that…)

Before I regale you with our tales of Ghoulish adventure, however, I need to give you a little background…

For a few weeks now, the Justice League have been living in our house. Calli has decided that she is the Flash, Mommy is Hawkgirl, Kat is Wonder Woman, Tristin is Batman, and I am Superman. She addresses us accordingly, making for some great lines when taken out of context:

‘Whatcha cookin, Superman?’

‘Why ya cryin, Batman?’

‘Aw, Batman, you’re sooooo cute!’

‘Batman can’t talk. He’s a baby!’

More recently, she switched herself out and became Strawberry Shortcake. The logic of a three year old…

This is a tender caress, and not a slap... Honest!

...See? They love each other!

As I was preparing for the first Halloween party of the day, I asked Calli what I should wear. I didn’t put together a costume, so I was just thinking of throwing on the Beetlejuice or Jack Skellington T-Shirt and calling it good.

But when I asked Calli for her opinion, she screwed up her face in that ‘Are you crazy?’ way and said, ‘You’re Superman.’

So Superman T-Shirt donned, we went out to the car. She kind of wandered around in her Wonder Woman costume, and I said ‘Calli, come on, climb up in to your car seat!’

‘I’m Strawberry Shortcake!’ came the reply, since I had not addressed her correctly.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘I thought you were Wonder Woman?’

The crazy look again. ‘I’m Strawberry Shortcake DRESSED like Wonder Woman!’

‘Well, OK, Strawberry Shortcake-Wonder Woman-Diana, get in the car!’

This seemed to appease her…

Some Halloween highlights:

Wonder Woman takes a respite in a spooky graveyard...

The first party was at the rec center near our house. Calli nailed the bean bag toss, but didn’t want to put her hand in the dark boxes with gooey stuff inside. Also, she wouldn’t eat anything. The hot dogs they were grilling smelled really good to me. I kept dropping hints, but Daddy wound up going hungry…

We went back home to pick up Mommy and Tristin and drove a half hour to the second party… which had been canceled. That was a repeating theme this year: all the events that we’d gotten used to going to were scaled back or canceled altogether. Maybe that’s a topic for another post on the economy…

The kids had fallen asleep, so Mommy and I stopped for a Larkburger. (Which makes up for the lost hot dogs, because these things are crazy delicious.) We were also in the mood for Frosties, so we swung through Wendy’s. Calli woke up by this time, and wanted a ‘toy and burger’. Wendy’s has this nasty habit of putting CDs of children’s audiobooks in their kid’s meals. What’s a three year old do with that? I asked for a toddler toy, and they didn’t have any. Cripes! What a Halloween this was turning out to be!

So we booked it back home, listening to a God-awful story about a kid afraid of Halloween costumes. (Doubly irritating because it booted my Halloween Mix out of the player, but nevermind…)

We got home as Batman started getting fussy. So Mommy decided she’d stay in with the little one, and Calli and I would Chick or Cheek.

The Adventures of a cold Super Hero!

By this time, it had gotten dark and COLD! I put on my Spider-Man coat, and Calli put on her coat over her costume, leaving only the tiara and a bit of starred blue skirt to identify her. She then decided the tiara was better served as a necklace.

The first house we went to, the man that came to the door said, ‘Oh, my! You’re cute just as you are!’

‘She has a costume!’ I blurted, ‘It’s just all covered up because it’s cold!’

‘Well, you’re supposed to put the costume over that stuff!’

‘Yeah, I guess!’ I said, irritated at him for critiquing our Halloween habits, and irritated at myself for sounding like a petulant child.

I told Calli that no one was going to know she was Wonder Woman unless she wore her ‘crown’ on her head, and she let me adjust it. Everyone else knew she was Wonder Woman, except the guy dressed like Wayne from Wayne’s World that kept calling her Supergirl. ‘No! I not Supergirl! I Wonner Woman!’ I don’t think he heard her…

One house was really scary! It was all dark and had spooky sounds and screams coming from it. There was some kind of black curtain hung around the porch that blew in the wind.

‘Wanna go in the scary house?’ I asked.

‘No, it’s tooo scary!’ Calli said, clutching my hand.

‘Then let’s run past the scary house! Ready! Say, You’re too scary, scary house!’

And we did…

We lasted about a half hour. It was just too darn cold. But Calli had a great time.

Wonder Woman ... and Friends!

For all the screw ups of the day, the big payoff was when, after showing off the loot to Mommy, I was downstairs making hot chocolate and hot apple cider, when Calli came down and said, ‘You were awesome, Superman!’

‘Me? What did I do?’

‘You took me to Halloween.’ *Big hug*

Their first anthology comic: Iconic, will be formally released at the MoCCA fest in New York City, being held June 6 and 7, but they were nice enough to let me peer inside it’s pages beforehand so that I can tell you a little bit about it.

Click here to buy your very own copy of Iconic!

When I was growing up, comics were a huge part of my life. They helped grow my vocabulary, I learned elements of mythology and history from them, and they were FUN! But, like many comic fans, I was teased by friends and family alike that the comics were basically a waste of time. That they weren’t worth anything. Much more than their hypothetical future monetary worth, however, comics were worth a great deal to me for their content. Many comics got dog-eared and wrinkled through multiple readings.

If Iconic were around then, it would be one of the wrinkled books.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I can’t wait to read this to my kids! I have no doubt that Iconic will be able to spark that creativity in them that thrilling to tales of Spider-Man and Batman did for me.

Iconic is an anthology collection suitable for all ages that includes many talented up and coming writers and artists. It is a collection of stories based on many different types of literature. Greek mythology is in here, American lore is here, History is here, and yes, my dear Watson, there is a Sherlock Holmes story as well.

Some of the characters are familiar, such as Sherlock Holmes and Ebenezer Scrooge. Some not so familiar, such as the much forgotten Gustave Whitehead, the man that flew before the Wright Brothers!

The comic art leaps off of the page in glorious black and white. The variance in the art amazingly is not distracting, but in fact adds to each individual story as it’s own entity, but also part of something larger. That quality is something generally rarely found in independent anthologies.

I don’t want to summarize each and every story found within this book because I don’t want to spoil any of your fun. Just trust me when I say whether you are a die hard comic book fanboy, a child that has difficulty getting in to reading, a teacher, or a parent; there is something in Iconic that you are sure to enjoy.

You can find out more about Iconic and the rest of the events and projects of the Comicbook Artist’s Guild at comicartguild.com.

OK, maybe not THIS Batman! ;P

*Deep breath* Ok, I’m hearing talk out there that Batman is not a Super Hero because he does not possess super powers.

*Exhale*

As calmly as I can, please allow me to put this argument to bed.

Batman is the one super hero you could actually be. You’ll never be rocketed to Earth from Krypton. You’ll never happen to be standing by certain chemicals when they’re struck by lightning. You’ll never be given a ring that projects your will. You won’t be bitten by a radioactive/bio-engineered spider. As far as we know, Gamma radiation just causes cancer. In some instances, Gamma can be used to treat cancer, but it’s also the deadliest radiation released from atomic bombs. So forget all that.

Ah, that's better!

You could, however, buy an armored car, go through intense physical training, put on a mask and fight crime. You could. Right now.

Why Batman is Important

Batman is one of the very few self-made super heroes. He had to build himself from the ground up in order to achieve his goals. He is a role-model that you can look up to. He is the epitome of ‘You should be the change you want to see in the world.’ -Ghandi

Batman sees a need and does what he feels he should to right the wrongs of Gotham City. It is often argued that he brings some of Gotham’s torment on himself. Would there be a Joker if there wasn’t a Batman? Probably not. But before the Batman, the police force was corrupt, organized crime ran the city. People were afraid to step outside and felt that there was no one out there looking out for them. Batman inspired men like James Gordon and Harvey Dent (pre Two-Face) to stand up and take their city back. Gangs were brought down. OK, you got your Jokers and Scarecrows out of the deal, but people suddenly found themselves not as scared to step out of their homes.

Batman can hang out with the Justice League not because he was the victim of some genetic experiment gone wrong, but because he EARNED it. Who else can hang with or even go toe to toe with Superman without the benefit of super powers, hm?

My point is this: Batman is one of the few fictional characters that I can say that I’ve truly looked up to my entire life. And it’s because he shows us that we can be whatever we set our minds to be. He’s just as important to expose to kids as Elmo or Dora, in my opinion. Some parents worry about the violence, but I think with proper guidance, and episode choosiness (i.e. I’m not going to show my two-year old The Dark Knight, but I did let her watch ‘I’ve Got Batman In My Basement’ from Batman: TAS) a child can really grow to understand the importance of hard work and determination to achieve your dreams.

And all this comes from a Super Hero without super powers! 

After my wife got off the phone, I opened my laptop, knowing full well that my little ol’ blog would not have any comments, and that I would just be blogging some sappy entry about my horrible, no good, very bad day and no one would get past the first line.

My WordPress dashboard loaded.

I blinked.

I had 1 comment.

I clicked it.

It was from Kevin Dilmore!

I was shocked. I was amazed! I was stupefied.

For anyone not ‘in the know’, Kevin Dilmore has written many Star Trek novels and e-books alone and with Dayton Ward. You can find a list of their works here.

I friended Kevin and Dayton on Facebook after entering the now discontinued ‘Strange New Worlds’ Star Trek short story contest. In the course of looking for some advice, I discovered Dayton’s site and blog. I’ve been a fan of Dayton and Kevin ever since. I never really expected either of them to actually notice me on Facebook, I was just a fanboy following around a couple of my favorite writers.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago. I have been experimenting with social networking and blogging. I wrote a silly little blog about the new Batman cartoon, Batman: The Brave and the Bold. You can read that blog here.

I am on Twitter. (Just follow howefitz) I’ve set up Twitter to automatically update my status on Facebook. So when I completed my Batman blog, I announced it on Twitter, which also announced it on Facebook! I can only imagine this is how Kevin saw it, and felt compelled to comment!

And that is how the very first comment on my modest little blog came from one of my heroes. This is social networking at work, folks! Thank you Twitter and Facebook! And I especially thank Kevin Dilmore. You’re the man! You single-handedly pulled me out of my funk today, and my wife and I thank you!

-Justin

I like this series. I’m not the typical ‘That’s not how the character should be!’ type of fan. Especially when it comes to Batman, I can pretty much deal with any incarnation that doesn’t have Joel Schumacher’s name attached to it. So a return to a more fun Batman isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes he gets so mopey that even I want to scream: “I know! You’re parents died! I get it! But you’re a grown man now, so snap out of it!” I like to go back to the time when Batman fought villains on typewriters and robots from other dimensions.

‘Brave and the Bold’ does just that. The episode I caught featured Plastic Man and Gorilla Grodd and took place mostly on Dinosaur Island. Did it add something to the Batman mythos? Not really. Was it fun? Hell, yes. That’s what we sometimes forget in our self-absorbed fanboy minds: these characters were invented in the name of escapism. They’re meant to be fun. Welcome, ‘Brave and the Bold’, and thank you for reminding me what Saturday morning used to be.

-Justin

P.S. Anyone else see the Dick Sprang influence?

Dick Sprang drew a heck of a Batman, apparently Warner Bros. Animation noticed.