Baby Boomers lose superhero icon

Adam West died this past weekend at age 88, and Baby Boomers mourned his passing.

During a career that lasted more than 60 years, West played everything from a cowboy to an astronaut, but he will be remembered for one role, the role that basically typecast him and killed his career, but the role that made him a Baby Boomer icon: Batman.

He was erroneously called in many obituaries that I read “the first screen Batman”- he was not, as there was a movie serial Batman years before West took on the cape and cowl with the Caped Crusader portrayed by Lewis Wilson- but West was TV’s first Batman.

The two years he spent in the role cemented him as a hero to Baby Boomers, but he was so associated with the role that his career stalled after that.

Prior to Batman, the tall, good-looking actor portrayed everyone from cowboys to astronauts – just prior to Batman, he was starred in a film with the Three Stooges, “The Outlaws Is Coming!”- but with Batman, he hit the high-water mark of his career with a solid bull’s eye.

West, along with Burt Ward as his sidekick, Robin, portrayed the Dynamic Duo in the 1960’s rendering of the Caped Crusader, mixed in with sly humor and pop art dynamics.

Taking advantage of television’s new-found love of color, the show was like the comic book had come to life, with dynamic colors, punctuated with a POW!, ZING!, and ZONK! mentality.

West and Ward were simply guest stars on the their own show, with the villains—including The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), The Joker (Cesar Romero) and Catwoman (Julie Newmar and later, Eartha Kitt) taking full ownership of the half hour program, which initially ran twice weekly, with the first episode of the week always ending with a cliffhanger.

West was a wry Batman, doing everything with a straight face, delivering lines that were as stilted as they were funny, and West completely got the role, as did Ward.

Soon, the public tired of the show, but initially, it was a huge hit, and has been a hit in reruns the past 50 years, and is finally on DVD.

Anyway, West could not get hired after that role and took cheesy roles in many low-budget projects after his Batman role.

It was only when he embraced his past role that he rose to stardom again, and during the past 30 years, he has portrayed Batman in numerous productions and has even appeared as “Adam West” in several others.

To Baby Boomers, West was not the “Dark Knight” Batman; that darker portrayal came much later.

However, he was Batman as much as George Reeves was Superman, and to Baby Boomers, all other actors who portrayed Batman were simply pretenders to the throne that West held court with for the past 50 years.

In essence, he was Batman.

R.I.P. Adam West, Gotham City is safer because of you.