Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

      Before January was through, I wanted to add one more pairing of the World's Finest. Sadly, we could have never had a meeting of the television versions. George Reeves played the title character in The Adventures of Superman from 1952 to 1958. Adam West was Batman on the television series from 1966 to 1968. As fun as it would have to see these two paragons of virtue join each other, Reeves died seven years before the West series started.       Apparently, I'm not the only person to think about this. Look at Alex Ross' interpretation of the meeting.   

       The first live-action adaptation of Batman was a 15 chapter serial in 1943. It did so well that another one was made a few years later. Superman had a popular serial in 1948 and a sequel two years later. The producer of these serials was Sam Katzman, who knew how to make movies cheaply and turn a profit. What if, instead of a sequel, he decided to put the heroes together in a serial to get more people watching. Around that time Superman, Batman and Robin palled around with each on the covers of World's Finest comics but not in the stories inside. However, starting in 1945 Batman and Robin did join Superman on his radio show so it would have been a treat for the kids (and some adults) of time to see them fighting together on the screen. Fun fact for fans of The Flash: an actor named Wally West is in the serial "Atom Man vs Superman". You can see what the original serials looked like here: Batman And Robin (1949) Episode 1 Batman Takes Over Atom Man vs Superman ...

       Christopher Reeve's final appearance as Superman was the low budget disappointment Quest for Peace  in 1987. When Batman  came out in 1989 with Michael Keaton, it was huge. Keaton and Reeve did team up in 1994, but it was for the rom-com Speechless . I felt Batman Returns  had too much going on so I removed the Penguin and combined his story of running for mayor and Max Schreck's character and gave them to Lex Luthor so that would bring Superman into the story.

       With Batman Begins  starting a new series of Batman movies in 2005 and Superman Returns  promising a new series of Superman movies 2006, comic fans thought we might see the "dark knight" and "the man of tomorrow" joining forces in the 2000s. It did happen in 2016 but not with Routh and Bale. For the main villain of this "what if" version I chose The Riddler. After Christopher Nolan made his first two Batman movies, the plan was to have The Riddler be in the third installment. There were rumors that Leonardo DiCaprio (with whom Nolan made I nception ) was to play the character. I used a fan image someone posted online for the back cover.

  I planned on having this be my post on the 12th but my MS Paint and Microsoft Word skills took a while to make the characters. This is based on the runners-up for the roles of Batman and Robin for the sixties television series: Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell. I also found that Gig Young was considered for the Joker, Suzanne Pleshette for Catwoman and Mickey Rooney for the Penguin. I knew then I had to use it for this blog. Here are the screen tests for the leads:  Batman screen tests