Straz Center to world-premiere ‘Batman’ stage play

If it hadn’t been for the campy Batman TV series of the 1960s (Pow! Zap! Wham!) Michael Uslan might be no more than a footnote in comic book history.

An important footnote, to be sure – he was the first person to conceive and teach a college course in comic book lore – but Uslan is a hall of famer because he bought the movie rights to Batman from DC Comics in the 1970s, when the Caped Crusader’s cache was at an all-time low, due to fallout from that cheesy TV show.

So, no Michael Uslan, no Michael Keaton/Jack Nicholson Batman, no Dark Knight films, no Joaquin Phoenix-as-Joker movies.

Because Uslan saved the comics’ most misunderstood crimefighter, he is himself something of a superhero. And a new comedy, bound for London’s West End and, hopefully, Broadway, tells his story. The Boy Who Loved Batman is being workshopped at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts’ Jaeb Theatre, where it will world-premiere Oct. 1 through Nov. 10. Tony winner Dan Fogler (The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) plays Uslan from ages 7 to 33.

“My story,” the 73-year-old Uslan tells the Catalyst, “is about passion, commitment and perseverance. And how, if you get up off the damn couch and be proactive, you can take your passions in life, once you learn what they are, and take your dreams and make them come true. Whatever they are.”

He was a kid from a blue-collar New Jersey family when he found his calling. “By the time I graduated high school I had over 30,000 comic books, dating back to 1936, that filled my parents’ garage,” Uslan says. “My parents never once got their car into the garage, because they were supportive of their geeky, strange kid and his passions in life.”

Batman, the creation of Bob Kane and Bill Finger, was always young Michael’s favorite. “He was human, and I identified with him so much more than Superman or the Hulk or whoever. And he had the most primal origin story in history. That really shook me up. He had the greatest rogues’ gallery of supervillains … and he had the car. Batman was it for me.”

TV’s Adam West.

Uslan was already well-versed in the mythos of the comic book Batman when Adam West and company turned up on TV in 1966. “It killed me when he was a joke and the world was laughing at him,” he recalls. “And I made a little Bruce Wayne kind of vow that someday, some way, I would fix this.”

Through national comic cons, personal pilgrimages, copious reading and countless phone calls, “I got to meet many of the original writers and artists, the creators from the 1930s to the ‘60s, and I got the stories firsthand.

“And these were a small handful of primarily men, who were denigrated in the ‘50s and ‘60s when comic books were accused of being the primary cause of the post-World War II rise in juvenile delinquency. They were forced out of the business. People didn’t want to associate with them. So half of my mission is to restore the dignity and the respect to all those people I knew. Who deserved so much better and who today, their works are hanging in galleries and museums and universities.”

In Uslan’s junior year at Indiana University, the school began taking solicitations for new course pitches – things had had not been taught previously. He proposed a course in comic books, writing, drawing and production.

“I pulled, out of the wind, the Moses/Superman comparison,” Uslan says. “To try to make my point about folklore and mythology and superheroes. And it was a life-changing moment for me. I had already learned from my mentors, and my parents, to stand up for yourself. And when the dean said he rejected my theory, I didn’t just bow my head and walk out of the room, I stood my ground and asked a couple of questions – and turned the thing around.”

The success of the course garnered national publicity, and soon Uslan found himself pals with Stan Lee, the legendary creator of much of the Marvel Comics universe.

Uslan insists his approach has always been to find a door that’s open, even a crack, and push his foot in.

In the 1970s, DC Comics offered him a job, and he wrote for The Shadow and other comics. He also became de facto producer on the films made of his work and the work of others.

Which led to his purchase of the movie rights to Batman. The president of DC was aghast that anyone was interested.

Michael Keaton in “Batman” (1989. Warner Bros.

It took nearly a decade, but Warner Bros., along with director Tim Burton, expressed an interest in re-booting the Caped Crusader in a “dark and serious way.” Batman (1989) was one of the biggest movies of the year.

Because his contract doesn’t include creative control, Uslan cringed (as did the majority of the movie-going public) when the studio began turning out Batman films that got progressively more cartoonish. Marketing, toys and tie-ins, he says, drove them to order the movies “lighter, brighter and more kiddie-friendly.”

He complained, but no one listened. And he still got his “executive producer” credits.

“After such movies – if you can call them that – as Batman and Robin and Catwoman – new management called me and said ‘We’ve been going through the files here, we’ve got two cabinets filled with your stuff and everything you said, everything you warned about, came true.’”

In a way, Uslan had saved Batman a second time. “The nightmare I went through ultimately was worth it,” he believes. “Because they got bitten on the butt by it, and that led us to Christopher Nolan.”

The relaunch of Batman’s reputation began with the arrival of director Nolan, whose Dark Night trilogy (2005-2012) brought back a dark, moody, taciturn Batman, and led to a series of films – helmed by others – that continues to this day.

Uslan is an executive producer on Joker: Folie à Deux, which will be released Oct. 4. “In my opinion, it’s a masterpiece of cinema. It’s a powerful, bold and precedent-breaking movie.”

He has produced other Hollywood films (notably, Swamp Thing, which he also wrote, and National Treasure) and continues to teach, but Uslan has a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that he’s been a key steward of his hero’s legacy.

“At this stage of the game I like to describe myself as Batman and the filmmakers’ greatest cheerleader,” he says. “I am there to provide any advice and support I can, to cheer them on, to talk them up.”

And he still has a considerable collection at home, although he donated 45,000 comic books, books and memorabilia to the rare books library at Indiana University.

“They have a Gutenberg Bible,” Uslan reports, “and they have my copy of Fantastic Four No. 1.”

For additional information on The Boy Who Loved Batman, and for tickets, click here.