Written by Mark Cotta Vaz

Published in 1989

I've been chipping away at this book on and off for months now and was surprised how much I liked it by the end. A pretty thick tome that goes from early comics and influences on Batman to his early adventures and beyond. This book went into great detail about everything in Batman's creation and what was going on in the world that influences his creation. Then focusing on important parts of Batman's mythos like the introduction of Robin and what influenced his creation. This book used quite a lot of quotes from other books about comic history or creations that I will definitely be checking out from this book. There are also interviews with comic writers and artists throughout the book that give great insight into batman in different eras. It's a lot packed into packed in here that made for a very entertaining book despite being almost 40 years old. Its a nice look at Batman from a certain time frame. There were pages that had full-color reprinted covers of classic issues which was a real treat to look at while going through the chapters. Something that was really great was that every chapter whatever it was about had pages from issues that the chapter was usually about. They were printed in black and white which may be interesting if you've never seen them that way before. This is definitely a pick up for any Batman fan that appreciates a closer look at Batman's history up to that point. Now all I can wonder is if we'll get another book like this for Batman's 100th anniversary.