Review: 'Zowie!: The TV Superhero Craze in '60s Pop Culture'

Crashing into a Gilligan-and-Jeannie-populated TV scene too dumb to fully recognize how dumb it was, Batman dropped a big load of camp--distinct from Gilligan and Jeannie's kitsch--onto TV screens. Whether you were a hyperactive six year old or a hyper-hip sixteen year old, Batman had appeal, doing dual work as a sincere superhero adventure and a genuine and genuinely funny comedy at a time when such things simply didn't exist on American television. 

Dour dark knight-keteers were already whinging about how Adam West in tights was an abomination in the face of their belovedly dour comic book icon, never mind that as of late Batman had been doing battle with giant space frogs and robots on DC's pages. Boo-hoo for them. Bill Dozier's small-screen Batman was a hoot and a gas, and it turned a whole generation onto a superhero who was much more fun when West was wearing the tights than when Keaton, Bale, or (oof) Affleck would be. 

Naturally, Mark Voger--the man who defined groovy in his book Groovy and spoke up for the Monster Kid generation in his book Monster Mash--knows this to be true. West's Batman is the star of Voger's latest book, Zowie!: The TV Superhero Craze in '60s Pop Culture. Not that he's the only hero Voger hangs with, nor is Zowie! entirely TV-centric, or even entirely sixties-centric. Sure, Voger makes space for The Green Hornet, Space Ghost, Ultraman, Courageous Cat, and the other crime fighters of sixties TV, but he also does the Batusi back to the fifties to check in with George Reeves's Superman (and even further back to explore the mythic and folkloric roots of superherodom), sifts through the comics racks in his interviews with Carmine Infantino and George Roussos, and sneaks into cinemas to see how the TV superhero scene spawned a big-screen incarnation of Batman in the US and a sleazy/sexy variation in Mexico. 

As is the case with all of Voger's books, Zowie! is largely built on a host of interviews the author conducted throughout his career (POW!...Adam West! BONG!... Julie "Catwoman" Newmar! OWWW!...Yvonne "Batgirl" Craig! KAYO!... Van "Green Hornet" Williams! FLRBBBBB!...Ron "Tarzan" Ely!); a razzle-dazzling array of TV and movie stills, actor headshots, merch shots, and comic covers and panels; and Voger's cheeky, charming prose. WHAMMMI!