For months, I’ve been planning on going to Dallas Comic-Con for one reason: Meet Batman. Meet Adam West.
All of my friends know I’m a Batman fanatic. I love it all. The campy 60’s stuff. The dark Nolan stuff. The Frank Miller comics. Tim Burton’s fantastic take. Even Joel Schumacher’s butchery still gets me excited.
But no one really understands how deep my love goes. And even I can’t really explain why, even with so many Batmans and so many different styles, Adam West’s Batman and Burt Ward’s Robin mean so much to me.
Was it because I just loved the show while I was a kid? Or perhaps it was because after watching it at night during the summer, my dad would take us to go get root beer floats?
How my sister and I played Batman and Robin all the time.
How we referred to every black sports car as a Batmobile.
How my first car, a black sports car, was a Batmobile in my mind.
Or maybe it’s because I was picked on as a kid, and I always could escape into my fantasies where I was a special crime fighter who would fight alongside the caped crusader.
Regardless, my happiest childhood memories involve the Dark Knight (even if he wasn’t that dark all of the time).
So as Comic-Con came closer and closer, I got nervous. Because I really WAS going to meet Adam West. And then at the last minute, Burt Ward got added to the roster. And then I really got twisted in my guts.
I couldn’t handle that! I couldn’t really meet these men who molded my childhood almost twenty years before I was even born. I’d lose my shit.
Well, I met them both today as a 29 year old woman but really as a nine year old girl. And despite all of my best efforts, I cried a little and blurted out, “You’re my hero,” and “I watched your show every day after school,” and “I’m so excited to meet you.”
And they’re both such sweet men. They smiled and thanked me and shook my hand and signed my poster. And I held onto that poster for hours today, never letting go.
It was the best. Meeting them was THE BEST! And they’ll never know how much that brief interaction meant to me. Hell, I barely understand it.
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