RESCUE FROM GOTHAM CITY

By the first months of 1967, I was pretty much done with my obsession of 1966. With each passing episode of Batman, my enthusiasm dwindled as the dialogue grew campier, the plots dopier and the guest villains grew ever more fossilized. Even so, a few weeks before Christmas I’d seen the Justice League playset at a downtown discount store and it jumped to the top of my list. With its well-painted and sculpted figures of Batman, Robin, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Aquaman it was an impressive set. On Christmas morning I lined them up in my room and … nothing happened. I felt silly about the fuss I’d made wanting it and with time everything wound up in a box in the attic.

On a Saturday night that February, the host of the Hollywood Palace for that week – Van Johnson, one of those show business relics who would also play a villain on Batman, the totally forgettable Minstrel – introduced a pair of promo films by the Beatles. Penny Lane was crisp and upbeat. Strawberry Fields Forever spooky and syrupy. Watching those videos was, for me, akin to the moment when the bat flies through the open window in Bruce Wayne’s study.

I bought the single (with the picture sleeve) and carried it around like a house key, bringing it to school in my binder. Then, eight months after getting the Justice League playset for Christmas, I turned 13 and got a transistor radio. More bats fluttering through an open window.   

The strongest signal sat in the middle of the dial, WABC. Thumbing all the way to the left brought in WMCA, with a larger playlist than ABC, but their DJs seemed like older guys to me. At the opposite end of the dial was the staticky R&B of WWRL. Flip over to FM and there was WBAI, which felt hip but kind of boring, and by the fall, WOR-FM, one of the first ‘progressive’ rock stations.

I watch Batman today and enjoy it, as long as the guest villain isn’t the Minstrel. And while the Batman metaphor works for me in a personal way, a second -- and more universal comic book comparison -- is that the Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever single would be to Sgt. Pepper as Silver Surfer is to Galactus: a herald arriving in advance of cosmic upheaval. In the eighties, I sold the Justice League playset to a guy who owned a local comic book store for $250. It goes for thousands of dollars today in mint and for all I know, it’s changed hands a dozen times since. The timing around getting the toy was all wrong for me. I hope whoever has it today is getting something out of it.