Movie Nights

They settle down in front of the TV in Sheldon's apartment with cokes and big bowls of popcorn. Penny's brought a bottle of Rum and Sheldon carefully measures half a shot into a measuring cylinder and adds it to his coke. With a happy little smile he makes notes on his clipboard, with date, time, amount of alcohol and current mood.

Penny grins at him, "So, what's the schedule for our movie nights?"

"I thought I'd start with a subject close to my heart."

"oh yes?"

"yes, Batman!" he grins happily.

She should have known, he's wearing his Batman shirt out of its usual rotation. She sighs as he produces a timeline chart and explains "We'll start with the classic 1966 Adam West Batman, so you can see it's 60s camp roots. Then move on to the dark gothic fairytale Tim Burton era, with Batman (1989) and Batman Returns from 1992, with Michael Keaton as Batman , Jack Nicholson as the Joker and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.

Then we'll risk journeying into the more comic Schumacher Batman Forever (1995) and Batman and Robin (1997) before going back to the darker and more realistic Nolan films with Christian Bale in Batman Begins (2005) , The Dark Knight (2008) and finish with The Dark Knight Rises from 2012.

We'll have to take a diversion into the Superman films before we move on to Wonder Woman then we can watch Batman vs Superman and then you'll be ready for the Justice league. "

She takes a fortifying swig of her coke, which has a couple of shots of rum in it for emotional support. "wow, that sounds some trip". She gestures with the glass "You know, I've seen some of the Superman stuff already. "

Sheldon looks shocked

"Really? how so?"

"In acting class they use Christopher Reeves performance as Superman to showcase how to project your body language, we talked about the Alexander technique and posture as character. Did you know he did body building with the Darth Vader guy?"

"Darth Vader? as in James Earl Jones, Dave Prowse or Sebastian Shaw? "

"The Body one, not the face or voice"

"How fascinating!"

Over the next few weeks they devote a day every week to curling up on the sofa with Batman.

"This is just silly. "

"Never any place to dispose of a bomb!"

"you weren't kidding about the Shark repellent bat spray!?"

With popcorn, as with a lot of things, Penny is an enthusiastic but messy eater.

Spotting a runaway piece Sheldon leans over and casually fishes the piece of popcorn from her cleavage with his tongue as she giggles.

Leonard gives an embarrassed laugh and says "damn it you two, get a room!"

"Oh, I used to have such a crush on Heath Ledger. But he makes the scariest Joker of the lot. even madder than Jacks take on him. Jacks joker was cruel but Heath was properly deranged.

But which of his origin stories was true? Everyone he talked to he told a different story too."

"There have been a lot of origins but he has no official true story. In the Killing Joke he even says if he has to have an origin story he would prefer it to be multiple choice. That is what makes him so scary." Sheldon shudders. "The love of chaos."

"must be hell for you. the disorder. loud noises and bright colours"

History of batman.

Snuggled up on the sofa, Sheldon lecturing on one of his favourite subjects.

"The genesis of the super hero comic can really be traced to the masked crime fighter of the detective comics and news paper strips"

"The Dick Tracy stuff?"

"The tropes are there, the square jaw hero fighting weird bad guys and evil goons. These lead to the so called Golden Age of comics when comics really flourished. Each used some sort of gimmick to make the character unique, often reflecting what was popular in the news of the day. Things like Crime fighters, Heroes with magic powers, Martial arts, science powers , space aliens."

Sadly in the late 40s the popularity of super heroes waned and many titles were merged or cancelled, replaced with crime, western or horror stories.

It wasn't until the 1954 formation of the comics code authority to curb violent comics that the superhero regained popularity, in what became known as the Silver Age of comics

"So why is a super space alien is working with a magic princess and a traumatised millionaire orphan?

"Basically because the owning company merged their titles. It also causes another of comics common narrative problems, as the company owns the characters not the writer, so they can hires in many different writers over the years, so the tone of story can vary immensely."

So these are all Batman, just different writers and actors interpretations of the character? Some silly, some dark."

"Just like the Jokers origin story"