Why Batman was never really Adam West

I think that children read comic books like Batman and X-Men for very different reasons than adults assume. The perception amongst adults is that comics are children's books, that is 'age appropriate' material. This suggests that either most of such adults didn't read comics as children or have forgotten what they loved about those comics. Children do not read comic books because they are 'age appropriate' but because they are not age appropriate, in fact comic books are some of the only non age appropriate material children can get a hold of at that time.

Age appropriate is another way saying cowardly. Parents are afraid to allow their children to step beyond the confines of the parent's comfort level. Children grow be stepping beyond their comfort level and rising to the challenges that exist outside that safe zone, and returning to that safe comfort zone when comfort is required. By doing this on a regular basis, the comfort zone itself is enlarged. Parents, by adding the high wall of their own comfort zone, and imposing it on the child's exploration without respect of the child's need to explore and grow, and without respect for the child's ability to sense what is needed, are crippling their child as surely as if they locked the child in a box and prevented the child from exercising.

Children need to look at the forbidden, and need to understand the forbidden. Explanations need to be reasonable, to be respected. And most children need to burn themselves to understand what hot means.

Batman appeals to children, not because of the Adam West Batman in most cases, but because of the Batman of the comic books- where the Joker kills people with laughing gas, and Poison Ivy kills with a poisoned kiss, and Ra's al Ghul can come back from the dead using his Lazarus Pit at the cost of his sanity. In the comics Joker shot and paralyzed Batgirl, and beat the second Robin to death with a crowbar. This is scary, it is extreme for young kids to read about- that's why they like it.

At the age of twelve, I saw the original movie: Jurassic Park, and I loved it. I saw the movie multiple times in theatres, in spite of the fact that the movie gave me nightmares that reoccurred for years with such consistency and regularity (I still get them occasionally) that I could recognise them as dreams when they occurred. The dreams were scary, the movie was larger than life, and absolutely convincing in its recreation of the Dinosaurs. The movie required no suspension of disbelief. My senses experienced Jurassic Park as real. And I loved it. Scared? Yes. Impressed? Oh yes.

We need to experience fear- combat it and wrestle with it- in order to learn how to deal with it. Adulthood is scary. What does the adult do, who never learned how to deal with fear as a child?