A few years ago I published an article called ‘Batman and Robin in the Nude, or Class and its Exceptions.’ It’s basically an argument about why costumes are so important to superhero comics, and how they uphold ideas about class difference in American society. It doesn’t include — for better or worse — any images of Batman and Robin naked.
Now, imagine my surprise-pleasure to find that one of the search strings that I’m popularly attached to is ‘batman robin nude’ and ‘batman robin naked.’ Tons of people find that article because they’re looking for naked images of Batman and Robin, and I’m sure they’re deeply, deeply disappointed when they get some dry academic prose instead. The search string also has a weekly cycle, which it took me a while to notice: people are more likely to want some nudity on Fridays and Saturdays, and so I see waves of hits over the weekend. It kind of makes me sad to think that all someone wants is a little naked Batman, and what they get instead is that article. But maybe it gives people a sense of why they have the Batman fetish that they do — if they take the time to read it. Which probably doesn’t happen at the time, but might over Sunday coffee…
If you want to do the search, try it this way. I’m not going to borrow any of the steamy images, but if you look around enough, there’s some out there…
Matthew Wolf-Meyer 