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Rating:  -
Becoming Batman is an excellent case study in the limits of human performance and will. This book is Great!, it is exactly what you would expect from an expert in science and martial arts. Even more, Zehr's writing demonstrates his joy and curiosity with the subject matter while he thoroughly educates his audience in a fun and engaging manner. This book is truly a journey of scientific discovery to understand what it takes to be a real superhero without superpowers. The depth is impressive; genetics, anatomy, biomechanics...too many to list and all which play a role in becoming Batman. This book challenged me to go beyond a basic view of my comic book superhero and now more than ever I appreciate what it takes to be Batman. Dr. E Paul Zehr attempts to give an educated answer to the question that any fan of Batman has wondered; Can someone actually become Batman? The answer is....???.well get the book I highly recommend it.
Rating:  -
This is an enjoyable book. I wondered if it was just gong to be a fanboy rhapsodizing about how cool it would be to become Batman, but Dr. Zehr does a good job describing, from a clinical point of view, wheat it would take for a person to become Batman. In a way, it's more a book on physiology and psychology, etc., than it is about comics. Batman is more the backdrop for his discussion.
It's a fun read, though, and the author doesn't go into too much detail. There is a part that I liked toward the start of the book, that compared Batman of the 40s to the Batman of the 70s, to the Batman of today, and shows how much more muscled he's become over the decades.
Interesting and fun stuff. You'll even learn a good deal about how your body works when you read it.
Rating:  -
E. Paul Zekr's Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero is a baffling text: Part human physiology/biochemistry course, part exercise science lesson, part introduction to the martial arts, and a large part speculation, this book is mess. The premise of the book is vague and dubious. Yes, excruciating detail into how the human body works is interesting, but I wanted to read about Batman, not mitochondria and nerve impulses. I don't care about the differential effects of weightlifting on men and women, because it has so little to do with the supposed subject of the book. Yet Zekr insists on brutalizing his readers with unrelenting science and very little Batman.
Part of my negative reaction to the book is that I overly familiar with the basic sciences presented in the book, and so I didn't like being told, often in a condescending tone, something I already knew. In fact, if I hadn't known the science in this book beforehand, I doubt I could follow Zekr's attempt to fit six semesters of college material into a few hundred pages.
I also found that Zekr's style of writing simply grated on my nerves. I don't think I've ever read a book that directly asks the reader as many questions as this one. These aren't deep and provocative questions; rather, they are essentially transitions from one paragraph to the next. What's worse is that Zekr repeats questions. In the six-page preface, Zekr asks the reader, at least a half dozen times, a variation on the question "Could Bruce Wayne become Batman?" Ask the question once and move on with the rest of the book.
Normally, I wouldn't complain about punctuation, because it's usually taken for granted. However, when nearly every other page has a sentence that ends with an exclamation point, you start to notice. Exclamation points are only seen in this abundance in children's books.
Zekr is a professor of neuroscience and kinesiology, and his expertise colors his view of how Bruce Wayne became Batman. He reduces Batman to a bag of muscles, brains, and bones. That isn't why we read Batman books. We read them because Batman is about loneliness and vigilance, justice and will - the arts, not the sciences.
Rating: -
...a whole lot you don't! I almost gave this book three stars due to it being (slightly) disappointingly dry, but added the extra one just for the sheer AMOUNT of detail in the book.
Really, it is too much, though. Admittedly, I haven't read it from cover to cover yet, but then again, I don't think I've ever read a text book from cover to cover. And that's what a lot of this is. Granted, the device of using the idea of "becoming Batman" is a great hook and one that I think can keep true fans (of Batman AND biology) on the line. And even though the focus of the book is on the effect of extensive training and the consequences of living the life of The Bat, Zehr does touch on TYPES of training Batman would most likely be realistically engaged in.
The book contains five Parts and a total of 16 Chapters. Since there is no "Look Inside" for this book yet, I've listed these below:
Part 1 - Bat-Building Blocks
Chapter 1 - The "Before" Batman: How Buff was Bruce?
Chapter 2 - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: Bruce's Twin Brother, and the Human Genome
Chapter 3 - The Stress of Life: Holy Hormones, Batman!
Part 2 - Basic Batbody Training
Chapter 4 - Gaining Strength and Power: Does the Bat That Flies the
Fastest or the Highest Get the Worm?
Chapter 5 - Building the Batbones: Brittle is Bad, But is Bigger Better?
Chapter 6 - Batmetabolism: What's for Dinner on the Dark Knight Diet?
Part 3 - Training the Batbrain
Chapter 7 - From Bruce Wayne to Bruce Lee: Mastering Martial Moves in the Batcave
Chapter 8 - Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: But What Was Batman Doing?
Chapter 9 - The Caped Crusader in Combat: Can You Kayo Without Killing?
Part 4 - Batman In Action
Chapter 10 - Batman Bashes and Is Bashed by Bad Boys (and Girls): What can he break without getting broken?
Chapter 11 - Hardening the Batbody: Can sticks and stones break his bones?
Chapter 12 - Gotham by Twilight: Working the Night Shift
Part 5 - A Mixed Bag
Chapter 13 - Injury and Recovery: How much Banging Until the Batback Goes Bonk?
Chapter 14 - Battle of the Bats: Could Batgirl Beat Batman?
Chapter 15 - The Aging Avenger: Could the Caped Crusader Become the Caped Codger?
Chapter 16 - The Reign of the Bat: Can You Really Become Batman and Remain Batman?
APPENDIX
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Now don't let these zippy and fun chapter titles fool you. If you get this book you're in for some serious science. There's a lot of molecular biology, chemistry and good ol' fashioned science text book jargon. I'm not sure if the average person who is interested in "Becoming Batman" needs, or even wants, to know how the Cortical bone is made up of Osteon which apparently has something to do with the Haversian canal, but it's all in figure 5.1 on page 68 if you DO need it. I get the feeling the scientist in Batman would love this book.
Or, you could just pop in your "The Dark Knight" dvd again and scarf down some popcorn.
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