I collected comic books when I was in high school, and again when I was in my 20s. I still have some of them, and perhaps once a year I pull them down and browse. It doesn’t take long before I get my nostalgic fix and put them away again.
This museum in Elkhart, Indiana, is owned by a guy who never got over his fixation. He’s built a museum in his backyard, shaped to look like the Hall of Justice from the Super Friends cartoon, and filled it with thousands of figurines, comic books and other comic-related stuff. He was clever enough to realize that there are geeks out there (and I guess I’m one of them) willing to pay $6 to see the collection. My wife sat in the car and read.
The most interesting items were uniforms, one worn by Adam West in the 1960s Batman TV show and one worn by William Katt on the 1980s TV show Greatest American Hero.
A note from West reads: “This letter is to document the fact that the accompanying costume is a Batman costume worn by me, Adam West, the lead actor in the 1966-1968 television series Batman.
I hope the owner of this classic Batman costume enjoys it as much as I have over the years. However, please keep in mind that wearing it in public can bring some strange looks and the chance of being permanently institutionalized.”
I wandered about for 20 minutes, glancing at things here and there. There was very little rhyme or reason to the organization of much of it, although there would occasionally be clumps of figurines of a given hero or group. The comics were all bagged and backed with cardboard, and I wasn’t sure if I was even supposed to look at them, so I didn’t.
It claims to be “the world’s only superhero museum,” which it isn’t unless you disqualify the much larger and more interesting Super Museum in Metropolis. It also claims to have a reproduction of the Bat Cave. Here it is.
I can’t imagine how much all of those figurines and comics and other stuff cost. I guess I can’t blame him for charging admission. But it’s not a place I feel the need to visit a second time.
