Michael E. Uslan Biography

Fast Facts

• Donated his 30,000 issue comic book collection to his alma mater, Indiana University, in 2005
• Quote: "I really became a hardcore Batman fan when I was eight years old․ What was clear to me, the reason I liked him better than Superman or Spider-Man or the Hulk or whoever, was the fact that he was human, and I could identify with him, and I really believed in that character strongly․"
• Quote: "The great advantage of comic books, over the years, has been that, if they are frozen movies, they are not limited by budget․ They are only limited by imagination․"
• Initially a college professor, he was eventually contacted by Stan Lee who offered him his first job in show business with DC Comics
• Struggled to pitch the idea of retooling ABC's 1966 "Batman" series to studios, but eventually struck gold with 1989's "Batman" which would lead to dozens of other projects for him beginning in the 1990s
• While serving as a consultant and producer for numerous DC Comics projects, he would eventually team up with Sam Raimi who would go on to direct the Spider-Man trilogy in the early 2000s
• Became the first-ever college professor to teach a university-level course on comic books after convincing the school's dean it was a relevant subject
• By the time he graduated high school, his comic book collection encompassed more than 30,000 issues