I'm thinking about writing a term paper on how the batman comics and entertainment were influenced by the time period. If anyone could tell me specifics about batman in the different time periods, I would really appreciate it.

K I'm going to give this a try. This definitely shouldn't be quoted but there are some observations:

So to be honest I can't speak anything pre 50's just cause my knowledge of history of that time is great depression (which leads to why superheroes became popular, people needed to be rescued), and world war II (which might explain all the war related stories).

So I will start with the 50's!

My first tip is for you to watch a commercial from the 50's. It is a bunch of crazy mind control, and it isn't so subtle like todays. The United States propaganda was at its strongest at the time, the red scare was live and real, and everything is controlled.

Watch this video from the 50's just so you get an idea of everyone's expectations in society then:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8kJzBJrOkU

So not so shockingly the Comics Code Authority formed then, which really limited what comics could do. So really dumbed down Batman stories came out then, and they started to get pretty weird too. Honestly I don't even think Batman punched anyone in any comics that came out in the 50's (though I could be wrong).

Now lets go to the 60's!

What do you think of when you think of the 60's? I am really hoping you were thinking of flower power, or hippies or something.

Let's not forget the CCA is still in place, and authors are running out of stories. But I mean with the colorful imagery in everything else at the time, you get some of Batman's craziest stories then including one of the most famous Batman vs the Rainbow Creature. At the very end of the 50's, you also see Batman get Batwoman, and early 60's you get Robin's Bat-Girl! Idk bout you but the news is raving about how comics are making a stronger push for Gay Marriage, and well its 2011...people back then weren't as comfortable with the idea. So out with the gay and in with the ladies!

1970's...to be honest idk! Comics code starts to get weaker, allowing for sympathetic depictions of criminals (Mr. Freeze, doesn't get good treatment till the animated series though), and showing that drugs are bad. Probably cause they saw what happened with those crazy hippies and their drugs :-P.

The 80's! They defined grunge, they invented punk, and they started rebelling against the system!

So what do the comics do, they take a turn to the dark side. Darker stories start coming up, CCA is almost all but ignored. People want edgy! Anti-heroes become super popular like the Punisher, and Wolverine. Batman gets darker thanks to the all but crazy Frank Miller. Dark Knight Rises, and Batman Year One are revolutionarily dark. Heck DC killed off most of its world's and a whole lot of characters with it. RIP Huntress, Supergirl, Batwoman, and Bat-Girl. If only comics could find away to bring them back...if only!

The 90's is all about collecting. Old comics started selling for A LOT of money, so people started buying more comics, especially special editions here and there. The only problem is that they were getting so popular, that special editions weren't really anything special. Thats all I really know how to comment on it. Oh and live action movies and animated tv shows start having an impact on comics to get more readers.

The new MILLENIUM! Omg I feel like I am losing momentum, and I am sure none of this is useful. But at this time DVD's start getting popular, and with DVD's you start getting box sets of tv shows, movie series, etc. Hollywood is really getting in the grove of sequals, and people are looking for longer stories. In comparison, Batman the Animated Series had individual episodes and adventures, like comics had. Jump ahead 10 years later you have Justice League Unlimited which has a story arch within the series. Comics start evolving that way too, from a story packed in 30-40 pages, you are getting A LOT more and much longer story archs. Which also affected the advent of collected editions and trade paperbacks (which on all honesty got me into collecting books). Look at it this way, Court of Owls is a 12 issue story arch which spanned across many other titles for an issue or two, while you had Batman Year One which spanned 4 issues.

And of course you have your racist propaganda within the stories, from Nazis, to the KGB, to muslim terrorists, to whom ever is the enemy in modern day society is (not that Nazi's are good guys). You also have your civil rights in there too. Modern day for example you have Batwoman (originally created to fight homosexual claims), got turned into one. About a year ago Batman and Power Girl wrongly accused a muslim mutant (who woulda thought DC had super powered mutants) in attacking a plane.

Heck globalization is huge nowadays, and what did Batman do he globalized! Now idk if you count this as a good or bad thing, cause globalization usually means rich countries taking advantage of poorer countries. However in the Batman sense of things, we have diversification (which is good!) like having a minority in France be Batman, or a Latin American who isn't Mexican. But you also have some bad subtext like Cassandra Cain (the best batgirl ever!) being sent back to her country, or Batwing not represent a country but AFRICA (which is a continent for those who haven't realized this yet, but still a common misconception in our time). But hey diversification is the goal, and its still a really cool concept. I mean the UK should have heroes too!

Hope this post helps, I could've rambled on but idk, just small observations