Michael E. Uslan was a wide-eyed, 28-year-old comics fan when he improbably scooped up the film rights to a character Hollywood had kicked to the curb. Brimming with belief, he bought Batman. Problem was, no one else in town was buying. It was the late '70s, the era of "The Deer Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now," when Uslan, a comics scholar turned aspiring producer, pitched the major studios on his idea for a Bat-project. He was met with rejection after rejection. One industry executive told him Batman was "as dead as the dodo." "It can't be comprehended today," Uslan says. "There was no respec...