All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder
Posted: Wednesday, February 4, 2009
By: Tom Waters
Frank Miller
Jim Lee
DC Comics
Take one of the most over-rated comic visionaries of recent memory (Frank Miller), pay him gobs of money to return to a character that he was good at writing once-upon-a-time (Batman), bring the biggest industry hack-artist into the mix (Jim Lee), and sadly, what you’re left with is All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder. Not only is it embarrassing to see how far Miller has fallen, it’s pathetic to see him trying to ape the style that he was so inspired in creating in the 1980s and (to a lesser extent) the 1990s.
Miller really needs to hang up his word processor. Not only is his recent work awful (see also The Spirit, coming to a DVD and Blu-Ray cutout bin in a Walmart near you very soon), but his work is so bad that it makes me wonder if titles like Sin City and The Dark Knight Returns were any good in the first place!
Miller applies the hard-noised, hard-boiled crime noir staccato that was dead-on and well-warranted in his Sin City series, combines it with what he imagines is modern day lingo (even though he’s a few decades off on that too), and throws in a liberal dose of inappropriate character sketching with Batman by making him completely unstable, irrational, and childish.
The tale is pitched as “Batman: Year One (and a half)”. Give me a break.
This is a sad re-hash and a poor excuse for DC to milk the once and former glory of Year One by handing Miller a paycheck to try to do something that he used to enjoy before the zeros started multiplying after the one at the front of them.
Furthermore, Jim Lee’s artwork is about as original as the homogenized Raymond Chandler conversations that Miller has been aping in his scripts for the last thirty years. Some people love this style of superhero art, but it is unoriginal tripe.
The story follows “the goddamn Batman” kidnapping a freshly orphaned Dick Grayson for reasons he’s not entirely sure of and training him to be his young ward in a Gotham that starts spawning new superheroes like a DC Universe gumball machine.
Black Canary and Batgirl get a fresh Frank Miller re-telling while Superman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman are given potty mouths while they try to figure out what to do about “the goddamn” Batman situation.
The Joker is downplayed as a sociopath serial killer while “the goddamn Batman” kicks the bejesus out of street thugs, corrupt cops, and anyone else who gets in his way--just for the thrill of it.
The book is way off base. The decent moments of dialogue and creativity are few and far between.
I wouldn’t even recommend this book to my enemies. I am a Batman super freak, but the odds of me re-reading this hardcover abomination of comics are nonexistent. Frank Miller is an embarrassment to himself, the comics industry at large, the film industry in general, all writers from all walks of life, and many others who are unfortunate enough to have spent money on anything he’s done since the graphic novel 300.
If you’re desperate for a Frank Miller story about Batman, then take the $24.99 you were thinking about spending on All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder and buy another edition of The Dark Knight Returns or Batman: Year One instead. Pretend that Frank Miller passed away ten years ago. From a creative standpoint, he did.
Goddamn Frank Miller has lost his goddamned mind.
Tom Waters lives and writes in Lancaster, NY. He is the other of seven books (mostly rants, some poetry), a weekly columnist for Night Life magazine, a pod cast radio host and a celebrity interviewer and bar reviewer for the Buffalo News. For more information, click over to: www.tomfoolery4.wordpress.com.
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