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Subject: TOOT for 9/22/08: All Star Batman & Robin Volume One | Author | Messages | 
Tony Isabella
Posts: 1711
 | Posted: 9/21/2008 9:04:49 AM | TONY’S OTHER ONLINE TIPS
for Monday, September 22, 2008
“Hey, Tony, do you have that dirty Batman comic book?”
Sigh. It was Pervy McPeterson, the neighbor we don’t like to talk about. There must have been a link to a news story about DC’s ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER #10 on one of the sites Pervy frequents and, unfortunately, I’m the “go to” guy when it comes to all things comics in my town.
I had to disappoint Pervy. I haven’t seen the issue in either its original or “corrected” form and my response to the news items I’ve read about the comic largely consists of rolling my eyes, followed by heavy sighs that DC is going this route again. However, I have read the hardcover ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER VOLUME ONE [$24.99], so I can weigh in on that.
The book reprints the first nine issues of the Frank Miller/Jim Lee series, their retelling of how Batman met and recruited Robin to be his sidekick...except it’s more like how Batman kidnapped and then tortured Dick Grayson. What a sad, sad book.
The overwhelming force at work here is that the DC editorial powers that be are what I will euphemistically call “star lovers.” Frank Miller is a star...and a “Hollywood” star, no less...and Jim Lee is a star...and if the two of them wanted to eat a live baby and they could figure out how to put it between covers than DC Comics would be thrilled to publish it. Never mind that Batman and Robin have been much beloved characters for seven decades. Never mind their audience includes children. Never mind that their images have been known to appear on children’s underwear which, in these dark times, takes the creepy factor to a whole new level.
Look, there is no denying that Miller is a heck of a writer and Lee is a heck of an artist. If you want to deem them among the finest comics creators of our time, I wouldn’t question the designation at all. They’re good, really good, which makes this mean-spirited and sleazy series all the worse.
Miller and Lee have taken beloved classic characters and made them unlikeable and even repugnant. They pander to the sex-and-violence fantasies of their readers. I don’t object to the sex-and-violence in general. I object to it in the specific. This is not a Batman and Robin that DC should be publishing. It demeans the characters. It sacrifices them to the drooling unwashed. It lowers them to the misanthropic, misogynist standards of Hollywood. It does a great disservice to the heritage and the future of these classic comics characters. And we can expect more of the same.
With the success of THE DARK KNIGHT, the editorial marching orders have been given. The DC super-heroes will become even darker than they have become in recent years, though it’s difficult to imagine anything darker than Wonder Dog eviscerating Wendy and Marvin...as seen in a recent edition of one of the countless crappy TITANS/TEEN TITANS books the company is currently publishing.
There are those of us who believe super-heroes should, for the most part, be symbols of hope and humanity and justice. That they are most properly used to inspire our own better angels and help us to discover the heroes within us. Then there’s the current editorial management of DC Comics.
DC went “dark” before. Its sales dropped. Maybe that’s of little concern to those who consider their comics to be nothing more than cheap R&D for Hollywood. To me, it shows something else.
It shows a simpering self-loathing from creators and editors who, all things considered, would rather be doing something other than making great comic books...and it shows an abject and utter failure of imagination. Like the stupid males in the creaky romance comics DC used to publish, they chase that flashy Hollywood tramp instead of the kind and smart girl who lives next door. Because they are too foolish to know what endures. Because they are too shallow to know what’s real.
ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER VOLUME ONE will receive no Tonys from me.
© 2008 Tony Isabella
| titansmaster
Posts: 280
| Posted: 9/22/2008 3:03:43 AM | Tony, you are dead on with your review of the ALL-STAR title.
I have enjoyed a lot of what Miller has written over the years, including his SIN CITY material, so I am not a prude about what should be published in comics but there is a level of appropriateness for certain characters. I think this book way crosses that line.
I have to say that I was excited that two top talents were gonna work their magic on the Batman & Robin legend.
Then I actually read it.
Tried to like it but gave up after four issues.
Had another company published this story as a parody of Batman and Robin, I think the legal folks and DC would have sued so quick the creators heads would have spun around. I think they would have complained about the language, the abusive behavior of Batman, etc. Yet here they are publishing it.
Sad.
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If you are buying a title but not enjoying it --- why waste the money????????????? | geohaber
Posts: 3
| Posted: 9/23/2008 4:53:56 AM | "Miller and Lee have taken beloved classic characters and made them unlikeable and even repugnant. They pander to the sex-and-violence fantasies of their readers. I don’t object to the sex-and-violence in general. I object to it in the specific. This is not a Batman and Robin that DC should be publishing. It demeans the characters."
Tony, you have never written anything I've agreed with more.
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Mr. Silver Age
Posts: 1666
| Posted: 9/25/2008 8:25:12 AM | I think it's interesting that, while this version of Batman was being produced, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely produced an All-Star Superman that is getting rave reviews and being held up (at least by some) as what a Superman story should be. Granted, its schedule is no more admirable than the Batman one, but at least it's worth waiting for.
The All-Star idea has produced two comics at the furthest ends of the spectrum; I wonder whose lead any later series--if there ever are any--will follow? To be frank (no pun intended), I think a lot of creators could produce something like All-Star Batman. I think most of them today are incapable of producing comics like All-Star Superman. It's a skill they never developed and aren't encouraged to learn.
-- Craig Shutt
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fairportfan
Posts: 1
| Posted: 9/28/2008 1:05:27 PM | I was nervous about Miller's approach to writing when he first made Selina Kyle a lesbian dominatrix with an underaged prostitute lover. Wait - wasn't that after he re-imagined Karen Page?
Another friend and i compared his early "Daredevl" work to Will Eisner as soon as we saw it; too bad he doesn't remember how Will did things any more. Will Plaster of PAris or Sand Saref get to be the junkie whore in the film?
--
Who would tell the truth should have one foot in the stirrup - church reader board, Dunwoody Georgia, 1987
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mike weber | dblanchard
Posts: 1121
| Posted: 10/6/2008 9:04:39 PM | As I understand it (and it says so right in the introduction to the TPB collection), ALL-STAR BATMAN & ROBIN is supposed to be the prequel to Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, which for all the praise (and some criticism) that work received, nobody ever really confused Miller's way over-the-top version of Batman with the *real* in-continuity Batman. It's really not much different from a garden variety Elseworlds type vision of Batman, with Miller taking us backwards to show us how the origin and early days of the central characters in TDKR and THE DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN, who exist on one of the 52 versions of Earth that we only see when Frank Miller is sitting behind the keyboard.
I agree, this is hardly a title for kids, and it's hardly a noble version of Batman. But then, neither was TDKR.
Dave Blanchard
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