All Star Batman and Robin
tl;dr alert.
I dunno how many people read comics, but I finally picked up the issues of All Star Batman that are out. I was excited about this, thinking it's a fresh start free of all the chains of continuity. And it's done by Miller, a good writer to have. I gotta say...
Frank Miller has clearly lost his mind. He's very influentional and I like a lot of his stuff, but this is plain bizzare. It's kind of like Sin City with a costume and silly one-liners such as, "I'll take you to school...IN CHEMISTRY *throws quickly made bomb*". In my opinion he has pulled an M. Night Shyamalan big time: He got super beyond famous, got lots of freedom to do what he wanted, and turned out something that makes you scratch your head.
Maybe he felt pressured to reinvent Batman again. Maybe he felt like he needed a brand new one. But this is just Sin City over again, isn't it?...
Anybody else read it...like it or hate it?
Well, here I go. A huge rant and spoilers follow that nobody will read but I'm typing to cure my illness known as wtf@Frank.
First of all, in this version Batman has "had his eye" on Dick for a long time, which he says with mystery and slight wink. When he mentions this, Vicky Vale only swoons even harder that she's on a date with Bruce Wayne. Nevermind that he's some stalker of little boys.
I liked the way Dick's parents died. It was nice and violent and sexy like. But then after Batman kidnaps Dick, tossing him into the Batmobile and driving off with him, things hit the fan. Okay, so Batman is doing this drill sargeant thing and yelling at Dick? Telling him to stfu? Bitch smacking him across the face for grieving? And the explanation is he doesn't want Dick to cry just yet. Isn't that harming him even more? It seems to me he wanted to introduce this new, completely insane, completely cackling, completely cheesy Batman by having him abuse his chosen apprentice a lot. And worst of all Dick hops right on board and starts cracking jokes. Wow, he recovers fast!
And then we cut to Superman. Kent looks on the back of a milk carton and there's a picture of Dick (age 12, as the comic reminds you everytime his name is mentioned) on the back. Kent crushes the milk carton in anger, so frustrated that Batman kidnapped a boy.
Rewind here. Batman JUST kidnapped him, didn't he? The milk carton company sure is hella fast to pump out a picture of him. Either this milk carton is from the future or Batman and Dick have been in the Batmobile for half a year. Furthermore, Kent coincidentally went down to pick up said milk carton at this very moment and took it all the way home without realizing what was even on it. Oh, and then Kent reads the newspaper, which he works for, and is completely surprised to find this story in it as well and he burns it with laser vision. Once again, not so much with the sense.
I won't get started on Superman running to Paris to fetch a doctor for Vicky Vale back in America, why Wonder Woman hates men then makes out with Superman, why the Black Canary's dialogue sounds like a horny teenage boy wrote it, or why Batman laughs maniacally like he's his own enemy Joker.
What I will get into is Dick (age twelve, in case you forgot) being forced to eat rats in the batcave because Batman wants him to suck it up and be a man about watching his parents get shot in the face right in front of him. I know that when I lose a family member and need to become a soldier, I eat some rats.
And let's not forget the most important thing: If Batman has this high-profile kidnapping everybody knows about, and Robin suddenly appears being the same age and height and doing the same acrobatics as the famous circus trapeze artist Dick Grayson, just maybe people might connect the dots. I know comics ask a lot of suspension of disbelief, but wow.
One good thing about this is the Joker. I thought he was cool. And his strangling some ho was a pretty intense scene. I liked it.
But this all took 8 issues. It took 8 issues for Batman to drive a car and Robin to be stuck in the batcave. He doesn't even know Batman's actual identity yet. At the end of the latest Robin's finally suited up, but there are all these other plot threads (somehow the Green Lantern and Plastic Man made their way in too) that seem to be going nowhere.
Except I can't stop reading it. It's so bad that it's actually kinda good. I find myself laughing at it all the time. It's supposed to be some edgy reinvention, but it's so damn hokey. I can't wait for the next issue just to see what the hell Miller is gonna do next.
