All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #1-10

All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #1-10

Originally released in 2005

Written by Frank Miller

Art by Jim Lee

So far, I've generally focused on either comics that I know are good, or comics that I don't know much about.  This week, I'm going to change that - I'm going to focus on comics that are generally considered to be bad.  Maybe I'll find some redeemable qualities about them, or maybe I'll just bash them for several paragraphs; I'll see how it goes.

I'm starting off with All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, which I'll be shortening to All-Star Batman and Robin for the sake of simplicity.  In a weirdly fitting way, All-Star Batman and Robin and All-Star Superman are like night and day compared to each other.  All-Star Superman is a wonderfully written tribute to Superman's history and status as a modern myth.  All-Star Batman and Robin is a nonsensically-written unfinished series that comes across as a thirteen year old's first attempt at writing after discovering that swear words and sex exist.

The art by Jim Lee is amazing - a bit shameless at times (there's a scene with Vicki Vale standing around her apartment in her underwear, with an extreme close-up on her butt that serves no purpose), though by my understanding, that comes down to Frank Miller's script. (from what I've read online, he specifically had that included in the script)  Otherwise, the art is clean, clear, and extremely detailed.

As for the writing, it's repetitive, which is to say that it repeats itself a lot.  The repetitiveness grows repetitive, and it's this repetition that causes the book to feel like it's repeating itself.  (I can only stretch this out for so long, but large portions of the series are worded like this)  It ALSO features sentences where random WORDS are capitalized with no rhyme OR reason.  It's not like it's meant to be for emphasis, anyway.

Frank Miller also wrote Batman: Year One, giving a definitive look at Batman's origin, and The Dark Knight Returns, a look at an older version of the character.  Both are held in high regard, so it's weird to see that when he gets a chance to cover a version that's set between the two stories, he turns Batman into a rambling lunatic.

In All-Star Batman and Robin, which I'll be shortening to All-Star Batman for the sake of simplicity, Batman comes across as a thirteen year old who's trying to look cool in front of a twelve year old, only to turn pouty and sullen when his plans don't work out.  He's written as though he's someone who wants to fight crime without having any idea what that involves, and he abducts Dick Grayson, age twelve (the comic consistently refers to him this way), to take part in what he refers to as a war.

Speaking of which, the questionable writing for this series extends to its timeline.  After witnessing Dick's parents getting shot in front of him, Batman saves Dick from corrupt cops and more or less abducts him, driving off in the Batmobile.  By the end of issue three, we cut to fifteen hours earlier, where there's a missing child poster for Dick on a milk carton in Metropolis.  Either Batman's been driving around Gotham for more than a day or... I honestly can't think of an alternative here.

He comes across as a creepy stalker, claiming that he's been keeping an eye on Dick Grayson for months, and that he planned to recruit him later, but someone with a gun moved up the timetable.  If this was the first Batman story that I'd read, I feel like I'd come out of it with the impression that Batman hired the murderer to get Dick's parents out of the way.

Batman's immature streak here even extends to other superheroes - when calling in a favour from Superman, he feels the need to brag about himself in his internal monologue.  It's weird that he brags about how smart he is when his first instinct (after abducting Dick Grayson and bringing him to the Batcave) is to leave the twelve year old down there and make him eat whatever rats he can catch. (this is not a joke)

Alfred is seemingly the only person in Batman's inner circle who feels in-character, giving Dick a burger and fries when he sees what Batman is trying to make him do.  He's compassionate, helpful, and resourceful, which is a huge contrast with how Bruce is treated in this book.

Speaking of out-of-character writing, this is Wonder Woman's first line of dialogue:

I have to force myself to remember that this is the same Frank Miller who created Elektra.  On the very next page, she's thinking about how Batman should be killed, bad-mouthing every single man that she comes across, and more or less saying that Superman should conquer the world and be a ruthless dictator.

And then she grabs Superman and kisses him after he humbles her.  These few pages make it feel like Frank Miller has never read a single Wonder Woman comic in his life and did absolutely no research on the character before including her in this story.

Batman's insanity doesn't let up as the story progresses, as he spends a large portion of issue 5 laughing like a lunatic.  The superheroes that he inspires don't fare much better.  Batgirl appears briefly, fighting crime at the age of fifteen, though she doesn't do much, only having a short scene in the tenth issue.  Black Canary is inspired to beat people up because of Batman, falling madly in love with him to the point of making out with him on a burning dock. (Green Arrow isn't mentioned, though he may be a sleazy patron of Black Canary's bar who hits on her even though he's married - the mustache and beard bear a strong resemblance to Oliver's as pictured below where he's one of the people being kicked by Black Canary)

By issue seven, the book has reached the point where I'm not sure if Frank Miller thought that lines of dialogue like this sounded cool or if he's just parodying himself at this point:

I'm not sure if Frank Miller's writing has that self-aware quality to it or not.  It seems like there are points where he acknowledges that having someone around to talk to would help to make Batman a better person, or pointing out the numerous flaws in his own series, but Batman's response to any of these points is a terse "shut up."

The Joker is introduced towards the end as the man who arranged the death of Dick's parents - while Batman is a cackling lunatic, the Joker is humourless and threatening, making me feel like Frank Miller got the two characters mixed up somewhere along the line.  He's set up as the main villain of this story, but all he does is kill a lawyer (after having sex with her) and beat up Catwoman, in addition to hiring the guy who killed Robin's parents for reasons unknown.

I feel like I have to mention Green Lantern's treatment in this story, because Batman (and, seemingly, Frank Miller) seems to really hate the guy.  When the Justice League meets during Wonder Woman's introduction, he seems like the only reasonable person, wanting to meet Batman, give him the benefit of the doubt, talk things over with him, and have a vote.  By contrast, Batman is constantly insulting him in his internal monologue for no apparent reason.

Batman agrees to have a meeting with Green Lantern, at a time and place that Batman arranges... so Bruce can paint the whole place (and himself, and Robin) bright yellow.  Despite Batman bragging about his brilliant strategy, Hal immediately sees through Batman's claims that his new twelve year old sidekick TOTALLY isn't Dick Grayson, age twelve, and he begins to suspect Batman's secret identity in the process.

There's a great emotional moment near the end of issue 9, where Bruce lets Dick mourn the loss of his parents after doing everything that he can to deny him that opportunity, and we see a brief glimmer of humanity in this insane version of Batman.

However, the series doesn't seem to be building up to anything in particular.  It just rambles on and on, telling a bunch of loosely connected stories before coming to an abrupt end. (issue 10 ends with "to be continued", and it seems like this series was intended to be twelve issues long like All-Star Superman, but issue 10 came out in 2008)  It was bad, but in a "so bad it's funny" kind of way - it feels like movies like The Room or Birdemic, which seems baffling given what I've read of Frank Miller's other work. (though the other Frank Miller material that I have read is from the 80's - I know that the 9/11 terrorist attacks hit him hard, but that doesn't explain this mess)