All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder
"Episode One"
Writer: Frank Miller
Artist: Jim Lee
Publisher: DC Comics
The All-Star line is DC’s answer to Marvel’s successful Ultimate line. The premise is to get rid of the baggage of years of continuity and essentially start over outside the know “universe� of the characters to re-tell a lot of the old tales in a modern setting. They are trying to mine fresh stories from familiar and dated material so it becomes a game of bringing a fresh perspective, and new spins, on the classic stories. Classic stories, mind you, not sacrosanct scriptures (this is actually a reminder to myself whenever I read re-treads on tales that I grew up reading and loving). To tell the stories, the creators have to keep the essentials (the heart) of the well established mythos, while not necessarily sticking too closely to them.
The All-Star formula (much like the Ultimate line formula) is simple: take two fan favorite creators (writer Frank Miller and artist Jim Lee), team them on the book of an iconic character, and let them re-work the history and spin the mythology as they want. Frank Miller after years away from the spandex set, working on books like Sin City and 300 (which is also preparing to make the leap to the silver screen), returns to the character that he helped refocus in the late 80s.
Jim Lee remembers all the lessons that made him such a popular creator over at Image Comics, drawing beautiful, painfully well-endowed women, often posing (scantily clad) for pages on end. Not really delving into the character nor propelling the plot, but giving something for the presumed teenage male fanboys to gawk at. Though he probably takes his cues from the script that he is given.
The story is a familiar one. The circus comes to Gotham City, featuring among its acts, the Flying Graysons. The young aerialist, Dick Grayson, has caught Bruce Wayne’s attention. Vicki Vale, the Lois Lane-styled reporter, prepares for her first date with millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, which finds her overly dressed for the circus. Vicki Vale vacillates between a ditzy dame (“I have a date with Bruce Wayne� whatever shall I wear?) And something just shy of the tough broad reporter she’s meant to be. Dick watches his parents get gunned down and Batman arrives in time to save him from a gruesome fate at the hands of the Gotham police department.
This book may not please a lot of fans. For a start, Frank Miller finds himself operating in a post Warren Ellis and/or Mark Millar runs on the seminal book, The Authority, which kind of upped the ante when it comes to the superhero genre and what passes for edgy and action. You can kind of feel Miller pressing a little too hard around the edges. Plus, this book is supposed to be accessible to new and young readers. Um, not exactly Frank Miller’s forte when dealing with the dark knight. The best you can expect is a Sin City-lite.
Once more we have a taste of the candy-coated nihilism (kind of a Nietzsche for pop consumption) that makes Batman the ultimate hardass. The book has the feel of taking place early in the Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns universe, though there are hints that the focus of the book will be Robin. Miller gives Robin an origin that resonates more with Bruce Wayne/Batman, witnessing his parents gunned down at the circus where they performed. However, with Batman as the uber-mensch, taking brooding intensity and self-reliance to an extreme, he’s unable to be in true relationship with others. He’s remote and often sub-human in his responses and how he deals with people. And not the best parental figure/model for a newly orphaned child. Frankly, there is a seeming creepiness to the fact that a wealthy playboy (read: single guy) is keeping his eye open for young talent. This air of creepiness is matched by his alter egos willingness to draft and train boy targets in his war on crime. It will be interesting to see what sort of Robin Miller writes: a young Batman in training/a young soldier or the comic/humanizing Robin who resists being molded in his mentor’s image.
“On your feet, soldier. You’ve just been drafted. This is war.�
In this telling of the origin of their partnership, Robin is drafted into this war, he doesn’t pester Batman to train him in order to seek justice for his parents’ untimely death. With Robin being so pivotal to the interpretation of Batman, one can’t help but address the issue of drafting one so young into this war on crime.
Many people look around our society and see that we are in both a cultural and spiritual war (one a reflection of the other). The issue that we then have to struggle with becomes the matter of how long do we wait to teach our children about the rules of combat/engagement in this war. Advertisers target kids as young as four to train them in rampant consumerism. Sexual imagery dominates the cultural media landscape to such a degree that it is nigh unavoidable, training kids up in society’s definition of beauty (self-image) and sexual relations. As corruption works its way throughout society, we can’t afford to sit on the sidelines hoping that it doesn’t get to us (or moving at the first sign that “bad elements� are getting too close to our neighborhoods). The younger we realize this and are trained in how to engage this battleground, the better off we may be.
All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder is a little uneven, probably due to the high expectations that a Miller/Lee team-up on Batman would generate. The terse dialogue wasn’t working for me, but it might be a matter of giving Miller room to develop the proper tone for the book. There is enough of a sense of intrigue and potential to let me be willing to buy the hype machine (trained since the age of four consumer that I am) and ride out at least the first story arc.
Who am I kidding?
It’s Frank Miller on Batman. I’ll be buying this.
Writer: Frank Miller
Artist: Jim Lee
Publisher: DC Comics
The All-Star line is DC’s answer to Marvel’s successful Ultimate line. The premise is to get rid of the baggage of years of continuity and essentially start over outside the know “universe� of the characters to re-tell a lot of the old tales in a modern setting. They are trying to mine fresh stories from familiar and dated material so it becomes a game of bringing a fresh perspective, and new spins, on the classic stories. Classic stories, mind you, not sacrosanct scriptures (this is actually a reminder to myself whenever I read re-treads on tales that I grew up reading and loving). To tell the stories, the creators have to keep the essentials (the heart) of the well established mythos, while not necessarily sticking too closely to them.
The All-Star formula (much like the Ultimate line formula) is simple: take two fan favorite creators (writer Frank Miller and artist Jim Lee), team them on the book of an iconic character, and let them re-work the history and spin the mythology as they want. Frank Miller after years away from the spandex set, working on books like Sin City and 300 (which is also preparing to make the leap to the silver screen), returns to the character that he helped refocus in the late 80s.
Jim Lee remembers all the lessons that made him such a popular creator over at Image Comics, drawing beautiful, painfully well-endowed women, often posing (scantily clad) for pages on end. Not really delving into the character nor propelling the plot, but giving something for the presumed teenage male fanboys to gawk at. Though he probably takes his cues from the script that he is given.
The story is a familiar one. The circus comes to Gotham City, featuring among its acts, the Flying Graysons. The young aerialist, Dick Grayson, has caught Bruce Wayne’s attention. Vicki Vale, the Lois Lane-styled reporter, prepares for her first date with millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, which finds her overly dressed for the circus. Vicki Vale vacillates between a ditzy dame (“I have a date with Bruce Wayne� whatever shall I wear?) And something just shy of the tough broad reporter she’s meant to be. Dick watches his parents get gunned down and Batman arrives in time to save him from a gruesome fate at the hands of the Gotham police department.
This book may not please a lot of fans. For a start, Frank Miller finds himself operating in a post Warren Ellis and/or Mark Millar runs on the seminal book, The Authority, which kind of upped the ante when it comes to the superhero genre and what passes for edgy and action. You can kind of feel Miller pressing a little too hard around the edges. Plus, this book is supposed to be accessible to new and young readers. Um, not exactly Frank Miller’s forte when dealing with the dark knight. The best you can expect is a Sin City-lite.
Once more we have a taste of the candy-coated nihilism (kind of a Nietzsche for pop consumption) that makes Batman the ultimate hardass. The book has the feel of taking place early in the Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns universe, though there are hints that the focus of the book will be Robin. Miller gives Robin an origin that resonates more with Bruce Wayne/Batman, witnessing his parents gunned down at the circus where they performed. However, with Batman as the uber-mensch, taking brooding intensity and self-reliance to an extreme, he’s unable to be in true relationship with others. He’s remote and often sub-human in his responses and how he deals with people. And not the best parental figure/model for a newly orphaned child. Frankly, there is a seeming creepiness to the fact that a wealthy playboy (read: single guy) is keeping his eye open for young talent. This air of creepiness is matched by his alter egos willingness to draft and train boy targets in his war on crime. It will be interesting to see what sort of Robin Miller writes: a young Batman in training/a young soldier or the comic/humanizing Robin who resists being molded in his mentor’s image.
“On your feet, soldier. You’ve just been drafted. This is war.�
In this telling of the origin of their partnership, Robin is drafted into this war, he doesn’t pester Batman to train him in order to seek justice for his parents’ untimely death. With Robin being so pivotal to the interpretation of Batman, one can’t help but address the issue of drafting one so young into this war on crime.
Many people look around our society and see that we are in both a cultural and spiritual war (one a reflection of the other). The issue that we then have to struggle with becomes the matter of how long do we wait to teach our children about the rules of combat/engagement in this war. Advertisers target kids as young as four to train them in rampant consumerism. Sexual imagery dominates the cultural media landscape to such a degree that it is nigh unavoidable, training kids up in society’s definition of beauty (self-image) and sexual relations. As corruption works its way throughout society, we can’t afford to sit on the sidelines hoping that it doesn’t get to us (or moving at the first sign that “bad elements� are getting too close to our neighborhoods). The younger we realize this and are trained in how to engage this battleground, the better off we may be.
All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder is a little uneven, probably due to the high expectations that a Miller/Lee team-up on Batman would generate. The terse dialogue wasn’t working for me, but it might be a matter of giving Miller room to develop the proper tone for the book. There is enough of a sense of intrigue and potential to let me be willing to buy the hype machine (trained since the age of four consumer that I am) and ride out at least the first story arc.
Who am I kidding?
It’s Frank Miller on Batman. I’ll be buying this.
2 Comments:
Great review, Maurice. You did a good job of contextualizing the series within DC, the rest of the comics universe, as well as Frank Miller's body of work. You also demonstrated why this series will probably be a success:
Fanboys like us can't resist the Miller and Batman mix. Over to you, Liz...
Yes, Kevin... this WAS a very good review, on Maurice's part... it closely described the matter to hand, whilst "contextualizing"... ah... that's a nice litcrit phrase I've got to put in my lexicon along with "diegetic(ally)" and "auteur"... neither of which I knew before I started haunting blogs! Self-education has its (dis)advantages!
Maurice also proves once again that he's even cleverer than he looks, by pointing out the obvious - to some - but the rarely-mentioned... that *Frank Miller* obviously sees some degree of paedophilia/sexual attraction/"creepiness" as Mr Broaddus phrases it, in the Batman-Robin, mentor-student relationship!
Well, Maurice: it is no SURPRISE that Frank Miller thinks thus, because Frank Miller, like a lot of right-wingers, is sexually warped... have I mentioned this before?? Some of them go for forced anal sex, though they INSIST they're not gay, vide "Sleepers" by Lorenzo Carcaterra, a brilliant book, actually, vide Abu Ghraib in real life... yes.. I think we know where the sexual focus of the neocons and their hangers-on really lies.
And SOME of them go for wildly-generationally-spaced romances, I think would be the kindest way to put it! As Miller has in his Hardigan story, whichever of the "Sin City" comics it falls in. Hardigan and the 10-year-old who grows up into a 17-year-old stripper. Nice.
(At least Nabokov's "Lolita" wasn't as phoney!)
So it is no WONDER that Frank Miller would make the Batman-Robin relationship into something very deliberately "creepy". It reflects his sexual warpedness, not our own. Should I take on a young witch apprentice, LET US SAY, once I become more experienced, IT SHALL NOT BE BECAUSE I WISH TO EXPLOIT HER SEXUALLY. Goddess FORBID!!
Oh, dear! Anyway, this "they have a gay relationship" theory was of course started in 1955 by the paranoid critic of comics, Dr Frederick Wertham, and continued in a more "joky" fashion in the 1960s by a cartoonist called Jules Feiffer. (Maybe at the time it was thought of as some way in which to advance gay rights and acceptance in law!)
But actually the whole theory can't be right; and the best way to find out why is to read novelist Michael Chabon's ideas on the subject in his "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", which I think I have already mentioned - but nobody here seems to have read it!
Anyway, Frank Miller is a sleazebag. And he's an unredeemed militarist. This whole "line" or "angle" that he seems to be aiming at here, that Bruce Wayne *forces* Dick Grayson to be his apprentice... and he dubs him "soldier"... yes, all that was set up as far back as "DKR"... but it has RATHER a new resonance in the POST 9/11, POST (continuing) GULF WAR II ERA, now, doesn't it??
Rather as if Miller was a) encouraging/setting up young kids - of Dick Grayson's age, and no, I don't know what age he was supposed to be when he first met Bruce Wayne - 10, 11?? As soldiers, very much like some inner-city schools for the children of the poorer classes are militarising their students, and introducing drill in exchange for art and music - yes, lovely!! I'm sure ITT will provide a sufficiently good reference article... here we are... http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/the_childrens_crusade/
and b) as if Batman was drafting these kids, or something! According to Miller!
“On your feet, soldier. You’ve just been drafted. This is war.�
Yes... well, that REALLY takes the free choice element out of it, doesn't it?? I shan't bother to rant, I shall just point out a few facts, as above, which should be obvious to even the dimmest of fanboys! DID I say that...
Frank Miller HAS used such "soldier" terms to Robin before, in DKR. He is obviously trying to "militarize" superhero comics, and always has been. (I peg him for an unsuccessful Marine entrant or something similar, myself.)
It's pretty CRIMINAL of him to DO this, of course, because SUPERHERO COMICS NEVER HAVE, TRADITIONALLY, BEEN MILITARISTIC... that was the whole thing about them, and what must have attracted me as a young child - ie, they were about fighting, but they WEREN'T militaristic. Superheroes are called upon to support their country's greatest ideals - as at the time of WWII... but they are NOT supposed to be jingoistic! That was the 1930s/1940s liberal consensus, you see... (They DIDN'T use guns, right from the first.. ANY person who tells you they ever did, is referring to an artist's mistake on a comic book cover!)
Well, Frank Miller messed that idea up in 1986, already! The Village Voice said how they thought he was writing another version of "Rambo"! And YOU guys don't believe me when I say - as I did in my very first post - that I think he has something to do with the CIA, has friends there?
Yeah, well. Don't buy this one for your kids, now, Christian readers... unless you want your children to die in desert sands, and unless you think comics with paedophile themes are great.
Seriously!!!
I don't have to read it to know what's in it... Maurice's review described it masterfully. I expect to find within, should I ever take a look, a kind of "faux" retroism (quite unlike the kind I enthusiastically described in an e-mail to Maurice), overlaid with a thoroughly modern nastiness.
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