The GODDAMN Batman

April 7, 2008 /

I just read issue one through nine of All-Star Batman and Robin, written by Frank Millar with art by Jim Lee.

It’s terrible. I actually literally checked the cover to make sure that it was the same Frank Millar that wrote Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, and not Frank Millarr, part-time comic writer and full time service station attendant, or Frank Myllar the well known Torchwood/Stargate/Harry Potter slash fiction writer who’d sucked a lot of editorial cock to get a paid writing gig and somehow ended up with a Batman comic. It’s not. It’s written by the Actual Frank Millar.

Here’s a quote from issue two:

Robin: “Who the hell are you anyway, giving out orders like this?”
Batman: “What, are you dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I’m the goddamn Batman.”

Which, sure, is The Lulz, but in issue six, Commissioner Gordon refers to the “goddamn Batman” three times in two pages, and in issue seven, there’s this:

Batman: “Not one word. I’ve taken enough grief about calling my goddamn car the goddamn Batmobile. I’m the goddamn Batman and I can call my goddamn car whatever the hell I want to call it.”

Goddamn.

Add to this sort of thing the hilariously gratuitous clothing (or lack thereof) of every woman in this comic (by the way, if you’ve read Sin City, you will know that is not a new theme for Millar[1]) and it really does appear that Millar is looks to be spiralling into a Dave Sim-like pit of insanity and misogyny. This comic is majestic in its awfulness. It clocks bad[2] and rolls around to awesome. It’s the “Manos: The Hand of Fate” of comics.

This comic is a train wreck, on the site of an earthquake, under an exploding german zeppelin. However much like like such an event in real life, you can’t look away and really you have to laugh.[3]

Indeed I laughed out loud several times while reading these comics, and I’m looking forward to future releases hugely – they’re the funniest damn things I’ve read in weeks.

[1] I’m pretty sure Millar jerks off while obsessively repeating the word “Whores!” over and over to himself.

[2] The end guy is hard

[3] What, like I’m the only guy to make “Oh the Humanity” jokes while watching footage of the Hindenburg? As if.

Categories: From The Unfathomable Mind of JSR

5 Comments

  2. camelopard_boy

    April 7, 2008 at 7:49 pm

    Yeah, supposedly the All-Star Batman series is meant to be a prequel to The Dark Knigt Returns. Of course, the whole point of DKR was that Batman became a surly old psychopath after years of crimefighting – now Miller’s decided he was a surly psychopath all along (character development is for pussies).

    Do you have the special edition ones that include the original script in the back? You can tell that Miller was actually masturbating while he was writing the bits where Vicki Vale is walking around in her underwear. I can just imagine Jim Lee standing in the shower after pencilling one of his layouts, scrubbing and scrubbing, but the dirt won’t come off…

    Still, I miss Dave “Gah! I almost thought about a vagina!” Sim’s insane rantings sometimes – it’ll be nice to have a replacement.