Remember All-Star Batman and Robin? I Sure Wish I Didn’t
30 for 30 promo guy voice… “What if I told you, that one of the greatest comic writers and one of the greatest comic artists combined to create the definitive Batman story…and it is absolutely terrible.”
All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder, as it was officially known, was a 10-issue limited series written by Frank Miller, with pencils by Jim Lee and inks by Scott Williams, and coloring by Alex Sinclair. It was the first series in DC’s All-Star imprint which launched in 2005. The premise of the All-Star imprint was to combine DC’s greatest characters with its greatest creators, with no constraints of continuity. The goal was to create an iconic interpretation of the characters for modern audiences who had little reading experience. It was compared to Marvel’s Ultimate universe, which had launched at the turn of the century and was very successful in drawing in new readers who were perhaps turned off by decades of continuity. The All-Star series was a bit different, with no interconnected universe and only two series to start with. The other was All-Star Superman written by Grant Morrison with art by Frank Quitely which debuted a month or so later. In contrast to All-Star Batman and Robin, All-Star Superman is a triumph of colossal proportions, and is probably the best Superman story I’ve ever read. An unrelated series called All-Star Batman, written by Scott Snyder with a variety of artists, mostly John Romita Jr., ran from 2016–17 as part of DC Universe Rebirth.
The pairing of Miller and Lee was a dream come true for comic fans. Miller was already a living legend, having written some of the best and most influential comics of all time, including his run on Daredevil, as well as the graphic novels 300 and Sin City, not to mention what he’d already done with the Caped Crusader in The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One. Lee is one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation, and was just coming off what I believe to be the definitive modern Batman story, Batman: Hush which ran from 2002–03. I mean, just look at this promo piece for Hush. Unbelievably good stuff.
So on paper, All-Star Batman and Robin had the makings of an all-time great. There was a huge amount of hype and anticipation, only for critics to bash it upon release, calling it “one of the biggest train wrecks in comic history.” So what happened? Well, not to point fingers, but it’s mostly Frank Miller’s fault. The series was scheduled for a monthly release, but was delayed so much so that only one issue came out in 2006, and the last issue was released in September of 2008 only to be recalled due to insufficient censoring. Jim Lee took full responsibility for the delays, as he was involved with DC Universe Online. However, the delays were only a marginal part of the problem. The larger issue was that the writing was hilariously bad. This excerpt from issue #7, as well as the panel from #2 at the top are just a couple examples of Miller’s over-the-top gritty style in this book. I think it crosses the line from bad to actually being unintentionally funny.
Batman in this series is a terrible person. He’s mean to Robin to the point of abuse, he’s mean to Alfred, he’s very mean to the Justice League, and he’s angry and stubborn to the point of immaturity. He takes delight in maiming and wounding criminals, and he’s nothing like the Batman in mainstream comics or even in Miller’s past works. He’s a childish edge-lord with no conscience. Look at this exchange from issue #8, where he cooks up this harebrained scheme to mess with Green Lantern. He knows that yellow is Lantern’s weakness, so he paints everything, including himself and Robin, yellow. That seems like something out of the campy 60s Adam West show, not what’s supposed to be the definitive version of the character. Miller writes an all-around awful Batman here. As the reader, you’re supposed to root for the hero. Well, I stopped rooting for this Batman pretty much immediately because of how badly he’s written.
It goes on like this for ten issues. And I didn’t even get into the more R-rated things in this series (weird and out-of-character), how the women are portrayed (very badly), and how the series ends on a cliff-hanger. All in all, this was an unmitigated disaster of a comic book. Although other series with Wonder Woman, Batgirl and Green Lantern were planned, the All-Star imprint died after All-Star Superman wrapped up in 2008. I obviously would not recommend reading this, unless you really want to see how bad it gets. If there’s a lesson here, I guess it’s that even the greats have one or two bad days. In Frank Miller’s case, maybe one or two bad years. If you want to read an actually good Batman story, well, stay tuned. That might be an idea I have for a future piece.
