When was the last time we saw a 10th issue of anything from Frank Miller?
Thinking back on Miller’s long career, he’s only done one run longer than 8 issues before and that was on Daredevil back in the early 80s. Since leaving the title for the first time, almost everything else since then has been 3-8 issue stories like Elektra Assassin, Hard Boiled and most of the Sin City series. Even the two times he’s returned to Daredevil, “Born Again” and “Man Without Fear,” were very limited compared to his career-making work which included the creation and death of Elektra. Other than on Daredevil, Miller’s career has been spent getting quickly into and out of stories quickly, including in the legendary The Dark Knight Returns.
Of course, storytelling is much different today than it was when Miller first wrote and drew The Dark Knight Returns. Using a strict 16 panel structure, Miller crammed a lot of information into almost every page. While the 16 panel grid underlies every page, Miller would merge panels together to vary the page layout and would occasionally combine all sixteen panels together to give you a fantastic splash page, such as the fantastic page where Batman, on a horse, is charging towards the reader, Robin and the Mutant gang riding just behind him. As you read DKR, those images make you stop and take them in. Particularly in the Absolute edition, those larger-than-life images make you just marvel in awe at the power and authority that Bruce Wayne commands.
I wonder if Frank Miller could pull off that kind of controlled storytelling anymore? Since then, his storytelling has become broader, much more grandiose and much less subtle. The Sin City books or 300 aren’t about subtlty. They’re about power, manliness and machisimo. They’re in your face while The Dark Knight Returns was racing ahead of you, pulling you along to keep up with it.
Maybe Miller needs the confinement of a miniseries or graphic novel to tell a story. If there’s any kind of page structure in All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #10, it’s completely lost under Jim Lee’s pencils. Where in The Dark Knight Returns and even in Batman: Year One Miller had to choose his moments of grandeur, All Star Batman #10 doesn’t know how to be small, quiet and unassuming. It doesn’t know how to set the dial to anything else but 11. Honestly, while his art is pretty and solid, Jim Lee has never been known as a strong storyteller who can vary the pacing of a story just through the artistic choices he makes. Maybe it’s because Miller’s script doesn’t allow it or because Lee can’t portray it but even the moments that are supposed to be quiet and introspective end up being loud, brash and fidgety.
You’d think that given more room than in his average story, Miller could find different ways to pace the various scenes in this issue but this issue suffers from an abundunce of over-the-top storytelling, endless splash pages and attempts at “widescreen” storytelling that just makes the story loud and obnoxious. Following up a splash page of Batman and Robin jumping around a subway tunnel with by a pair of two-page spreads showing Batman and Robin doing essentially the same thing isn’t cool or even exciting; it’s showy and actually avoids telling a story. While most of the series has teetered on this over-indulgent storytelling, this issue seems to actually embrace it.
Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad if the rest of the issue made some kind of attempt at coherent storytelling but why should Miller and Lee try to to that now when they’ve barely done it the last nine issues. This issue lacks any focus and jumps around from character to character. And after the emotional breakthrough at the end of the last issue, the two main characters end up doing nothing this issue other than running around and looking cool. Batgirl and Black Canary, two still-underdeveloped supporting characters, get a good amount of time this issue. Unfortunately, that time is over-written and ends up telling us almost nothing about those characters that we didn’t already know from previous issues.
Now here’s the kind of stupid part; for all of its faults, I still kind of like All Star Batman. Maybe it’s the stupidity in Miller’s script? Maybe it’s Jim Lee’s artwork, which I’ve always enjoyed since his legendary Uncanny X-Men run. More than likely, it’s the train wreck quality of this book. For all of its problems, I almost think that the title hasn’t fully derailed yet and there’s even more ludicrousness to come out of two obviously talented creators. It’s almost like the book and characters are out of the creators’ control and, like us, they’re relegated to watching what unfolds from the sidelines. Even with the pulping problems that this issue went through, the real wreck still hasn’t happened yet but I want to be there when it does.
All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #10
“Episode 10″
Written by: Frank Miller
Pencilled by: Jim Lee
Inked by: Scott Williams
Colored by: Alex Sinclair
Lettered by: Jared K. Fletcher
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[...] the best review of this issue I’ve found, at The Secret of Wednesday’s Haul, Scott rightly refers to “the train wreck quality of this book.” And he proceeds: [...]