Dark Detective/All Star Batman

[nightwing]

I have yet to hear one positive comment about All-Star Batman.  I have also heard very little good about "Dark Knight Strikes Again" (easily the worst piece of filth I have ever been stupid enough to buy the first two issues of...before giving up and giving them away) and no one I know of has anything good to say about Miller's "Batman-Spawn" crossover.

Every time Miller touches Batman he proves how clueless he is, and diminishes the legacy of DKR a little bit more.  Based on page count alone, he has already produced far more Bat-dross than Bat-gold and if he keeps it up he will soon have tarnished his single achievement to the point where even it can't be enjoyed.

Miller should have quit while he was ahead and left DKR as his last word on Batman.  And for the record, while Jim Lee is an adequate artist, he's nowhere near as good as people seem to think he is...not even as good as he was years ago on X-Men...and no matter how good he is it can't make up for Miller's writing.

[Klar Ken T5477]

I flipped through ASB at the LCBS and I thought it transcended homoeroticism into pedophilia.

A friend of mine who's militantly gay said, "ASB was so gay - and not in a good way".

ASS hopefully will be better but the art looks steroidal anime.

[Great Rao]

Dark Night Returns was brilliant.

Dark Detective was fantastic.

All Star Batman was disgusting and not worth the paper it was printed on.

ASB was supposed to be the flag-ship title for the All-Star line.  So now I'm worried about the line in general.  Instead of being an updated return to a "classic" Batman, ASB was something else entirely - I'm still not sure just what, but whatever it was, it was diametrically opposed to Batman.

Regarding All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison has been talking up a storm about the "classic" Superman; but it seems pretty clear that DC doesn't give a flying-fig about such things.   They've also delayed the title, presumably for editorial reasons.   The four page All-Star Superman preview didn't show much Superman either - it was all about Lex being sick and twisted.  So I'm still hopeful, but starting to get a little worried.

[nightwing]

%$& hopefully will be better but the art looks steroidal anime.

I wondered what the above "curse word" was and then I realized it's the abbreviation for All-Star Superman! The morons in marketing have done it again!  :lol:

ASB was supposed to be the flag-ship title for the All-Star line. So now I'm worried about the line in general. Instead of being an updated return to a "classic" Batman, ASB was something else entirely - I'm still not sure just what, but whatever it was, it was diametrically opposed to Batman.

Was it ever touted as a return to classic Batman?  I thought the big draw of the All-Star line was that creators would be freed by the constraints of modern DCU continuity and able to tell their own stories in their own way. Being old-timers, we read into this exactly what we wanted to: Yay! A return to pre-Crisis fun!  Or perhaps we just assumed that stepping outside the DCU would have to equal an improvement.

Of course now we see that there are innumerable ways to screw up a character and DC is devoted to exploring every one of them.  Just because AS Batman isn't the raving nut-job haunting the in-continuity books doesn't mean he's any less despicable, insane or ugly.

This is where it all falls apart.  Tell me I can do a book free from official continuity and I think, "Wow, I'll turn back the clock to the Silver/Bronze Age!"  Tell a comics professional the same thing and he'll think, "Wow, now I can do all the stuff that the legal department said was too sick and twisted for the regular books!"  :roll:

[JulianPerez]

Dark Night Returns was brilliant.

Dark Detective was fantastic.

All Star Batman was disgusting and not worth the paper it was printed on.

ASB was supposed to be the flag-ship title for the All-Star line.  So now I'm worried about the line in general.  Instead of being an updated return to a "classic" Batman, ASB was something else entirely - I'm still not sure just what, but whatever it was, it was diametrically opposed to Batman.

To be honest I never really liked DARK KNIGHT RETURNS much, either.

People who prefer Batman to Superman tell me the reason they prefer Batman is because "he solves problems with his mind instead of by overwhelming applications of power like Superman."

Right.

Like whip out a giant TANK and machine gun children?

Here's a fun game to play next time you read DARK KNIGHT RETURNS: read all of Batman's dialogue in a thick Austrian accent, a-la Ahhh-nold Schwartzenegger, and I *guarantee* it won't sound weird or out of place in any occasion. Remember that sequence where Batman shoots a few kidnappers and says "I believe you?" That's a classic Arnoldism right there!

"Hey Joker...remember when I said I'd kill you last?"

"I lied."

I challenge anyone to find a place of purely mental action or detective work on Batman's part in that entire miniseries.

Whether you agree with my assessment of DKR or not, the seeds of the aspects that would fully blossom in his later work are present in this miniseries:

1) Women being "sell-outs" or similarly sexually objectified;

2) Perverse, psychosexual fixations;

3) Undisguised, naked Ayn Rand politics;

4) Batman as a violent, brutal figure that borders on the psychotic, fueled by flashbacks;

5) Batman as a figure who delivers violence first and plans second.

[Uncle Mxy]

Here's a fun game to play next time you read DARK KNIGHT RETURNS: read all of Batman's dialogue in a thick Austrian accent, a-la Ahhh-nold Schwartzenegger, and I *guarantee* it won't sound weird or out of place in any occasion. Remember that sequence where Batman shoots a few kidnappers and says "I believe you?" That's a classic Arnoldism right there!

Nahh...  Clint Eastwood and his constipated voice still wins the day here.  Of course, I was awed by DKR when it first came out, and I never want to think about Ah-nuld in association with Batman for fear of recallingl Mr. Freeze, so I wear my biases on my sleeve.  I gotta confess-- I'd love to see Jeph Loeb write a Commando comic book.