All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder, Vol. 1

Review By "Boisterous" Brad Curran "Graphic Novel Gourm...

but I found this to be great fun. I can see why there was so much controversy over it in comics blogosphere circles. Don't go in expecting it to be like Miller's legendary Batman work, the Dark Knight Returns and Year One. It's really closer to Miller's Sin City; it's completely over the top, filled with titilation, violence, and dark humor. It's very much applying his noir turned to 11 sensibilities to Batman. Except instead of his hyper stylized, near caricature-cartooning, Jim Lee's providing the art.

I'd thought I'd outgrown the Image founder and comics megastar's art the last time he did an overhyped Batman comic. I have to say that the pairing with Miller has made me rethink that. I'm still not a huge fan of his style, but Miller more or less wrote the comic specifically for him, and I have to admit, it's hard not to get swept up in the dymanic energy when Lee really gets to show off. He's great when it comes to draw curvy women, massive city scapes, cars, and kicking, and Miller gives him chances to do that with vigor.

I'd reccomend this less for hyper-serious Batman fans. If you can't have a sense of humor about the character (and that used to be, mind you), you'd be better off with Miller's less over the top Batman offerings or maybe some Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams collections. If you want a riotous, kinetic Batman comic that takes itself and nothing seriously, by and large, or are more of a Frank Miller fan than a Batman fan, then by all means buy this immediately. It's a lot of fun if you don't have any axes to grind against it. I mean, they worked in a Jim Steranko-esque fold out in there; how can you not love that?