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

Frank Miller (Author), Jim Lee (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: All-Star Batman & Robin | Publication Date: July 8, 2008

The talents responsible for some of Batman's greatest tales, Frank Miller (BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, Sin City) and Jim Lee (BATMAN: HUSH) team up for the first time to bring you Batman and Robin like you've never seen them before in this reinvention of these classic characters.

All hell breaks loose at the circus as Bruce Wayne and gal pal Vicki Vale witness a young boy's life shattered before their eyes. Orphaned, Dick Grayson has nowhere to go and no one to turn to -- no one but Bruce Wayne! Expect action, adventure, guest-stars and the unexpected as Miller and Lee deliver the ultimate tales of the Dynamic Duo!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Miller, the man who kicked off the grim and gritty era of superhero comics with the 1986 Batman tale The Dark Knight Returns, returns to write the iconic character once again in a series that takes the tropes of superhero excess and explodes them into satire. Miller casts Batman as an obsessive lunatic who enlists traumatized children into his war on crime, calls himself the goddamn Batman and is prone to cackling maniacally. Sex and violence are constant preoccupations, but even during sex scenes, Miller can hardly keep a straight face. After a shared rampage against corrupt cops that includes the interjection, Eat glass, lawman! Batman and heroine Black Canary celebrate with an intimate encounter on a burning pier during a lightning storm. Although the bombastic, repetitive narration and decompressed storytelling (two and a half issues pass before Batman and Robin leave the Batmobile) often borders on hilarious, Miller aims for more obvious jokes later in the series. It's an over the top in-joke for the superhero crowd, though its irreverence may not have the most zealous and serious superhero fans laughing. (June)
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From Booklist

Miller returns to the character he so audaciously reinterpreted in the groundbreaking The Dark Knight Returns (1987). His Batman is again a genuinely nasty, borderline-psychotic piece of work; here, however, Miller mitigates the character’s vicious sadism through the use of thought-captions revealing unspoken reservations about the course his war against crime has taken. Set in the early years of Batman’s career, the tale sees him groom 12-year-old aerialist Dick Grayson as a sidekick after the senior Flying Graysons are murdered. Once Robin’s on board, the story line meanders, growing ever more extreme and skirting silliness as Miller introduces his irreverent versions of Superman, Wonder Woman, and other Justice Leaguers. This time out, drawing duties are assumed by Jim Lee, whose admittedly gorgeous but ultimately shallow approach substitutes overrendered flash for the thoughtful economy and innovative storytelling techniques Miller used in Dark Knight. Controversial among fans and not nearly as artistically successful as its companion, Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman, Miller’s new Batman still has been DC’s top seller of late, guaranteeing this compilation an eager audience. --Gordon Flagg

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics (July 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401216811
• ISBN-13: 978-1401216818
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.6 x 10.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #426,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Frank Miller is one of the seminal creative talents who sparked the current gigantic sub-industry of motion pictures featuring comic book- initiated product. A sub-industry which had become a super-industry. This most profitable aspect of this millennium's film production, now producing an annual flow of box office profits in the Billions of dollars, was launched when Frank Miller's graphic novel re-take on the classic comic book hero, Batman, resulted in an entertainment industry-wide reconsideration of the genre in the deeper and darker vision Miller brought to it.

Miller re-defined the presentation of comic book characters and heroic fiction with his grand-daddy of graphic novels, "The Dark Knight." This revolutionary work
not only kicked off the series of Batman films based on his redefinition, but a craze for such material that has thrown dozens of such heroes into multiple film franchise heaven. Certainly chief among these has been Miller's uniquely classical take on superheroic narrative, "300," and his "Sin City" books, each of which entered motion pictures with historic successes, and each now in Miller's creative phase of achieving its highly-anticipated sequel. Miller's co-direction of "Sin City" has made him one of the hottest
directors... as well as a guiding creative force...for the new genre. Or one might say "super genre."

Miller's latest graphic novel, Holy Terror, is his first original graphic novel in ten years. Join The Fixer, a brand new, hard-edged hero as he battles terror in the inaugural release from Legendary Comics.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Closer to Average than All-Star, July 17, 2008

By 

P DubTwenty2 - See all my reviews

This review is from: All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

It was the combination of two proven names that enticed me to take a chance on All Star Batman & Robin; writer Frank Miller (Batman: Year One, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) and artist Jim Lee (Absolute Batman: Hush) have brought to life some of the greatest Batman stories. Unfortunately though, this one seems to fall short of greatness.

There is potential - don't get me wrong. Lee's artwork is bright and colorful and invites the reader to view the pages for just a little bit longer. On the other hand, Miller's quick and short writing doesn't allow for much taking in of the artwork. There's seems to be a conflict to say the least.

But probably the biggest problem with All Star Batman & Robin is with Batman or should I say "the g**damned Batman." At certain points, he's clearly possessed, more so than I've ever seen him. His sanity seems more at question here than it does in the psychological rollercoaster of Batman: Arkham Asylum. He's just not himself.

Bottom line: This story is okay, just OKAY. You could read it and be entertained at some points, or you could leave it and not miss out on a whole lot.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I Hated This, February 6, 2010

By 

Gabriel (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

I hated this book. As an adult, I enjoy "edgy" and mature-oriented material, but this story goes too far. In it, Batman is a psychotic sadist who engages in over-the-top behavior the likes of which we have never seen before from DC Comics. For example, Allstar's Batman is a homocidal maniac who murders several police officers. He kidnaps, terrorizes, and beats Robin, a 12-year old boy in this story. His sadistic crime-fighting methods include excessive force and so much brutality that he often leaves commons thugs dead. He is clearly insane.

Frank Miller abused the artistic license often granted to edgy reboots, and made something that is completely out of character for what we expect from this popular superhero. I'm not even happy with the content of this book if you approached it from a parallel reality or Multiverse approach to this content- this is not Bruce Wayne. Other characters from the DC universe make brief appearances, and their dark & gritty portrayal quickly becomes so extreme that it is almost a sendup of popular folklore legends.

To me, Miller cashed in the "currency" he earned with his previously supersuccesful work and shouldn't be given free rein to embarass popular franchises in this manner again. The only reason I give this book any stars at all is because of Lee's wonderfully crisp and colorful artwork. He is truly a talent. As half of the creative team, I gave him 2 out of 2 1/2 stars, with Miller getting none. I took a half star off of Lee's work because he should have questioned the garbage Miller asked him to draw. Lee showed poor judgement by working on this book. Batman killing police officers for fun, and drugging & slapping young children? Totally innappropriate.

As mentioned, I enjoy both darker material AND I love Batman. So for me not to like this book it had to be really bad- and it is.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Miller Parodies Himself, November 7, 2009

By 

Chrismcc (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

I like Miller's earlier Dark Knight work quite a bit, and I have a soft spot for Sin City, too. This is just horrible writing, though. It has none of the freshness of his other Batman writing, and the dialogue here is beyond cheesy (at one point he refers to a thug as a "wad," an insult I haven't heard since I was maybe 10 years old). I suppose this is supposed to be edgy, but I'd rather read the most mediocre of the current Batman titles within the regular continuity than this vanity project gone wrong. What a disappointment.