The $%#&*@! Batman

Frank Miller’s ‘All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder‘ comic has been regarded as a creative disaster since the inaugural issue. The backlash against the title has been strong enough to prevent me from spending any foldin’ money on an issue, but I’ve seen enough review material to confirm these suspicions of disaster. I’m all for changing up Batman and placing him in alternate situations and persona, but I just can’t seem to get behind this title.

(On the flipside, Grant Morrison’s ‘All Star Superman‘ is a masterstroke of epic proportions and a wonderful read for anyone with a soul.)

While there have been plenty of re-envisionings of the classic Batman character, Miller’s most recent take is so laced with profanity, extreme violence, anger and ridiculous hyperbole that many comic readers can’t comfortably accept it as an artistic expression. Wonder Woman is a man-hating caricature of a woman who can’t control her emotions or her libido, and Batman is a criminally insane vigilante who prefers to giggle as he punches evil-doers in the face, rather than embody the stoic silence that defines Batman. This might all sound potentially awesome in theory, but even with Jim Lee’s exceptional artwork to back it all up, ‘All Star Batman’ is usually seen as a failure of a comic. It’s the equivalent of re-imagining Superman as a leopard man with a magical staff and a sailboat made of radishes.

Regardless of the negative reception to ‘All Star Batman’, we’ve made it to issue #10. It’s with this issue that the creative disaster that is ‘All Star Batman’ has made headlines – for a tremendously egregious printing error.

See, Frank Miller’s idea of profanity isn’t for lightweights. Take all of the worst words you know, make up at least five worse words, and imagine a world where they drip liberally from the lips of everyone around you, and then you’ll have Frank Miller’s idea of profanity. He writes it all out (sweat dripping from his meaty forehead, glistening in the blue glow of his computer monitor), the weak dialogue is printed into the comic, and then the astute editors at DC Comics place big ol’ black censor boxes over the offending epithets. Unfortunately, issue #10’s black boxes were printed just a shade too lightly, and as a result, Frank Miller’s disgusting profanity is visible on many of the comic’s pages. I’m no profanity prude, but this is some bad stuff.

DC immediately recalled the misprinted comics, but this was only after a good handful had been sold this past Tuesday. By Thursday, copies of the misprinted comic had already reached up to $250 on eBay, marking the most recent flash-in-the-pan comic collectible. With over 200 completed auctions and 150 active auctions on eBay (at the time of this writing), and an average price of roughly $60, the value of the comic will likely decline in the near future. As more and more copies surface, and scarcity is diminished, and the novelty of seeing vulgarity within the pages of a DC comic wears off, it’s not a comic that I’d recommend investing too much in. Sure, invest something – but within reason.

I remain a bit boggled that DC Comics would even print the offending words and then actually take the time to block them out instead of simply printing black boxes to begin with, but what do I know? I’ve never created a national scandal. Give me a little more time.

At least with Superman, the most you have to worry about is an occasional ‘gosh’.