Big Batman News

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely are to do a new Batman ongoing called Batman and Robin, according to Comic Book Resources here.

The writer and artist, both Scots and regarded as some of the top talents in the comic book field, just completed a hugely praised 12 issue series of All-Star Superman. I'm not a huge Superman fan, but that was in the top ten best comic stories I've ever read. I bought the series, which was more like quarterly than the projected monthly (Quitely is not a fast worker, apparently), and then bought the hardcover compilations. That good.

Their moving over to Batman and Robin is suggestive. All-Star Superman, irreverently referred to as ASS by many fans, was part of a line of projected prestige series to be out of continuity and done by the very best creators in the industry. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were to get this treatment initially, and it was suggested that other major DC properties would follow. (All-Star Batgirl and All-Star Green Lantern were announced, but so far nothing has appeared.) The idea of the All-Star line was to give the best creators the chance to do Platonic ideals of the characters without having to worry about continuity. So Morrison and Quitely's Superman was the basic Silver Age template of the character, with some features of the Christopher Reeves Superman movies, especially in the depiction of Clark Kent. It was shockingly good, and made Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen seem like much more interesting characters than they had before.

However, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, by Frank Miller and Jim Lee, did not meet with the same critical success. Very slow paced (the first several issues appeared to take place during a single night), it made Batman and his supporting cast seem less appealing than their usual depictions; indeed, Miller's Batman seemed to be deranged. As the series went on, it became apparent to some critics that the book might have some qualities, perhaps as satire, but mostly it engendered a sort of appalled wonder among the readership. Miller had Batman growl to crooks on whom he was inflicting savage beatings "I'm the god-damned Batman!" which caused everyone to repeat the line endlessly in reviews, scoffing. Miller seemed to pick up on this and had Batman say it several times an issue. Very weird. It was interesting to look at, but I didn't read more than a couple of issues. Not the success All-Star Superman was, to be polite.

All-Star Wonder Woman, to be written and drawn by"good girl" artist Adam Hughes, has been repeatedly delayed; the current line from DC is that it will finally appear during 2009, but I'm not holding my breath.

So moving Morrison and Quitely over to Batman and Robin seems to suggest that DC understands that they didn't hit the nail on the head with Miller and Lee's version. The new book does not appear to be branded as part of the All-Star line, but knowing Morrison, it likely won't have much to do with continuity as the rest of DC understands it, anyway. I'm looking forward to this.