It comes from a comic book called All-Star Batman and Robin and it is, by all accounts, just a wretched series. It is startlingly bad if you can believe the reviewers. And the reason for the shock is that the artist is Jim Lee, one of the best in the business. And the writer is Frank Miller.
Miller, for those of you not intimately familiar with comics, is probably one of the three most important comic book creators of the past 25 years. Did you like the Batman movies? Much of the feel came from two of his books – Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One. Oh yeah, and if you liked Sin City and 300, those are his babies as well. Literally, in the case of Sin City, which he co-directed. Oh, and all the good bits in the Daredevil movie came from his run on the series in the 80s.
He’s always been fond of going slightly over the top and producing meaty, chunky dialogue that works great on the page, but doesn’t always translate to screen.
So there was some excitement when Miller announced he was going to write a Batman comic again. I only read the first issue and thought it was fairly pedestrian. Keep in mind, I read that back in the summer of 2005. It’s now approaching the summer of 2007 and the fifth issue of a series that was supposed to come out every six weeks just hit the stands.
So yeah, a few delays. Plus, as the reviewers will tell you in gruesome detail, it’s howlingly bad. Not even so bad it’s funny. Just bad.
Although it’s apparently managed to create one of the most quoted lines in recent comic history with “I’m the goddamned Batman”, which had people swooning on comic message boards with the shock of the terribleness of it.
And now we have the panel below. Understand, it is awful. It’s bizarrely out of character for Wonder Woman (what, you might ask, is Wonder Woman doing in a series called All-Star Batman and Robin? Take a number). Even for Jim Lee, who has certainly never shied away from drawing hyper-sexualized female characters, this is over the top.
And yet I laughed at it. I have female friends who I think will howl in laughter over it and promptly make it the wall paper for their computer. Mireille, I’m thinking of you in particular. You too, Pat.
So relish the horror. And later this weekend I’ll try and recommend some good comics for you to go out and buy.
Copyright DC Comics, 2007
1 comment:
Ya know, I think I'll keep this in mind for halloween; of course, I'll have to draw upon all my creativity to fake those tits.
m.
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