About Heroes

Writer: Frank Miller
Artists: Jim Lee & Scott Williams

Holy Flying Feces Batman! We got 3 issues of All Star Batman in one summer!  Unfortunately, while they have been interesting, they have not been great.  Isssue seven hits and finally moves the story forward.  Over the summer we saw Batman beat up a rapist, go to the docks, and meet Black Canary.   Oh and Batgirl took up a lot of space.  Robin? Oh, he's still starving in the batcave, but he appears for more than one page in this issue.  Batman kicks the crap out of the goons who were attacking Black Canary, and then proceeds to have sex with her, with their masks on, because according to Black Canary, "it's better that way."  Right.  Batman's not that much of a jerk to leave a girl in the cold rain after a stand, so he gives her a lift home in the Goddamn Batmobile.  Batman brings a good home to the Batcave, tells Robin that this is the jerk who killed his parents, and that he must make a choice.  Robin makes his choice and the issue ends.  So, after 3 issues in the Batmobile, and 3 in the Batcave, I give it another 10 issue before Robin puts on the costume, but I could be wrong because the last page of this book appears to say that this book is finally going to get moving along. 

Frank is keeping his goddamn mantra, with the word being as present in this issue as it was in five and six.  I'm now starting to think that Frank is lampooning us for making a big deal of it back when issue two came out years ago.  Or he could really like the word, but it's just getting tired.  This issue shows why we had the Black Canary origin in issue three, so we would know she kicks ass, loves Batman, and wants to screw him so bad that she doesn't care about splinters in awkward places.  Just give me Batman in each issue from now on, please.  Jim Lee continues to deliever phenominal work, and Batman scares me more in this series than he does in any of his other books.  Lee draws Batman like a maniac, smiling and laughing, clearly enjoying all the pain he's dishing out.  I've never seen Batman grin as much as he has in this series, it's almost refreshing.  A lot of people may not like the way this series is being written, it's too cartoony, too rough-edged, too different from their takes before.  I like rather like it, as Batman has never been more interesting, whether it's the new Playboy in Morrison's Batman or the insane one in this book.  It's these refreshing takes that make me realize why I love the character, it's because the concept of Batman is just so cool that it doesn't matter how he's written, he's just badass, all the time, and this issue definately helps that case.  B- / C+