I have heard so many horror stories about this book that honestly the only reason I read it was for value of not being able to look away from the total trainwreck (thanks Anne). And even going in knowing that wasn’t enough to save me from the all-consuming, fiery rage that this inspired in me. I cannot imagine how pissed I would be if I actually expected “All Star” to mean good.

I don’t even really know where to start with this. The basic premise is that Frank Miller looked at Batman and thought, “He’s just not edgy or gritty enough. I know! I’ll take away all his empathy, add in some child abuse and a dash of misogyny!” The end result is a Batman who’s so far from sane that Joker wouldn’t know what to do with him.

Hands down the worst part of the entire thing is his relationship with Robin. Apparently Batman has been stalking Dick Grayson as a potential prospect for a partner in his war on crime in Gotham. So when Dick’s parents get murdered right in front of him, Batman doesn’t waste a day letting him grieve for them. Grief is for the weak! Dick might actually think and realize that Batman is batshit insane and we can’t have that.

So he literally kidnaps the kid, slaps the shit out of him for being freaked out and then tosses him in the Batcave and disappears. Then later gets mad at Alfred for giving the kid some clothes and something to eat because Batman wanted him to get hungry enough to eat the rats in the cave for…reasons?

There’s also a lot of nonsensical shit talking to the criminals he’s beating up:

And I’m guessing Batman’s understanding of chemistry is a bit different than mine:

And “best” of all, women in this comic exist only to be man-hating lesbians who still have a thing for Superman:

Or a bunch of women whose only role is to be sexed by Batman or rescued by him or both:

Or to randomly attack people because it’s "that time of the month.”

I got tired of Frank Miller’s bullshit a long time ago but I hate you so much for that, you fucking asshat.

Other than kidnapping Robin, there is no real story here. Joker shows up to murder a few women but not actually interact with Batman, Green Lantern shows up to prove how smart Batman is by comparison (it would appear Hal has had a lobotomy recently), Catwoman exists for Batman to feel sad over and Jim Gordon shows up because apparently he’s required to in a Batman story. None of it makes any fucking sense, none of it feels like a goddamned Batman story and it fulfills its trainwreck reputation from start to finish. Even Jim Lee’s artwork can’t save this one.

I’m pretty sure there aren’t enough words in the English language to explain how fucking terrible this is and what a goddamn travesty it is that Miller is still allowed to touch any Batman story so I’ll just leave it with this:

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In 2001, Frank Miller wrote and penciled The Dark Knight Strikes Again (with colors by Lynn Varley), a direct sequel to his seminal work The Dark Knight Returns. Despite selling quite well, it was trashed far and wide by critics and readers alike. Some called it a cash-grab. Some called it an offense to the eyes. Few believed it was possible that Frank Miller could make an even worse Batman book.

And yet, four years later, he did just that. With the help of artist Jim Lee, inker Scott Williams, and colorist Alex Sinclair, Miller gave us All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy-Wonder, a prequel to The Dark Knight Returns (and, debatably, a sequel to Batman: Year One). Again, sales for the book were huge, despite the fact that it was universally reviled for its dialogue, its terrible plotting, and its nonsensical...everything. If you're not familiar with the book, you may be familiar with the following unforgettable line of dialogue, from Batman to a prepubescent Dick Grayson: "What are you, dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the goddamn Batman!"

Image courtesy of DC Comics

Alas, All-Star Batman & Robin never actually concluded. It suffered delays from issue to issue (only one was released in 2006), the last of which was released in 2008. For a while, it was assumed that the book would just join the ever-growing list of perpetually incomplete comics. Then, in 2010, it was announced that the series would start up again in 2011 under a new title: Dark Knight: Boy Wonder. Well, 2011 came and went, as did 2012, 2013, 2014, and now 2015 with nary a single issue to show for it.

But according to Jim Lee, that may soon change. Lee told Comic Book Resources:

I would love to get back on ['All Star Batman & Robin'] and close it out. [Frank Miller's] got a great ending to the story and a really cool final scene that was described to me that is just classic. You know, when I worked on 'All Star Batman & Robin,' I was just coming off of maybe four or five years of just working on Batman, and I just kind of hit a wall with it. But now that I've taken a break from it - and certainly while working on 'Batman: Europa' - it'll be kind of cool to jump back on and finish out. At the end of the day, you really want a nice trade and collection edition that tells the whole story, and I would love to finish that. That'll be fantastic.

Keep in mind, we've heard this kind of thing before, so don't get your hopes up that this deal will actually come to fruition (if, indeed, you have hopes for such a thing). Having said that, I confess to being morbidly curious myself as to how All-Star Batman & Robin (or Dark Knight: Boy Wonder) will end.

As I recall, there wasn't much of a throughline in the original book. Various superhero-related things just sort of happened. Batman tortured Robin, making him eat rats in the Batcave for like five issues straight. Vicky Vale walked around in her super sexy lingerie. Black Canary beat up a bunch of random street thugs, then had sex with Batman in the middle of the street. Wonder Woman was a man-hater, a symbol for Frank Miller's disdain for feminism. The Joker had a bunch of tattoos. (Thanks, Miller, for Jared Leto's Joker.) And all the other superheroes (understandably) didn't like that Batman was a complete psychopath going around kidnapping and terrorizing children for his own amusement.

How do you end a book - a story - like that? By carting Batman off to prison? By locking him up in Arkham Asylum? Maybe, but that still doesn't make sense of all the other disparate threads going on (Vicky Vale, Joker, Black Canary, et cetera). Regardless of what the ending will be, this comic book is destined to go down as one of the most awful to ever exist. And it's that awfulness - that magnetic, so awful awfulness - that will see the conclusion sell like hotcakes. If Miller and Lee ever return to working on this book (and that's a big if, given what we've seen and heard in the past), then I imagine it'll make for a pretty huge event. After all, people have been waiting a long time for their specific brand of nonsense.

In the meantime, you can check out the next sequel to The Dark Knight Returns - Dark Knight III: The Master Race (written by Miller and Brian Azzarello and drawn by Klaus Janson and Andy Kubert) - on November 25th when the first issue ships.

Is All Star Batman and Robin worth reading?

and so produce a fantastic story with one major drawback… many years have passed since the comic books were first published and the series is still to be completed. Still, this is a great re-imagining of the Batman and more essentially the Robin, Boy Wonder franchises. 8 out of 12.

What happened to all star Batman and Robin?

Unproduced sequel Instead of falling under the "All Star" imprint, the series was to be re-branded as Dark Knight: Boy Wonder, and would run for six issues, completing the story Miller originally intended to tell. As of 2024, however, this series has yet to be published.

How many issues of All Star Batman and Robin are there?

The first issue of All Star Batman and Robin was the highest-selling comic book of 2005, selling more copies than the first issues of the crossover events of both DC Comics (Infinite Crisis

1) and Marvel Comics (House of M

1). The series unfortunately ended on a cliffhanger with issue 10.

Is All Star Batman and Robin canon?

The All Star titles are self-contained story arcs existing outside of official DC Comics continuity. Despite sharing a label with Grant Morrison's All Star Superman, All Star Batman and Robin exists in its own continuity unrelated to other books in the All Star imprint.