Frank Goddamn Miller

Frank Miller's really just screwing with us at this point, isn't he?



(From the preview for All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #6.)

Every single mention of Batman in those panels is as "the goddamn Batman." I know that phrase (very intentionally constructed) took the brunt of some Internet mockery the first time Miller had Batman use it, but now... it's just getting ludicrous. I don't think that's Gordon, talking, either — I feel pretty sure that's Miller's attitude toward Batman at this point.

In fact, I'm almost positive that the entirety of Miller's superhero output over the last six or seven years or so has been intended as a giant middle finger directed right at the very people buying his books.

Frank Miller spent ten years or so outside the mainstream superhero market crafting projects he fiercely believed in, books which were successful creatively and, to some degree, commercially: the various Sin City series and 300 especially. Those were books he wanted to do, ideas and characters which germinated from inside his head rather than from one of the comics companies, and his enthusiasm showed in the work.

But for all of that success, all of that time spent working on projects close to his heart... all it seems comics fans wanted to know was when Miller was coming back to Batman.

The goddamn Batman.

So Miller decided to give the fanboys what they wanted: he followed up his legendary The Dark Knight Returns with the god-awful hellaciously atrocious The Dark Knight Strikes Again, a work which was, on every level, an insult to the readers. The storytelling was frequently impossible to follow, increasingly so toward the end of the book, as if Miller realized he had far more story left than pages allotted; the artwork looked as if it were drawn by a Sharpie-wielding ten-year-old and then colored by that ten-year-old's twelve-year-old sister as her first project learning Photoshop. Backgrounds? Why do we need backgrounds? It's much easier to represent The Future with swirly rainbow colors!

Not to mention the fact that the story, which barely made any sense, succeeded mainly in defecating all over many of DC's iconic characters, especially Dick Grayson.

And the thing, of course, sold like crazy. Miller crapped out a project which practically dripped with his derision for the characters and concepts he was using, and he likely made a huge sum of money off of it. I'm sure that whatever deal he cut with DC to produce the long-awaited sequel to one of their most well-loved and profitable series ever, it included a fairly enormous check with his name on it.

So since that project worked out so well, why not continue it with All-Star Batman? And this time, he doesn't even have to draw it, he just has to write it — again, I'm sure, for a hefty sum. Superstar artist Jim Lee picks up the pencils for this series, ensuring that the series is going to be a gigantic hit. Any book with the names "Frank Miller" and "Jim Lee" would sell truckloads, regardless of what character they were working on; putting those two names on a Batman title was almost a license to print money from a sales and marketing standpoint.¹

All of this means that Miller ends up receiving another healthy paycheck (probably plus royalties) for writing a book about characters he now detests, a book which will prove an enormous financial success regardless of the quality of its actual content. Miller cranks out scripts which betray how little he thinks of these characters ² and variant covers which can't possibly take him more than an hour to put together:




The above image might be the single worst cover I've ever seen to any comic, both in terms of execution and in terms of thematic intent. That's, what, either Wonder Woman as a cheap stripper or a stripper in a bad Wonder Woman getup? Either way, it's awful — this from a man who's crafted some of the most memorable visuals in comics over the last twenty years.

Frank, I don't think anyone would deny that you're a fantastically talented creator — when your heart's in your work. If you don't want to write the goddamn Batman, stop writing the goddamn Batman. I doubt you're in a position where you have to work on this book; if you're doing work you actively detest only for the paycheck, you're doing a disservice to yourself and to the people who're supporting your work from their own wallets. You're nothing but a hack and a whore at that point, and I don't think those are descriptors you want attached to your legacy. Go write and direct movies, go back to your creator-owned work, go retire... just please stop sending out these monthly hate letters to these characters and your readers.

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[1] What I have a harder time understanding is why Jim Lee's continuing with it. I know that the opportunity to work with Frank Miller must be exciting, but Lee's got to realize that what he's being asked to draw is dreck. It ends up being beautifully-rendered dreck, but it's dreck nonetheless.)

[2] Miller's version of Batman, Superman and the rest of the Justice League seem to live on Earth-Psycho: the first words his twisted version of Wonder Woman speaks consist of her calling a passing stranger "sperm bank."