4 issue test #32 - All Star Batman

I’m still trying to erase Frank Miller’s All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder from my memory. Fortunately, despite the similar title, this title has nothing to do with that. All Star Batman

Now, a quick proviso on writer Scott Snyder. He has a lot of well-acclaimed work and most of it is well-deserved but… I think he might be a tad overrated. His Court of Owls work is fantastic and his run with Dick Grayson’s Batman is second to none. But then I have to look at the previously reviewed Batman Annual #1 (plug) and his two Joker arcs, neither of which are that great in my opinion. Not horrible, just not great. I honestly think Snyder is at his best dealing with villains that don’t have a tonne of backstory and character. He can remodel lesser villains but when dealing with the mainstream villains, and yes I’m counting Mr Freeze, his work is less than stellar.

So, yes, it does worry me that his first arc is focused on Two-Face, one of the more high-profile Batman villains. Plus, this title promises to be a villain palooza with villains being chucked in left and right. Batman: Eternal had this but it was a 52-issue mini-series with a number of different writers, this is a 5-issue arc.

John Romita Jr does the artwork for this series. Whilst I do like the artwork of Greg Capullo in Scott’s previous Batman run, John Romita Jr did some great work back during his Dick Grayson run, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he has up his sleeve.

All Star Batman is longer than most of DC comics’ offerings and sports a $4.99 price tag, nearly double what DC is offering for everything else. Padding it out is backup feature. I’ll cover the backup story separately as part of the review but I’ll be judging each issue as a whole when I come to scores.

Guilty Pleasures #19 - Batman Forever

Ah, it’s been a while since we’ve looked at a live action Batman movie, so let’s continue from where we left off and examine an interesting piece known as Batman Forever.

Batman returns, whilst making money at the box office didn’t succeed commercially, partially I think down to the fact that it did everything in its power not to be suitable for kids other than swearing. So Tim Burton got booted down to producer and Warner Bros. hired a new director, Joel Schumacher.

Yeah, I’ll join the bandwagon of Schumacher bashing when I get to Batman and Robin. Or possibly during this review. Warner Bros wanted a more mainstream Batman movie, Keaton decided to depart after disagreeing with the changes and Val Kilmer was hired and as far as I can tell it was almost immediate and Kilmer had no idea what he was signing on for.

Whilst Burton pandered to the very early days of comics, the very, very, very early days, Schumacher was more in favour of style like the Adam West Batman show so cue puns, cheese and general good times right? Let’s just dive in