A few ASBAR scans

[mystery]

I was just thinking about the flying Batmobile and how I don't like it now, but I didn't mind it so much in ASBAR. Maybe because everything in ASBAR is so out there and obviously an AU as opposed to canon. It's also because of the way the car itself is drawn, turns out. And how it's on the ground a lot of the time. Anyway, thought I'd share some ASBAR pics. And one page (the last one here) that made me smile because it's just so. darn. dramatic.











These are from All-Star Batman and Robin #2 and #4.

tags: title: All-Star Batman and Robin, char: Batman/Bruce Wayne, char: Alfred Pennyworth, char: Nightwing/Robin/Dick Grayson, char: Vicki Vale, creator: Jim Lee, creator: Frank Miller, creator: Scott Williams

Comments

[mystery]

Here's a link about the underwear scene. http://geoffklock.blogspot.com/2008/09/comics-out-september-24-2008-all-star.html

What struck me most about that--other than being appalled--was exactly what this guy addresses: the proportionality. Why so many pages in a book about Batman and Robin get the focus they do. Here's an excerpt:

The first issue has five full pages -- nearly twenty five per cent of the comic -- in which Vicki Vale dances around in bra and panties. It is the storytelling equivalent of drawing a woman with huge out-of-proportion breasts (a drawing style Jim Lee has some experience with): the time devoted to her is as out of proportion as Miller's women usually appear visually.

Exacerbated by the slow publishing of All Star Batman Robin has been in the car with Batman for 11 months of my life. And don't think it's just a publishing issue: even monthly, four issues is a long time to keep your two title characters in a car. Miller intended this. Drawing attention to the gap, Batman has grown stubble between issue one and two, though surely very little time has passed. That's how much of a man he is. Hilarious. Miller's jacks up his already famously hyper-masculine characters.

The writing is not just repetitive, its absurdly repetitive. To quote from the first issue (copying the book's repetitions rather than repeating myself), Robin says "They're always there for me. They always catch me. Mom and dad. They always catch me. They're always there for me. They're always there for me." The identical sound of "They're" and "there" makes it much worse; this is intentional. In the next scene Vicki Vale says "I'm having a date with Bruce Wayne. I'm having a date with Bruce Wayne. I'm having a date with Bruce Wayne. I'm having a date with Bruce Wayne. How cool is that? I'm having a date with Bruce Wayne. How cool is that?" Cut back to Robin: "They're always there for me. They always catch me." Cut to Vale: "I'm having a date with Bruce Wayne. Hot Damn." Miller wrote those words on paper before they were put in word balloons in the comic books. Try typing them out on Word, as I just did, and you will see that no one can write like that and intend it to be taken seriously. Miller knows what he is doing (which should not surprise anyone who has read Dark Knight Returns).

/End excerpt

Okay, sorry for the long bit, but I think Klock's got an excellent point. (He's a lit critic and professor who wrote "How to Read Superhero Comics and Why". I'm not saying that makes him the end authority, but I do happen to agree with him.)

Oh, and I still feel the portrayal of WW is worse (much worse and more derogatory) in WW: BN than Miller's treatment from the eight pages she showed up in in ASBAR.

[benicio127]

Okay, sorry for the long bit, but I think Klock's got an excellent point.

Oh I agree. I'm just coming at this from a woman's perspective.

Oh, and I still feel the portrayal of WW is worse (much worse and more derogatory) in WW: BN than Miller's treatment from the eight pages she showed up in in ASBAR.

It's a different portrayal. I don't know if I'd agree that it's worse, but it's definitely much more subversive. I've read so little of WW that I can't comment on whether or not it was right to have her making out with Batman as being the catalyst that turns her into a Star Sapphire. (Is that right? ...I always get my colours mixed up. D:)
But my thoughts on that are if she loves all beings and everything, why not let her see people committing great acts of love and compassion, then?

[mystery]

Well, I'm coming at this from a woman's perspective, too! I'm a woman (and a feminist) So my perspective isn't not a woman's.

Agreed that WW:BN is more subversive. And yep. Star Sapphire. The all-female legion of pink bra and panties wearing embodiments of sexual, romantic love.

[benicio127]

Oh! LOL. Clearly that wasn't a full thought up there. The prof was looking at it from more of a metatextual POV, is what I should have added.
I meant to say how I was looking at it more in terms of the prof, not you. :-)


He brought up another interesting point about the medium. If ASBAR was ever made into a movie, I think it would probably be taken more seriously. And would definitely not translate.
Because in comic form, it is so over-the-top on so many levels, there is this idea that it could be a metatextual commentary on sexism/hyper-masculinity in comics.
I still can't give Miller the credit for doing that, but like I said, I'd love to read his script for it.

I particularly loved the line about Batman growing facial hair in a matter of hours. This happens in Batman: Arkham Asylum. By the end of the night, Bruce has serious five o'clock shadow going on. He is just THAT manly.

Do you think there would be an uproar if a creator ever came out and much more overtly showed or suggested Batman has a less-than superhuman sexual prowess?
Because if you think about it, it's already been suggested by Grant Morrison that Batman's seed is The Most Amazing Seed In The World.(TM) Damian is the uber-product of this.