Why the Infamous Comic, All-Star Batman and Robin, was Never Finished

Aw yes. The book that made everyone realize Frank Miller had gone crazy

I love the scene where Batman paints himself, Robin, and the whole room yellow to de-power Green Lantern, and then sips lemonade while lying to Hal’s face that Robin wasn’t Dick Grayson With a smug smile across his face. Hilarious.

the problem with the comedic weird moments is that everything surrounding it is overly mean spirited and causes a mild tonal whiplash. if Allstar Batman was a tongue-in-cheek series or if they toned down Jerkass Batman it would have been received a lot warmer. at least we got THE GODDAMNED BATMAN out of this comic series.

Jim Lee is apparently a really fantastic and stand up guy, this guy mentioned he dropped his sketchbook to see if Lee could review. Lee personally returned it, complimented the guy on his skill and then drew a 2 page spread in the book

I remember buying this comic when it first came out thinking it was going to be like the best thing ever. You had Jim Lee who's an astounding artist and he just got off of Hush with Geoff Loeb. On top of that, Frank Miller's a legend. I don't think I need to say anymore. That being said, this book was a massive disappointment. However, I do say the artwork is fantastic. And it's spawned one of the earliest internet memes 'I'M THE GODDAMNED BATMAN'. That is the only good that I could say came out of this book.

I work at a comic book store and we recently found a couple issues in our boxes of back issues to be processed and the store owner defended the book saying he’s a fan of it, so.... you’re not alone! There’s at least two fans of the book out there.

My theory on why it was never finished? People largely hated this story. This was so over the top it made people actively be repulsed by its content.

The only good things to come out of this series was the art and the phrase "I'm the God damned Batman". The common usage of "Crazy Steve", coined by Linkara. Was also thanks to this series.

For all of its flaws, i still think this comic has Jim Lees best art of his career, heightened by Alex Sinclairs colours and Scott Williams inks as always

Eh, considering how the story came out I think Frank Miller lost interest BEFORE he was hired to write this. As an artist and designer myself, I totally get it. I've taken on side projects for a paycheck and regret making that commitment the entire time I'm working on it. All I could think about was finishing this lame-duck project so that I can jump back on the one I'm more passionate about. At this time, Miller outgrew Batman and already told his story. To have a Miller story illustrated by Lee seems to be an awful mix, to begin with.

Imagine DC one day saying: hey, the all-star movie Superman did well, why don't we make a movie adapting our only other comic from the All-Star line?

Chris, it would be fascinating to see your take on Frank Miller's career trajectory over the years, with all the controversy included! Holy terror is such an insane book, it would be great to hear your thoughts in detail

Frankly, the excuse that these two were so "busy" and so popular that they couldn't finish the project, just tells me they should never done it in the first place.

Ah, yes. Painting everything yellow to combat against Green Lantern is a classic lol

The artwork in this book is amazing. But that’s all that’s good about it really

I remember being bad buzz around one of the last issues published, where Batgirl was cursing like a sailor and editorial had to black those out after the fact, yet people could still read the words printed beneath the black boxes... I'm sure the general backlash against the abysmal quality of the comic had something to do with both Miller and Lee not wanting to stick with it.

Reading this book when I was younger, I was always confused at the last couple of issues and the story it was trying to tell. A weird tough love kind of dynamic where Bruce was attempting to create another version of himself but eventually softened up upon realizing the magnitude of those weird decisions and the determination of Dick’s character. It’s the beginning of a process where Batman’s aggressive, violent tendencies are smoothed over into something more heroic. I think if the material with Black Canary and maybe the Justice League were cut out, maybe instead developing Catwoman and the Joker, they could have made it into a pretty decent Batman and Robin: Year One type storyline that could have been as little as six issues.

Man, I used to love Frank Miller's stuff when I was younger. As I have gotten older his over the top sensibilities have worked less and less for me. Its weird. It seems like after DKR he read Brat Pack and was inspired to make all of his heroes more like the lead "heroes" on that book.

Great ep, I actually had a lot of questions regarding this comic and you answered it all. I think the great fame of both writer and artist were the reason people had huge amount of expectations, and that's a double edge sword. The tone and the story were all over the place, Jim may have been the cause of the delays but his artwork was better than ever, not the same could be Frank Miller's writing. It's not that an over the top action packed "parody" of Batman can't be done, but the problems came that it seemed like there wasn't a clear style or storyline (other than Robin's origin story); sure it could be funny the way Batman talks like a self-aware Deadpool "I say what I want! I am a comic character!" Kind of humor, but in the next page there would be a dramatic 180 shift in tone and something really dramatic it would happen that would need the reader to engage it in a more serious way. And that is usually a dangerously fine line. I can understand the artist and even editorial liken it to something like a musical jam session with two legendary artist, wild and unpredictable by nature, but it was closer to have 2 famous musicians one giving it all and the other being totally drunk doing what in his mind he thought was cool but the audience just take it as him performing awful and sounding like a douche he gets mad when people boo him. I'm just using the analogy the assistant editor chose I'm not trying to judge any all of these artists personal life or artistic choices but trying to be objective about the art itself and what ultimately came to be.

Frank Miller had obviously gone insane while writing All Star Batman. Poor Jim Lee had to bring these delusions to life. The simple fact is that the beauty ofJim Lee's illustrations made the madness bearable.