>writes the two best Batman comics ever (still haven't been beat)
>stops writing Batman for fifteen or so years
>proceeds to write a bunch of really abysmal Batman comics
What happened?
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>writes the two best Batman comics ever (still haven't been beat)
Please refer to Sick Boy's unifying theory of life.
>Sick Boy's unifying theory of life.
9/11 arguably. He was right down the street when it happened.
You forget in between that, he also wrote Spawn/Batman. This is notable because Frank Miller vowed to not write for DC proper until Dennis O'Neil wasn't in the Batoffice anymore. This is due to Dennis OK'ing an early Frank Miller drawn story for the complete Frank Miller Batman collection of the late 80's. Frank wanted it stricken from his record as it where, and leaving it in pissed him off enough to go indie.
For what its worth, this page for Spawn/Batman, done through Image, pissed off Dennis enough to curse outloud when he opened up the envelope with the pages. Being produced as an Image book, Dennis didn't have editorial authority over it and apparently he took offense to Batman using a Batarang like that.
I wonder how much of Dennis' editing effected DKR/Year One, even if it was just saying "don't do that" or "maybe you can do this?". Its still Frank's book but he might've worked better under restrictions than considering him untouchable and a living legend like he was when he came back for DKR and All-Star.
okay I'm gonna confess, I really did forget that because I have never read it. Should I read it?
Its an alright action romp. Feels like a lot of Franks books of the era besides Sin City and Martha Washington(maybe I should say Frank's one-shots/minis or collaborations?); he's playing to his artist's strengths and preferences(in this case, letting Todd make a book full of cool shots and action)
>batman fanboys throw b***h-fits when batman does something their self-insert wouldn't do
not surprising
>I wonder how much of Dennis' editing effected DKR/Year One
very little considering batman used firearms, stuck batarangs into people, killed at least one guy, and was in a sexual relationship with selina kyle
the reason why miller's writing got sloppy was because he lost touch, he's old as shit, got some horrible disease, and was clearly traumatized by the muslim terrorist attack of 9/11. people change over the years and it really shouldn't surprise you when writers just aren't as good as they were.
I still don't think he killed anyone in DKR during that scene because there's no impact on the person or them falling over plus the scene later in the book where Batman says someone calls him a killer and him saying ''I wish I were'' doesn't work if he murder that one guy and him grabbing the gun to shock the woman holding the baby is easy way to get her to drop him.
superman's internal monologue implies that batman killed someone and covered it up, this would have taken place right before bruce wayne retired as batman in the early 70's
>the scene later in the book where Batman says someone calls him a killer and him saying ''I wish I were''
he says that when he stops himself from killing the joker, because he knows that even if he kills him, he'd be giving the joker what he wants.
>grabbing the gun to shock the woman holding the baby is easy way to get her to drop him.
i know you're smarter than that, stop pretending to be stupid, there's a gunshot, the crook slumps over with blood behind her, then batman picks up the child. even in the next scene batman is questioning the sole survivor of that encounter, and its not the woman
There's no hole in the woman though. You might say artistic license, but most death in the book is drawn very to the point (aside from the guys in the helicopter bomb), so if she was shot, she'd be looking like swiss cheese
I always just saw it as dirty wall or a flash cuz rest of the book the blood is bright red.
Even in shadows.
For someone defending the book you didn't really get it. The whole point of that sequence is that Batman scares the shit out of the mutant because he doesn't know Batman isn't going to kill him. For the book to work they way it does Joker has to be the only time he even considers it an option. Joker robs him of knowing if he ever would.
Miller really pushed Batman being against killing more than any major creator of the time, usually if Batman had an encounter with an enemy and they died as a result of their own actions(jumping trying to kill Batman and falling on a spike, locking themselves in a safe with a bomb) Batman would casually look and ruminate "poor devil" or something.
Yeah Alan Grant's Batman few years after Miller's really played on the whole ''I won't kill you but don't have to save you'' Begins thing and other writers too but his had the most, funny mainstream Batman was more a murder than Miller's back then.
If anything its testament to just how influential DKR is that after Begins came out people who were more familiar with DKR and Year One than 20 years of stories in the 70's/80's took major offense to Batman letting R'as die. Making a statement about it is a bit much even for the era, but the sentiment was there. Comic Bats would say something like "R'as you deluded fool! I couldn't save both of us! You've doomed yourself!"
If they really think Batman is a killer because the book "implies" it they missed the whole point. Batman in Miller's view is a noble crusader, but he uses that element of feat, revels in it and uses it to his advantage. He operates outside of accepted circles but is more heroic than say, Superman, who works under sanction but is very likely complacent in killings(whether DKR Superman is directly a killer or not I do not honestly remember, I honestly dislike the portrayal so whether he is or isn't is irrelevant as I inherently dislike it); by all respects its meant to frame Clark as a hypocrite
>batman fanboys
Dennis basically refined the modern Batman.
>very little considering batman used firearms,
Not entirely unheard of in old Batman stories. As long as he wasn't using it for killing people but as a tool. Miller is the one who made him really anti-gun with the "Weapon of the enemy" speech
> stuck batarangs into people,
probably accepted as an extreme take necessary for the story.
>killed at least one guy,
not true
>and was in a sexual relationship with selina kyle
Dennis O'Neil wrote a Batman who fricked, though.
For the record, he took offense in Batman using a Batarang like that outside of a life or death situation and using deadly force( albeit on an inhuman being) out of pettiness. In Dennis' view Batman would be far more disciplined than that. The page is basically a joke but Dennis took offense to showing him in such a light.
>pic related
Also I think 9/11 sent him a bit nuts? His book Holy Terror was originally meant to be Batman. His politics took a weird turn for the worse.
His drinking and painkiller abuse got a whole lot worse in the early '00s and then got kicked up a notch after Lynn got sick of his shit and left him.