When they revisited stories like Age of Apocalypse, Days of Future Past, Kingdom Come, The Dark Knight Returns, etc, etc, the results were almost always unreadable.
WRONG!
DKSA and ASB&RTBW (from now on referred to as DK:BW) is a work of sheer genius (maybe mad genius, but still genius) and just as readable as DKR. The only problem is the artwork Jim Lee’s work doesn’t suit Miller’s outlandish noir pulp writting style so people look at it assuming it’s a normal hero book like Lee always draws and then the writing seems absurd, and DKSA is just garbage art, I don’t think Miller knew what Photoshop could and couldn’t do and assumed his wife would have more coloring skills or something, and when the art looks that bad no one is willing to give the story a chance.
anyway, I hope this “Before Watchman” BS gets Jim Lee off his ass so he FINALLY finishes Dark Knight: Boy Wonder, they can call it “Before the Dark Knight Returned” since it actually IS a prequel to a classic work as intended by the original creator and release it as a cash-in-tie-in-cash-in!
Well, first off, the man's not "WRONG!", he's expressing an opinion. Secondly... he's right, they're unreadable. My own recollection of DKSA was that I was apprehensive about it (since I don't particularly care for Miller's latter day work), but I found the first issue exceeded my expectations. The second issue, though, was as bad as I feared the series would be, and the last issue was just a mess. As for ASB&R, I will admit upfront that I haven't read much of it, but enough to consider it an abomination.
To me, Miller's latter-day Batman work (and I'd include the Batman/Spawn book he did with Toddy Mac) fail on two levels:
1. He's writing a character I don't recognize, don't like, and don't particularly want to read about. And that's not a problem necessarily; after all, one could say the same about the Batman from the original DKR. However, when you combine that with...
2. The man seems to have lost whatever storytelling craftmanship skill he had. Seriously, these are bad, inept comics; if they were produced by anyone not named "Frank Miller", they probably never would have even seen the light of day. Miller strikes me as a guy (and I think the Spirit movie confirms this) that believed his own press, all those claims of his genius, a little too much. He's like a Will Ferrel character in the first half of the movie (the part where he's drunk on his own hubris, before his downfall and humble return).
Miller's latter-day Batman work reads like a hate letter to the character, which is odd because Batman made Miller a Superstar. Not a STAR, mind you, because he was already that, but a SUPERSTAR. Batman made Frank Miller *FRANK MILLER*, and he seems to have enough self-awareness left to really resent it.
Anyway, my two cents. You're welcome to disagree.
