September
10 Miller's potty-mouthed Batman issue unmasked

I've been meaning to write something for weeks now about Superman in the zeitgeist and his movie situation, but Batman keeps popping up and interfering. This time, it's comic-book Batman making some news as a notice was sent to all Diamond retailers asking them at the request of DC Comics to destroy any copies they received this week of All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #10.

The reason: Frank Miller wrote a script for the comic in which he asked that black bars be used to cover up the many profanities in the dialog. The problem is that when the book was printed, the profanities were legible through the black bars. Rich Johnston at CBR has good-quality scans if you want to see. Being a former production editor, I have to agree with the proposed theory over at The Beat, where the story first broke, that the letters in the balloons were separated in the computer in what's called "rich black," which is a deep black made up of all four inks used in the printing process, while the black bars were just printed with black ink. It'll look fine on the screen and on proofs, but not on the printed version. It's more a production error than anything else — I assume Miller had permission from his editor and other DC execs to do this — but it's still understandable that DC wouldn't want a Batman comic in shops with that kind of profanity in it. DC plans to reprint the comic correctly and re-ship it to retailers in two weeks.

Copies of the error edition are already commanding plenty of attention and big bucks on eBay, with copies earning bids as high as $150 for the variant cover edition.

Such errors have happened before — 10 years ago an anti-Semitic slur was printed by error in the dialog for Marvel's Wolverine #131. Marvel recalled the issue, but a corrected replacement edition was promptly sent out. DC has pulped comics before. In 1999, the Elseworlds 80-Page Giant was pulped because DC prexy Paul Levitz deemed a humorous story in which Superman's babysitter put the invincible infant in a microwave oven was inappropriate. DC also pulped an issue of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because one of the authentic vintage ads featured in the backmater was for something called a "Marvel Douche."

What baffles the mind more than anything else is the creative direction of the entire All-Star Batman series. Announced in January 2005 via a piece in The New York Times, it was to be "part of a new group of titles in which top artists and writers will create stories not bound by decades of continuity." The series features excellent art by Jim Lee, but has never stuck to a schedule — hence only 10 issues having been completed in the more than three years since issue 1 came out. The comic has also polarized fans by portraying Batman as a nearly psychotic child abuser, speaking in hilariously arch dialog and engaging in such embarrassments as a sex scene with Black Canary in issue #7.

Taking it into the realm where even characters like young Batgirl are using words like "f---" and "c--t" — even if they are masked out — is less surprising given the previous nine issues, but it does make you wonder how surreal and just plain messed up this series can get. Plus, if this is the where Miller's creative vision is at these days, what does this portend for the upcoming "The Spirit" movie? The trailers so far seem to have more in common with the tone of All-Star Batman than his superior work on "The Dark Knight Returns," "Give Me Liberty" and early "Sin City."