by Matt Brady

Easily one of the most anticipated comics of the year finally reaches stores next week: All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder by Frank Miller and Jim Lee. The first of DC’s “All Star” imprint (and featuring a trade dress and logo designed by Chip Kidd), the ongoing series takes the Batman story back to when Batman was young and relatively inexperienced…and taking on a sidekick named Robin.

We sat down for a conversation with Miller about the series, his views of Batman, Robin, and why he can’t stay away from this particular well.

Newsarama: Let’s start with the obvious question first – what brought you to this project? You’ve said that a lot of it had to do with Jim drawing it – was there much begging or groveling on his part?

Frank Miller: Oh no. Jim doesn’t need to beg or grovel. He’s kind of good at his job [laughs]. Actually, he and I had been talking about doing something together for a long time, and this just felt like the right project. When it was offered by [All-Star imprint editor] Bob Schreck and [DC Executive Editor] Dan DiDio, it just seemed like a natural for the two of us. When I heard Jim was on for sure, that got me on as well. I love the subject, too – Batman is a character I just seem to have to revisit every few years.

I also wanted to do something with Dick Grayson that was a lot different than the bland version that was around at the beginning, or the version that cast him as a quasi-Batman. I wanted Dick to be his own kid. Also, I love the idea of making him even younger than he was before.

NRAMA: How old is he in this story?

FM: He’s only 12 years old. I tell you he’s 12 in almost every third caption, so there’s no doubt.

NRAMA: What is it about Batman that, as you said, draws you back to revisit him every few years? At this point in your career, and with no offense meant to any work you’re planning, I think you could probably say, “I’ve said enough with Batman” and no one would argue with you. What keeps you coming back?

FM: I like him. There are certain characters that just talk to you. I regard Batman as unusual in that I really don’t believe in any single interpretation of him as being carved in stone. I see Batman as a piece of folklore – a huge jewel that you can throw against any wall, and it won’t break, but will show you another way of looking at him. There are at the very least, a dozen different ways to do Batman, and they all work. Everything from Neal Adams/Denny O’Neil to Adam West to Dark Knight – the character is so resilient that he can be interpreted any which way…and work. I, for instance, love Dick Sprang and Jerry Robinson’s depiction, and base a lot of the ways I draw the character on their view of him.

NRAMA: The broad-bodied and barrel-chested guy with short ears on his costume…

FM: Right – if I want to draw a skinny guy, I’ll draw Daredevil.

NRAMA: Going back to the start of this project, how was this pitched to you? Did they say they wanted Batman, or Batman and Robin, or just see what you wanted to do?

FM: They specifically wanted to do Batman and Robin. My first condition was that it would be called Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder. I immediately knew that Robin was going to be the subject of the story. That way, we could play Batman a bit more of the archetype and the stern father, and Robin as the young warrior, learning his way.

NRAMA: That said, your Batman that you’ve shown in previous stories is, if anything, eminently practical, to the point of being methodical and emotionless in his ways. Why in the world would he bring a child into this world of his?

FM: I felt that somebody finally had to explain that, and I worked hard on it.

NRAMA: But still, it does seem to go against his view of protecting innocents, as well as innocence…

FM: No, it makes perfect sense when you think about it. He explains it to Alfred in the story, saying, “I’m a young man, but I won’t always be young, and the mission has to continue.” Robin is his apprentice. He’s training his replacement. That’s the life he intends for Robin.

Of course Alfred’s reaction is, “I’m dyspeptic!” and is horrified that Bruce would do such a thing, and even, if he did something like that, admit it out loud. Alfred already has to deal with this nutcase as a boss, and now he has to worry about a kid as well.

NRAMA: The apprentice approach does seem to go towards the ideas that “Batman would never put a child in danger.” Is it that, he would, if that child is his apprentice?

FM: Well, he didn’t want to get Dick Grayson at this age. It was the murder of his parents that forced his hand. Bruce was going to wait, as he puts it, “Until the kid was old enough to shave.”

NRAMA: So Bruce wasn’t going out, shopping for a12 year-old?

FM: No, but he’d been watching Dick Grayson because he was the most talented kid he’d seen yet. He was planning on taking him under his wing in maybe another six years, but instead, he has to do it when the kid is still too young for the job.

NRAMA: How does that play in the story? It seems that would affect the dynamic that Bruce was planning to have when training his apprentice…

FM: it is important in the series. My Robin is snotty. The two do not get along for a long time. There’s always banter back and forth, where Robin thinks that a lot of the stuff Batman does is old fashioned and weird, and kind of odd – and this is Batman, who is all of 24 or 25. But when you’re 12, a 24 or 25 year old is Methuselah.

NRAMA: Speaking of the whole setting in time, you’ve said that this is, at least, unofficially, “Batman: Year Two” for you…

FM: That’s the way I’m thinking of it, the title is definitely Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. I love having my name on something called that. I always loved the “Boy Wonder” line, before he was turned into the Teen Wonder, and almost a “Grim Robin.” But I just love the idea of a young Robin. That’s why I created Carrie Kelly in Dark Knight - I just loved the contrast between this stocky, tough, dark adult, and a colorful little pixie running around.

Also – if you’re older than 12, are you going to come up wit that costume?

NRAMA: So Robin chose the outfit?

FM: Do you think Bruce would?

NRAMA: Now that you mention it, not really.

FM: Robin creates “Robin,” essentially.

NRAMA: How much so in that regard? Does Bruce even give him the name, or is all of this Dick’s creation?

FM: It’s Dick’s. Bruce hadn’t thought this thing through enough, given that he was somewhat “forced” to take Robin in before he – both Bruce, and Dick – were ready. Bruce is clearly winging it. This is a young Batman who’s trying to figure out what he’s doing. He’s got all the cool toys – he’s got the Batmobile, and is building the cave, but he’s this bachelor. He can solve any murder you want him to, disguise himself as anyone in the world, but handling a kid? That’s kind of outside his purview – somewhere outside of what he trained himself for. So he’s struggling with the whole thing, and it comes down to Robin to pick the identity that he has. I don’t want to reveal it, but it’s pretty cool, the reason he’s called “Robin.” I worked on it for a while, and I don’t want to reveal it now, but I’m pretty happy with it.

NRAMA: What is the effect of bringing Dick in under his wing at this point in time in his career as Batman? Is it the classic, “He humanizes Bruce/Batman?”

FM: I’m playing that as it goes. They’re talking to each other right now. I’ve plotted a lot of this story, but I’m letting these characters talk a lot, back and forth, and they’re defining each other for me. I’m letting them run with the ball right now.

NRAMA: Speaking of Bruce again, in your previous work with him he’s shown different leanings at his different ages in regards to justice, politics, and social issues. He’s not his Dark Knight persona yet, but where do you see him on his continuum?

FM: He’s a man with a mission, He believes that he has, in his own words, in a “holy war,” and is out to save the city. I was very pleasantly surprised to see it phrased the same way in Batman Begins. Batman feels that his mission is to save the city, but yeah, he’s far more idealistic at this point than the beat up Dark Knight we seen in a few decades’ time.

NRAMA: So he still believes the city can be saved at this point?

FM: Yes.

NRAMA: That is idealistic.

FM: One of his key lines is him saying, “Gotham needs me.”

NRAMA: Along those lines, does Batman ever turn, in your eyes? Does he ever realize that the city can’t be saved, and at very best, he can maybe hold it at the brink of chaos, or does that idealism stay with him, even to his dying breath?

FM: If you look at DKII, there’s clearly a lot of idealism there because he was the only one who thought that they could beat the bad guys. Everybody else either fled or became subservient. Idealism doesn’t mean that you can’t be cynical about certain things. For instance, if someone wants me to play Three Card Monte in my neighborhood, I am cynical when I look at them, because I know that’s a scam. But that doesn’t mean I’m cynical about life.

NRAMA: Pulling back from the story and character, let’s talk about your artist on the series…

FM: Yes, please.

NRAMA: How does that work? You’re an artist, he’s an artist, both of you are writers. Is this strictly a writer/artist relationship, or is there more give and take between the two of you?

FM: It’s a lot like it was with David Mazzucchelli. Jim and I don’t talk all that often – we talk now and then; we’re on good terms and everything. But I write a script with panel descriptions and everything in it. My panel descriptions have always been briefer than say, Alan Moore’s…

NRAMA: I think God’s are briefer than Alan Moore’s…

FM: [laughs] Probably. But it’s a difference in style for me. We’re both artists, we’re both writers, but in this project, I am the writer, he’s the artist, and we’re respecting each other’s disciplines. I’ll throw an image at him, but he’ll turn it right around, because we’re very different artists. That’s the pleasure of working with him.

He’s throwing me a lot of curveballs, but they’re all true to the story. It’s wonderful.

NRAMA: Knowing Jim’s strengths, do you find yourself putting things into the script thinking, “Jim’s going to knock this character/panel/image out of the park…”?

FM: Whenever I’m working with another artist, I try to play to them. For instance, when I’m working with Bill Sienkiewicz, he has wonderful powers of being evocative in his art, and he’s also wildly experimental when he wants to be, so I’ll play to that. Working with Dave Gibbons or David Mazzucchelli, I quick realized that these are two artists who are able to make anything believable, so I could make the material more and more complex – or, in the case of working with Dave on Martha Washington, more and more preposterous. He would continue to convince readers that it was true.

With Jim, he has a fine sense of drama, he draws beautifully, and there are certain things that he clearly has proclivity towards – one of them is spectacle, so I’m probably going to be driving him mad with some of the shots I’m calling for. So far, he’s up for it and doing great though.

NRAMA: Tell me a little about the “All Star” setting that this series is in as it’s been described to you. Is it a clean slate type of thing for you to populate as you see fit, or are there established rules of who’s where, when this is set in the larger picture, etc?

FM: If there are rules, no one has told them to me. They wanted me to cut loose with Batman and Robin. I mean, they didn’t want me to turn them into characters they wouldn’t be, but nobody’s every really told this story, as far as I know. I’m taking my time with it, in that it’s a very detailed origin story of Robin. I’m going to be using a lot of DC characters in it. Especially since I’m working with Jim Lee, I’ll be using a lot of the girls…

NRAMA: Are you talking about Batman’s supporting cast, or other heroes, or…

FM: Characters from all over the DC Universe. How am I going to do a Batman comic and not have Jim draw Black Canary? Please.

NRAMA: Knowing you and Jim, I figured Black Canary or a fishnet-era Zatanna would have to be in there somewhere…

FM: [laughs]

NRAMA: Any other names you can drop? After all, it seems that once you start talking about Batman, Superman crops up somewhere along the line…

FM: Oh yeah. I’ve already started writing that part of it. Superman is in it, Lois and Clark are in it. Vicki Vale has a very big part in it as well. I want to reintroduce Batgirl, the original one, and of course, Gordon will be in it. There will probably be an appearance by Wonder Woman as well….and Catwoman, who’s another “must-have” character when you’re talking about Batman.

NRAMA: And Catwoman will be Selina in pretty much the same characterization as she was in Year One?

FM: That’s what I’m planning, yeah. It’s a year later from when she and Bruce first met. Selina though, is as cranky as ever. I love Ed Brubaker’s take on her, don’t get me wrong – he’s done wonderful stuff with her, but my Selina in this story is more of a supporting character while his was a lead character. Ed’s is, as you’ll see, a little more likable than mine in this story. I’m also treating Catwoman as a villain. She hasn’t been a villain in Batman’s world for a long time. She’s a thief. She may be a very sexy thief, but she’s still a thief.

NRAMA: Especially with Jim drawing her…

FM: No, he doesn’t do bad work when it comes to Catwoman.

Also, I’ve got a part for Jimmy Olsen in this too.

NRAMA: Given that you’ve written the later chapters of Batman’s life with Dark Knight, and you’ve written Year One, and this is the unofficial “Year Two,” do you ever entertain fantasies of saying, “F___ it, I’m going to write my Batman from his start to his end. DC, give me ten years, and let me go nuts”?

FM: That kind of fantasy flits through the mind every now and then, but essentially, I write stories when I really have a story I want to tell. I wouldn’t have taken this on if I hadn’t sat down, thought about what they were offering in terms of creative freedom, setting, and everything else. After looking at it all, I realized I had a story here. It does relate to my other stories, but I like the fact that yeah, I’ve done the other bookend, but to show Batman, and more to the point, Dick Grayson becoming a hero…when we first see him, he’s a frightened, traumatized little boy. This is the story I want to tell now.

NRAMA: Traditionally, Robin’s origin and early years have been touched by villains and the costumed freaks of Batman’s world, from Boss Zucco in his 1940 origin to Joker and Two-Face more recently. Are you going to be playing with those themes as well?

FM: Oh yes. I’ve got plans for several of his villains, and they do relate to the overall storyline. It’s not awfully directly, but it is important.

NRAMA: Are you taking the same approach with them that you are with, say, the relationship with Batman and Robin, and making them more logical, at least to you? For instance, getting splashed in the face with acid and going crazy maybe needs a second look?

FM: [laughs] Actually, I find the most terrifying character circling around Batman remains the Joker, and I can’t keep may hands off of him. As I see it, there shouldn’t be anything funny about him. His name should be irony.

NRAMA: What is it with the Joker and you? Is it similar to your attraction to Batman in that you can always find a new facet to him?

FM: The thing is, the Joker is a sociopath and psychopath, but I would rather play up his evilness rather than his craziness. The Joker that I’ve always tried to portray, and now I get a chance to do it when he’s young – he’s satanic. He’s not laughing all the time.

There will be other characters that come climbing into the series as well. I haven’t been on a monthly gig for a long time, and I’ve forgotten how much fun it is. Things just start happening. The pages start coming in, and I see that Jim draws a female character really well, so I want to use her more than I planned. Many things like that happen across the course of the run. It’s almost like doing live theater – you get a feeling of what’s working and what’s not very quickly. It’s one of the really joys of working monthly.

NRAMA: Speaking to that, as you and Jim are looking at it, this is still pretty much open-ended?

FM: The last we talked, I told him that we were sailing past the originally projected six issues, and no one seems to mind. He’s on, I’m on, and we’re going to take this as long as we can. This is back like when we were doing Born Again in Daredevil – we had no idea how many issues it was going to be. It was originally supposed to be four, and then ended up being more than 200 pages long.

One thing you can always count on me for is that I always underestimate the number of pages that I’m going to eat up with my stories.

NRAMA: One could argue that for your fans, that’s not a bad thing.

FM: It is for me and a publisher if it was originally concieved as a 48-page book…[laughs]

NRAMA: Along those lines – how are you fitting this into your schedule? Do you set aside discreet periods where, say, you’re working on Sin City 2, and then stop and do Batman, or does it all just flow as it flows?

FM: I find that the more you do, the more you do. Throw yourself completely into whatever story you’re doing, whatever art job you’re doing. When you do that, you find the time. Maybe you don’t have as much leisure time, but I find that if I love what I’m doing, I never feel overworked. I love doing this stuff, and am thoroughly enjoying the collaboration with Jim, and there are a couple of other artists that I’m talking with about working on some stuff, and I’ve got a big art project I’m working on, and yeah, Sin City 2 is on the horizon, so I’m working on some new material for that. But it doesn’t feel burdensome at all.

I mean, I can’t complain if too much work that I love is the worst of my problems.

NRAMA: Lastly, is this the only Batman for the foreseeable future? At one point, you were working on a Batman/terrorist story…

FM: I’m 120 pages into the inks on that, and am working on it concurrently. That will probably be a single piece, somewhere around 150-200 pages long.

If Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder is “Batman Year Two” this is “Batman Year 1 and ½.” It’s quite a young Batman.

NRAMA: Sounds like you’ve got multiple Batman pots simmering on your stove, and you like it that way…

FM: Oh yeah – but there will be more Sin City, there’s a whole new series I’m planning, and life goes on.

For an earlier conversation with Jim Lee on the series, click on the link.