Interesting reviews of the work of Frank Miller were posted by two different writers today.
J.W. Hastings continues his series (one, two) of “comics ain’t for kids” grudge-match tandem reviews of the work of Miller and his contemporary Alan Moore. This time, Miller comes out on top. Generally speaking, I’m all for that–Miller is my favorite comics creator, so much so that any time I attempt to explain why I lapse into semi-incoherence. J.W. is right to criticize Moore’s lack of tonal variation within the confines of a given story–with pretty much any Moore book (excepting, perhaps, Smax?) you can quickly determine what kind of comic you’ll be getting–funny, scary, retro, revisionist, etc–without fear that this will change at all before “The End.” I also enjoyed the way J.W. skewers the occult/conspiracy angle of Moore’s Jack the Ripper epic From Hell, which given the seriousness Moore invests in the topic can come across as simultaneously simplistic and pretentious; and additionally I dug the way he goes after the “this is a comic you don’t have to be ashamed of!” crowd by saying, essentially, “just get over yourself.” But I think J.W. sells From Hell, which I think is in every way a remarkable comic, way too short, particularly in comparing it so unfavorably to Miller’s enjoyable, powerful, but nowhere near as complex or rewarding Ancient Greece war comic 300. Please keep in mind that I’m a lot more receptive to Miller’s emphasis on loyalty, courage, and honor (which, by the way, is a more nuanced take than anyone gives it credit for) than I am to Moore’s mystical-radical hodgepodge (though I’m receptive to that too)–it’s just that in this case I think Moore & Campbell produced a monstrously successful, and important, book.
(I also tend to agree with Alan David Doane‘s view that Miller’s final Daredevil story, Man Without Fear, feels like a redundant coda rather than an essential contribution; to me, Miller said everything he needed to say about Daredevil and his milieu in the astounding Elektra Lives Again. On the other hand, as an excuse for some of the most gorgeous and propulsive superhero artwork in the world, courtesy of a never-better John Romita, Jr., you can’t do much worse than this.)
Writer number two is Chris Allen, who, in the course of a very long column that also includes a spot-on take-down of World War 3 Illustrated and an interesting interview with internet critic Johanna Draper Carlson, reviews Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Again. I was glad to see that Allen enjoyed the former, which he was revisiting after years without having read the book. I myself return to it time and again, and find each visit rewarding (the masterful pacing, the tremendous linework, the splash pages, the manically black humor, and, yeah, the message). So I was bummed out to see Chris jump on the DK2-bashing bandwagon. This is one of the most underrated comics, well, ever. Its detractors employ a panoply of arguments: It’s hurried, it’s sloppy, it’s stupid, it’s hamfisted, it’s cashing in, it’s corporate. (Those last two are inexplicable to me–if Miller wanted to really just cash in he could have handed in something exactly like DK1; and what kind of corporation wants to release a comic in which Batman flies planes into buildings and Superman and Wonder Woman destroy a mountain while fucking?) What they miss is that Miller almost single-handedly wrested superheroes away from the leaden reverence they’ve been saddled with by Alex Ross and his ilk and produced a comic that’s the spandex set’s equivalent of Iggy & the Stooges’ Raw Power. Nothing is true, everything is permissible: Characters scream and shout and let it all hang out, as does the art (panels are obliterated, inking is chunky as hell, and of course Lynn Varley subjects her Photoshop to a panoptic gang-bang), as does the storyline, which begins with Batman and his superhero pals beating the snot out of Superman and then just gets crazier from there. Chris argues that Miller’s refusal to acknowledge, say, the current Flash and Green Lantern secret identities, smacks of “arrogance”–and I say, shit, yeah. What the hell is wrong with us if we think that Wally West and Kyle Rayner deserve “respect” or something? That way lies madness. Miller isn’t saying “comics are better the way I remember them”–he’s saying “comics are better when you break free of the obligation to capital-R Remember anything.” He’s thumbing his nose at the self-reflexive, self-aggrandizing superhero-continuity establishment, and showing that the important thing for superhero comics to do is to ROCK. I, for one, was rocked indeed.