Batman and Robin #9 features Batman and Robin wearing matching gold in a gold painted room and ends with the characters hugging. As much as that sounds like the setup of a tasteless “Batman and Robin are gay” joke, it’s actually just Frank Miller humiliating himself. Again.

The story is chock-full of Miller’s trademark hijinx, if by hijinx one means assault and battery. Batman confronts the Green Lantern in a safe house painted entirely yellow. Nyo-ho! Batman’s wits triumph again! Batman also makes the standard complaints that the Green Lantern uses his ring to make silly things instead of heavy weaponry. As far as cliched superhero comments go, whining about Hal Jordan’s use of marshmallows and mouse traps fits snugly in between “AQUAMAN IS LAME LOLZ!!!1” jokes and “WHY DON’T PEOPLE KNOW CLARK KENT’S SUPERMAN IF HIS DISGUISE IS JUST A PAIR OF GLASSES?”

After trading insults with GL, Robin steals his power ring, beats him up, and accidentally jams a shard of glass into Hal Jordan’s neck. Batman slams Robin into a wall, gives him a disciplinary left hook or three, then performs a tracheotomy on the hapless Green Lantern. B and R then trek to the Grayson family gravesite. The issue ends with the pair holding each other gently in the rain, letting the tears flow freely.

I know what you’re thinking: What. The. &*%$. This isn’t storytelling. It isn’t even tabloid level crap. It’s a multi-level psychological case study. Not only do Batman and Robin act like poster children for bipolar disorders, Frank Miller proves that, yes, idiocy is contagious. I guess he caught The Stupid working in Hollywood on Sin City and 300. After years of serious work, he’s turned to bizarre and childish crap. It’s like when a decent actor starts appearing in half-wit kids’ movies, or when senility takes hold of a once great politician. At this rate, we can expect to see him running around in public in his underwear, narrating his actions in a film noir voice by early 2009. At least that’ll be worth the money.

Jim Lee doesn’t need criticism. He’s too good. His work on All Star Batman and Robin requires him to draw in an uncharacteristic style, and he does it just as well as his trademark stuff. What Lee needs is a decent writer to work with. He needs Chris Claremont again, or Brian K. Vaughn, or Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, anyone who’s still in charge of his faculties. And understands why glasses are an effective disguise.

Worth the money? Well that’s actually a complicated ques NO.