A perky, redhaired girl. Something entirely new for Miller.

In All-Star Batman and Robin #6, Black Canary roars into Gotham, Barbara Gordon begins her career as Batgirl, and Jimmy Olsen diverts his eyes from a naked Vicki Vale. Chivalry ain’t dead.

Humor and action were the twin stars of issue #5. Borderline sadism and domestic negligence headline issue #6. I enjoy Miller’s disturbing fight scenes as much as the next man, but there’s something unsettling about seeing a man’s tooth (with attached gum tissue) fly from his mouth. Black Canary is more dominatrix than superheroine, and maybe that’s your thing, but I don’t know…

Even more unsettling is Captain (Jim) Gordon, who yaks on the phone with another woman while his wife drowns herself in whiskey. The “other woman” is Detective Sarah Essen from Miller’s Batman: Year One. While I’m glad Miller’s incorporating elements of Year One, this Jim Gordon seems out of character.

Leave it to Jim Lee to turn a disappointing performance into worthwhile reading. Lee’s work on All-Star is fascinating because Miller’s writing (and, I’d guess, instructions) challenges Lee to step outside his own stylistic conventions. Lee’s forced to mimic Miller’s visual idiom, adapting body language and angles that look more like Sin City than early 90s X-Men. The conclusion is that, once more, Jim Lee is able to draw pretty much anything.

Worth the money? Yes, because of Jim Lee’s spectacular art.

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