From Cosmic Comics, the retailer I contacted about selling product that the publisher and distrubutor wanted destroyed....

I asked....

Retailers were asked to destroy these books. And you and others didn't....why? This type of product is a black eye on the hobby...why not go with the publishers and distributors wishes?

Their reply......

First of all, we were given the option of destroying the books, we weren't ordered to destroy them. Both the publishers and distributors were well aware from similar past experiences that the books would immediately become collectible. This may be a hobby for you but this is a business for me. I would be very surprised if you could find any retailers who knowingly destroyed books they could make more than 1000% profit on. I can't afford to be that magnaminous. Lastly, the notion that selling books on ebay to customers who are aware of the content is "a black eye on the hobby" is disingenuous, self richeous nonsence

John Byrne

DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Instead, everyone fell all over themselves cheering his "vision" of Batman. So for 20 years now, every time Frank has come near the character, his Batman has been declared "definitive". Suddenly it isn't?

It never was.

DKR's real audience was a bunch of angry young men who can't tell you what they're angry about -- just that they're angry about everything and believe in nothing. A lot like the Sons of the Bat in DKR, actually.

This is the same kind of nihilistic audience that gets all fuzzy inside whenever they catch a viewing of Fight Club.

The point that most readers of DKR seem to miss is that, in the end, The Batman gets put out of circulation because he outlived his usefulness, as expressed by the words that Miller put into Wayne's mouth.

This is not the "glorious" end of -- say -- Camelot's King Arthur that gets carted out with great ceremony to Avalon, to rest until England needs him again. The Batman in DKR was intended to be buried for good, along with the Wayne identity ... another thing that people who defended DK II seem to ignore.

What little I've seen or know about AllStar suggest to me that Miller thinks he's speaking to an updated version of the same angry and intellectually unfocused crowd as in 1986's DKR.

My brothers in law are in their early 20's and then used to say "fuck this" and "cunt that" all the time, for no apparent reason. They were also always angry about something, again, for no apparent reason. When I tried to draw them out and find out what they were angry about most of it seemed to be that it was the "in thing" to be ... like wearing ill-fitting jeans that fell below the line of their asses and showed off their BVDs.

In the final analysis, Miller might actually be as brilliant in his decisions on AllStar and he was on DKR ... the hitch being that most of us are now too old, and conservative, and disconnected from the "world that's coming" to appreciate what he's trying to do.

Betcha my brothers in law would love the "sperm bank" line coming out of a bodacious but emotionally castrating MIller WW. Mark, in particular, seems to be drawn to "bad women" who are bad to him.

Heh. Can spell 'disingenuous', but not 'self-righteous'. It's good to know
just how intelligent the person who is insulting you is.

Oh I'm flattered.....no doubt about it.

John Byrne

Better tell DC, then! For 20 years now we've been seeing a Batman was was a mix of DKR and "The Killing Joke".

They've certainly been acting that way.

I dunno, maybe it's a question of the "good fans" being too quiet and the "bad fans" being too loud. For example, DC might get 20 letters from good fans and 1000 letters from bad fans and just assume the bad fans are in the majority, while in fact, they are just a noisy minority.

Good fans -- Enjoy reading heroic depictions of superheroes.

Letter to the editor: Thank you, I was really touched by your story "The Batman that never was".  I feel that you've elevated the art that is comicbooks to new heights.

Bad fans -- Enjoy reading banal depictions of superheroes

Letter to the editor: Great story. Loved the way Batman whaled into those guys, then went home and felt guilty for days, not shaving and drinking away. You guys are making these stories real.