Very few of my relationships with Batman comics start off as rocky as with this book. Truthfully i read the first two issues and thought it was an affront to the character of Batman, specifically the whole "god**** Batman" line. (I may have said to some it was like Frank Miller ate Joel Schumacher's Batman movies and vomited them into a comic) But, i kept on getting it to see where is was going. It was after reading the whole thing together (without months between issues) that i actually saw how cool the book really was. I feel like this is giving me the same reaction i got when i read Frank Millers Batman: Year One; Not that he is just redoing what he has already done, but has taken a character and casted him in a new light. What i loved about Year One was that it took Batman and made him vulnerable; he was actually losing through some of that book, and that made this Batman more real to me. (I was only familiar with the Animated Series Batman at that point) All Star does this by taking Batman and saying that it is ok for you to be that other side of Batman; the Batman that Batman doesnt want you to be. A Batman that likes to maim the criminals, beat the shit out of cops(set fire in some cases), and doesnt care if a few are killed in the process; basically a noticeably damaged Batman.
I think Batman said it best in issue 7 "... I'm half-crazy. But only half. The other half is doing just fine."
Now, if only they would get off the hiatus and start putting out issues regularly.
