Brand Miller

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I would go on to read Batman: Year One and also be blown away. In retrospect, I realize that there were hookers, ninjas and WTF Nazi imagery in both of these graphic novels, but these elements remained in the background while a story was being told, characters were actually developed and mythology reinvigorated.

Going into the ’90s, there was no star brighter in the comic book world than Frank Miller’s. Sure, he had some bad luck writing the screenplays for the mixed to poorly received Robocop 2 and 3, but he blamed it on studio interference. Although some of the warning signs were showing in those screenplays, many fans in the early ’90s were like me and dismissed it to focus on his new series, Sin City, for Dark Horse Comics.

If there was one comic I bought whenever it came out in those days, it was Sin City. Miller’s stark, shadowy black and white artwork was a revelation, and while the stories seemed to get crazier with ninjas, militant hookers and yellow bastards, it still seemed to make sense in the always rainy and corrupt Basin City.

Little did I know that this would lead to the trappings of Brand Miller.

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2001 saw the release of The Dark Knight Strikes Again (aka DK2), Miller’s sequel to The Dark Knight Returns. I had high hopes for it but ultimately experienced the exact opposite of my earlier blown-away feeling. It took me one issue of DK2 before it was apparent that some definite suckage was going on. Maybe I missed something the first time around, but it was hard to admit that my favorite comic book creator now had a bum comic series on his record.

In 2005, I went to see the movie version of Sin City. The reviews were good – directors Robert Rodriguez and Miller pulled off an excellent adaptation that at times seemed ripped straight from the page. My friends who had never read the comics didn’t get some of the Brand Miller tropes, like all the women either being strippers, deceitful money grubbers or prostitutes. Oh, and a ninja prostitute. “Pish posh, you’re all thinking too hard about this,” was all I could say. With the success of Sin City, Brand Miller was slowly breaking the surface.

The film version of Miller’s graphic novel, 300, was released in 2007. There was little substance, but the movie did have many impressive visuals and action sequences. The film highlighted a number of elements that had eluded me in the graphic novel – primarily, the inferiority and cartoonish monstrousness/fanciness of the Persians and androgyny of King Xerxes, contrasted to the genetic utilitarian superiority of the Spartans (who for all intents and purposes are coming from a fascist society).

But alas, I again stopped myself from thinking too hard about it. This was a movie about a bunch of near-naked dudes (totally naked in the comic, by the way) poking things with their spears and slashing things with their swords, right? Trying to deconstruct it too much is madness – end of argument. Maybe that was the case with the original graphic novel, written before 9/11. Around the time that the film was released, though, Miller had written an essay on the effect 9/11 had on him.

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