Which came first: a story with Batman needing an arctic suit or a toy distributor thinking up a new way to sell another Batman figure?
Batman takes a trip to the Arctic to visit Mr. Freeze. The tale is like an old fashioned science fiction story. It's all about an idea untethered from characters and emotions. I suppose the reader is supposed to connect emotionally because it begins with a Frost poem and Nora Fries is mentioned a few times. You can't not feel emotional when you remember "Heart of Ice," right? It's like a free emotional trigger when writing a Mr. Freeze comic book now. But I didn't feel it was much about Batman or Mr. Freeze. It was more about Scott Snyder having read some facts about bats and why they're good at carrying viruses, and he saw a few X-Files episodes about viruses unlocked in melting ice that could become an extinction level event. It was like being at the pub when a friend sits down with a pint of lager and begins the conversation with, "You know what I read about the other day?" Then he proceeds to completely bore you while you stare dreamily at the bartender you've had a crush on ever since you first started going to that pub. How is this All Star Batman? It's more like All Boring Shit Batman.
The back-up story features Batman getting a crossword clue wrong which blows up an innocent person. Still doesn't count as Batman killing somebody!
What Did We Learn?
I don't know what you may have learned but I learned that Victor Fries has terrible taste in Frost's poetry. He had so many better poems to choose from! Like that one about the celebration of a wall or the one where the guy is trying to beat the snow on his way home or the one about the guy lost in the woods or the one about the kids knocking down all the trees. But that fire and ice poem? So boring! At least he didn't choose "Design"!
I just pulled out an examination book from college from the big box of old shit I'll probably never look at again (unless I need something to talk about on my comic book blog) because I thought I had written an essay on "Fire and Ice". But I hadn't. The essay was a comparison of "Design" by Robert Frost and "Hap" by Thomas Hardy. It was in in-class test and here's what my professor wrote: "Bravo! This is the most memorable, the most intelligent discussion I've seen from a student on this challenging topic. Excellent insight and analysis!" Heh, heh. He wrote "anal".
The Ranking!
No change! But my ranking on that test was 33 out of 33. I should have better self-esteem now that I've remembered a professor once wrote "Bravo!" on one of my tests. I could use more "Bravo!"s in my life.
The back-up story features Batman getting a crossword clue wrong which blows up an innocent person. Still doesn't count as Batman killing somebody!
What Did We Learn?
I don't know what you may have learned but I learned that Victor Fries has terrible taste in Frost's poetry. He had so many better poems to choose from! Like that one about the celebration of a wall or the one where the guy is trying to beat the snow on his way home or the one about the guy lost in the woods or the one about the kids knocking down all the trees. But that fire and ice poem? So boring! At least he didn't choose "Design"!
I just pulled out an examination book from college from the big box of old shit I'll probably never look at again (unless I need something to talk about on my comic book blog) because I thought I had written an essay on "Fire and Ice". But I hadn't. The essay was a comparison of "Design" by Robert Frost and "Hap" by Thomas Hardy. It was in in-class test and here's what my professor wrote: "Bravo! This is the most memorable, the most intelligent discussion I've seen from a student on this challenging topic. Excellent insight and analysis!" Heh, heh. He wrote "anal".
The Ranking!
No change! But my ranking on that test was 33 out of 33. I should have better self-esteem now that I've remembered a professor once wrote "Bravo!" on one of my tests. I could use more "Bravo!"s in my life.
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