by: S. Scott Stanikmas

Even though it’s not really necessary at this point, I’m really looking forward to Frank Miller’s Dark Knight III: The Master Race. It gives him a chance to redeem himself from the cash-grab that was The Dark Knight Strikes Again, which was probably the biggest letdown that I’ve read from the author.

This would be a good end note to his DC Comics career, if it turns out to be a classic. But this might not be the last thing we see from Miller in the DC Universe and more specifically from Batman as a character.

DC Entertainment co-publisher and all around kick-ass artist Jim Lee talked to Comic Book Resources about Miller and the upcoming DKIII. And while Lee said that Miller and everyone else was really pumped for the series he also made note that this might lead to a finale for a long thought abandoned title.

If all goes right we could finally see the wrap-up to the series everyone gave up on – All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder, which was written by Miller and drawn by Lee.

“He’s got a great ending to the story and a really cool final scene that was described to me that is just classic,” Lee said.

The series was originally launched in 2005 and, through a very sporadic schedule, saw ten issues published until it went on permanent hiatus in 2008. The series was supposed to be relaunched in 2011 as Dark Knight: Boy Wonder and tie in to the universe originally created in Miller’s 1984 classic The Dark Knight Returns. But that never materialized and soon fans just stopped caring and moved on to other things.

“When I worked on All Star Batman & Robin, I was just coming off of maybe four or five years of just working on Batman, and I just kind of hit a wall with it,” Lee admitted. “But now that I’ve taken a break from it… it’ll be kind of cool to jump back on and finish out. At the end of the day, you want a nice [collected edition] that tells the whole story, and I would love to finish that.”

At this point a collected edition sounds great…considering I can’t remember a damn thing about the series! The only thing that still sticks in my head was The Dark Knight screaming “I’m the goddamn Batman!”

If DC does decide to go through with this I hope they do some kind of bumper editions to bring fans back up to speed. They do these awesome 96-page collections that tie-in to current storylines already. A few of those collecting three or four issues before an All-Star relaunch would hit the reading spot just right and get fans ready for the finale.

But first we have Dark Knight III to look forward to. The first issue hits comic stores November 25.