The Dark Knight Returns

Writer/Artist: Frank Miller

Well. I remember this very fondly. This is the super bad-ass Batman. The gritty, dark Batman. The Batman, which, not surprisingly, appealed to me when I was younger but not so much now. In all honesty, this comes off as a bit of a mess now.

The whole thing starts off fine with an introduction to the "future" we'll be living in and the return of Batman. It sets up the conceit that was new at the time that Batman is the truth and Bruce Wayne just a mask. Excellent, fine. The story builds to the reveal of Batman and then goes off on its merry way to a conflict between Two-Face and Batman. All fine. And that's what's so frustrating about this book. Everything starts off so well. Yes, Miller's . . . quirky . . . social/political views are there in all their one-dimensional glory, but it's easy to let them fall to the wayside when you're enjoying a kinetic interpretation of Batman. Miller keeps the storytelling lively with his use of small panels, his tight control of pacing, and the expressive character designs. Lynn Varley keeps that electricity up with her smart color choices. As with much of Miller's important later work (DK2, 300) Varley's colors prove an important part of the comic as a whole.

But the first frayed threads begin showing up very early on. During the first scene with Harvey Dent there is a clever splitting of the panels that both informs the reader and represents the split underlying Dent's character. The problem is that the split continues onto the next page where it serves no narrative purpose. This seems minor, but it's symptomatic of larger problems. Miller doesn't know how to control his concepts, his conceits--they quickly spiral out of control. Whether the inconsistencies in the book are a result of lack of control or just lack of planning, they exist nonetheless.

Case in point: In the third section, Batman faces down the Joker and must deal with the consequences of his decision to never kill. This scene culminates with Batman's inability to kill being reinforced. The problem is that in the previous two books there are sequences that seem to depict Batman killing the bad guys. It might be argued that these instances aren't clear and that they should be retroactively read in the appropriate context. But that is precisely the point: if Batman's code was so important, it should have built up before the Joker storyline, not seemingly undermined. The entire book suffers from this problem--a lack of cohesion.

And the Superman fight screams of fan wank.

I love good formal use of the medium. I love lively art. But ultimately these things have to be held together by a good, coherent story and the Dark Knight Returns just doesn't have it. All it gives is surface.

Status: Garbage Heap