Graphic Novel Review- The Dark Knight Returns

The Dark Knight Returns, written by Frank Miller and pencilled by him, too.

In short, I love it. But there are some things I could stand to see improved. Or, you know, done differently.

The panel art would be one. Not necessarily the art, but the panel structure, the sequential layout of some pages, mostly those showing television broadcasts. I just got distracted by the frame by frame linear layout, in such small panels it felt a bit like poring over a strip of negative film, and because of when the graphic novel was published the artwork wasn't as detailed as it could have been, which doesn't go well with small panels. The pages where action happened or something other than the televisual commentaries on the plight of Gotham broke out of that mould, which was good, but I'd have liked to see less of the story told through TV. Year One, also penned by Miller and reviewed here, didn't have this problem being masterfully pencilled by David Mazzucchelli, but as Miller takes it on himself to pencil The Dark Knight Returns it just falls a little flat in places.

On balance, the choice of villains (or villainous population) could be given a bit of an overhaul. As uprisings go, mutants in Gotham is a bit far-fetched. Alright, so mutants per se not so much, see Killer Croc or Clayface or a dozen others, but a fairly unexplained population of mutants en masse... seems a bit Marvel, not gritty Miller. But hey, he gave us The Goddamn Batman too in All-Star Batman and Robin, so he's obviously mental. It's just that the mutants are so very... eighties.

See?

Secondly, continuity, the lack thereof, or the mess when anyone mentions continuity, comics and the resulting explosion of heads.

I'm not a die-hard, hardcore, completely immersed comics follower/ fan. I put my interested amateur approach down to two things- one, the amount of money it would take to actually follow all of the expansive, fluid mass that is a comic universe, and two, little gimmicks and money spinning ploys like DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, essentially giving them free reign to rewrite possibilities with the handwavium-structure of infinite alternate universes. This means that some storylines are not canon, officially, which is a shame. The Dark Knight Returns, where it leaves Bruce Wayne, his future plans and Gotham City's law enforcement, would fit brilliantly with Kingdom Come, for example. But they exist on different Earths, apparently, notwithstanding a rather large plot point concerning the Joker that makes it all chronology impossible. As spiritual and thematic siblings, however, they both fit exceptionally.

On that note regarding the Joker, there are so many villains we don't get to see in the stead of what is a tired adversary across all Batman titles now. The same old Batman vs Joker has been going on forever. We get Harvey 'Two Face' Dent for the first book of this graphic novel, but that's it. The Joker and the mutants takeover as the antagonists, and it's a bit tired, really.

And in terms of continuity, Carrie Kelley is a pretty good Robin, making it a real kick that she isn't a canonical Robin after Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and Tim Drake. She was the first female Robin we saw, not Stephanie Brown, and it's a damn shame this plucky kid with parents too stoned to notice she's gone isn't in the real or official Batman lore.

The story itself is pretty good, with Batman pitted against a Gotham City Police Department who want his guts, no longer protected by Jim Gordon who retires, fighting more and more criminals than before, older and slower having come out of retirement himself and, at one point, on a god damned horse. An image I've no idea how to feel about- it's as awesome as it is bizarre.

The set up books are what makes this graphic novel, with the reasons, setting and process of Bruce Wayne becoming the Batman again building mysteriously and tersely, and resulting in the rediscovery by the criminal underworld of what Batman can be. A shadow, slipping around and knocking you down before you know it. The first few attacks, on lower-peg lowlifes, has a nice nod to the first few Batman attacks in Year One, down to the pimp being a target for backhanding his whores.

Overall, it's a good story but it's far too heavy on the Cold War that the eighties' comics were so fond of oddly fixated on. It felt a bit too much like Watchmen, complete with a Reagan-esque President instead of a Nixon-esque President, and an oddly emasculated and cow-towed Superman provides the superhuman opposition, in a plotline that never quite feels less than contrived. Against the police, Superman and these new mutants and criminals, Batman simply returns to pit himself and them in battle.

Which is fairly simple, really, and heads down very few of the multitude of clichés surrounding coming out of retirement. So kudos there. It's a gripping story, with flaws because it hasn't aged or dated well, but it's still pretty core in seeing the deeper and gritter Bruce Wayne-caging-a-maniac Batman that seems the rage now.

(PS- don't even get me started on rebooting the whole universe back to issue one of every character they decided to keep. Makes no sense to me at all. An amateur I remain.)