The Dark Knight Returns

I've been talking a lot these days about Warren Ellis. Yeah I know it's probably getting old, but I haven't seen the comic writing thing done in a more natural way. You almost never see thought bubbles or naration. That's left up to the artist and intelligent dialogue. It leaves us feeling our own feelings as witnesses to the situations, as opposed to being told what we are supposed to feel.

On the other side of the spectrum we have Frank Miller. Let me just say, I thought he was brilliant...at first. I read a few of the Sin City series and thought the man was a great comic writer. Sure it had lots of inner monologuing, but that only added to the noir atmosphere. As I'm sure most readers of this will know, Sin City had a few of it's stories adapted wonderfully into a movie (and Robert Rodriguez announced a second one coming soon too). At this point I found myself seeking more Frank Miller books. Rabidly I devoured almost all of the Sin City stories. Then I heard about, *sigh* All Star Batman and Robin the boy wonder. It was to be written by Frank Miller and drawn by the amazingly talented Jim Lee. This came at a time when Frank Miller's ego was commencing a thermonuclear meltdown of arrogance. He wrote this in a way no one could believe. Batman is running people down in his Tank Mobile, terrifying a little boy who just watched his parents die and making him eat rats! Oh and of course when poor little Dick Grayson asks him who he is, he has the infamous reply:

Naturally I found myself swiftly facepalming and crying myself to sleep. This was written by the guy who apparently wrote the best Batman story of all time! Alas, after avoiding it for years after that terrible series, I finally today read the so called epic The Dark Knight Returns.

It was written in 1986, and it's a safe bet that that was when Miller was just starting his Sin City writing style which would likely take place for the rest of his life. Truth be told it's pretty good, minus some frustrating moments. It really shows Batman in a different light, for the time, though baffling choices were made. The Robin in this story is terrible, especially considering the slight trash talking of Dick Grayson who must of molested Miller in his younger years. Also, you can see the coming standby Frank Miller hangups developing, including but not limited to, all women being lustful or prostitutes, racism and homosexuality being a trait only of the wicked. Despite those hangups, which become much more defined in the more recent years, like I said, this is a pretty good story, unlike the horrible sequel. The side effect of this book however was that it made Batman brutal and nasty, which did attach itself to the dark knight over the next 15 years, leading to many better interpretations. Sadly, I don't like Frank Miller's Batman, as much as it's influence. My Batman on the otherhand has the right amount of badass and compassion, and looks like this: