Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Issue #1 (Feb 1986). Cover art by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Limited series
Publication date	February – June 1986
Number of issues	Four
Main character(s)	Batman
Creative team
Writer(s)	Frank Miller
Penciller(s)	Frank Miller
Inker(s)	Klaus Janson
Letterer(s)	John Costanza
Colorist(s)	Lynn Varley
Creator(s)	Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Lynn Varley
Editor(s)	Dick Giordano, Dennis O'Neil
Collected editions
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns	ISBN 1563893428
Absolute Dark Knight	ISBN 1401210791

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is a four-issue comic book limited series written and drawn by Frank Miller, originally published by DC Comics in 1986. The Dark Knight Returns tells the story of a middle-aged Batman who comes out of retirement to fight crime, only to face opposition from the Gotham City police force and the United States government.

A sequel, Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, was published in 2001.

[edit] Plot

In the absence of superheroes, criminals run amok, and a gang called the Mutants terrorize a future Gotham City. Bruce Wayne has been retired from crime fighting for ten years following the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin. Despite Wayne's funding the rehabilitation of Harvey Dent (Two-Face), Dent returns to crime. Wayne puts on the Batman costume again to apprehend Dent, but the populace debates whether Batman is a savior.

Carrie Kelly, a 13-year-old-girl whom Batman rescues, buys a Robin costume and searches for Batman to aid him. Kelly finds Batman at the city dump, where he is fighting the Mutants. The Mutants' leader defeats Batman in combat, but Kelly distracts him and pulls Batman into the tank-like Batmobile. Kelly attends to Batman’s wounds as the vehicle drives toward the Batcave. Once home, Batman takes Carrie on as the new Robin against his butler Alfred's objections. With Gordon's cooperation, the leader is allowed to escape from jail, and Batman beats him in front of the assembled Mutants gang, which then disbands as a result of this humiliation.

The Joker convinces his psychiatrist that he is sane and regrets his misdeeds. Seeking to discredit Batman, the psychiatrist appears with the Joker on a late-night show. While the police attack Batman, the Joker murders everyone in the television studio and escapes. Batman and Robin find the Joker at a county fair, where Batman defeats Joker in a violent showdown. Batman stops short of killing the Joker, who twists his own broken neck, intending for the police to charge Batman with murder.

After Superman diverts a Russian nuclear warhead which then detonates in a desert, millions of tons of dust and debris fill the atmosphere, and Gotham descends into chaos during the resulting blackout. Batman and Robin train former Mutants who now call themselves the Sons of the Batman in non-lethal fighting to stop looting and ensure the flow of needed supplies. Gotham becomes the safest city in America, and the U.S. government, seeing this as an embarrassment, orders Superman to take Batman down. Having been warned of the government's plans by Green Arrow, Batman confronts Superman where Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered decades earlier. Batman defeats Superman, but dies from an apparent heart attack. After his funeral, he is revived by Robin, his death staged as an elaborate ruse. Alfred destroys the Batcave and Wayne Manor and suffers a fatal stroke. With the silent approval of Superman, Batman leads Robin, Green Arrow, and the rest of his army into the caverns beyond the Batcave and prepares to continue his fight.

[edit] Characters

• Batman: Bruce Wayne gave up the Batman identity ten years prior to the beginning of the story. When he sees violence running rampant and his personal demons can no longer be denied, he is forced to return.
• Alfred Pennyworth: Wayne's trusty butler, medic, and confidante, now in his eighties.
• Carrie Kelly/Robin: A 13-year-old girl who becomes Batman's newest sidekick. During the creation of the series, fellow comics writer/artist John Byrne told Miller "Robin must be a girl", and Miller complied. Comics historian Les Daniels commented, "In retrospect the imperative seems less than inevitable, perhaps no more than trendy gender bending or possibly just a response to the homophobia inspired by [Fredric Wertham] more than thirty years earlier."^[1]
• James Gordon: The Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department for 26 years - a police officer for 50 years - who finally retires on his 70th birthday. He is aware of the dual identity of Batman and is supportive of the Caped Crusader.
• Two-Face: Now middle-aged, Harvey Dent's face has been repaired with plastic surgery and his doctor gives him a clean bill of mental health. He is still Two-Face in his mind, however, and terrorizes the city with his face swathed in bandages.
• The Joker: Batman's archenemy, who awakens from a catatonic state upon learning of Batman's re-emergence. His brutal return to crime sets in motion a final confrontation with Batman.
• The Mutant Leader, head of the Mutants. He is a strong, savage brute who puts a hit on Gordon, brutally beats Batman in their first encounter, goes to jail, kills the Mayor (while still in jail), escapes, and is beaten by Batman.
• Dr. Bartholomew Wolper, Two-Face and the Joker's psychiatrist and staunch opponent of Batman's "fascist" vigilantism. Wolper is convinced that the Joker and Two-Face are both really the victims of Batman's crusades - claiming that Batman drives them to become criminals by assuming an ideological image that they feel compelled to counter - but his attempts to treat Two-Face meet with failure when plastic surgery causes the evil side to take over, and he ends up murdered by the Joker along with the entire audience of a late night talk show.
• Ellen Yindel, James Gordon's successor as Commissioner. A captain in the Gotham City Police Department, she starts off as Batman's fiercest critic, but doubts herself after the Joker debacle (part 3, see plot above) and comes to terms with his involvement, realising that he is 'too big' for her to judge.
• Green Arrow, aka Oliver Queen. After the outlawing of all superheroes, he undertakes a clandestine career of terrorism against government oppression, including the sinking of a nuclear submarine. He lost his left arm years ago and blames Superman for that. He is still a formidable marksman, using his teeth to grip the nocks of his arrows.
• Superman, aka Clark Kent, is now simply a pawn for the US government. His internal monologues show that he detests having to be a government weapon and is only doing so to prevent war between humans and superheroes.

[edit] Background and creation

In the early 1980s, DC Comics promoted Dick Giordano from his position as Batman group editor to editorial director for the company.^[2] In Giordano's words, his chief contribution in this position was "getting people to work for DC who could do the work a little better". This resulted in the recruitment of writer-artist Frank Miller to create The Dark Knight Returns. Giordano said he worked on the story's plot with Miller, he commented, "The version that was finally done was about his fourth or fifth draft. The basic storyline was the same but there were a lot of detours along the way."^[3]

Giordano dropped out of the project halfway through due to disagreements over production deadlines. Giordano said, "Frank wanted to take the time that was needed to get the job done". Comics historian Les Daniels comments that Miller's idea of ignoring deadlines was "the culmination of the quest towards artistic independence". DC published the issues of The Dark Knight Returns in packaging that included extra pages, square binding, and glossy paper to highlight the watercolor coloring by colorist Lynn Varley.^[4]

[edit] Release and reception

Priced at $2.95 an issue, DC Comics promoted The Dark Knight Returns as a "thought-provoking action story". At the time, Time saw the series' depiction of a "semiretired Batman [who] drinks too much and is unsure about his crime-fighting abilities" as an example of trying to appeal to "today's skeptical readers".^[5] Despite the then high cost of the single-issue packaging, The Dark Knight Returns sold well.^[4]

The New York Times gave the 1987 collected release of the series a negative review. Mordecai Richler felt that The Dark Knight Returns was not as imaginative as the work of Batman creator Bob Kane. Richler commented, "The stories are convoluted, difficult to follow and crammed with far too much text. The drawings offer a grotesquely muscle-bound Batman and Superman, not the lovable champions of old." He concluded, "If this book is meant for kids, I doubt that they will be pleased. If it is aimed at adults, they are not the sort I want to drink with."^[6]

IGN Comics ranked The Dark Knight Returns #2 on a list of the 25 greatest Batman graphic novels, second only to Miller's Batman: Year One.^[7] The website called The Dark Knight Returns "a true masterpiece of storytelling" with "scene after unforgettable scene."^[8]

In 2001 and 2002, DC Comics published Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Miller's sequel to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. The sequel, which differs drastically in style from the original, received mixed reviews but was one of DC's biggest selling titles at the time.

[edit] Movie adaptation

At the 2008 San Diego Comic Con, director of the screen adaptations of the equally celebrated graphic novel, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Miller's 300, Zack Snyder expressed his love for The Dark Knight Returns, in response to a question about the more mature direction of comic book adaptations. Later, Miller told Snyder: “You can do it anytime you want to Zack”. Batman film franchise producer Michael Uslan also expressed interest in a possible adaptation.^[9]

[edit] References

• Daniels, Les. Batman: The Complete History. Chronicle Books, 1999. ISBN 0-8118-4232-0

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Dark Knight Returns

• The plot in more detail at darkknight.ca
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again discussed at sequart.com
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns -- a retrospective and review at Batman-On-Film.com