Batman: The Dark Knight Returns | Frank Miller

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns | Frank Miller | So You've Never Read DKR?

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Batman: The Dark K...

	Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Frank Miller DC Comics, 1997 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 319 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

If any comic has a claim to have truly reinvigorated the genre, then The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller--known also for his excellent Sin City series and his superb rendering of the blind superhero Daredevil--is probably the top contender. Batman represented all that was wrong in comics and Miller set himself a tough task taking on the camp crusader and turning this laughable, innocuous children's cartoon character into a hero for our times. The great Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, the arguably peerless Watchmen) argued that only someone of Miller's stature could have done this. Batman is a character known well beyond the confines of the comic world (as are his retinue) and so reinventing him, while keeping his limiting core essentials intact, was a huge task.Miller went far beyond the call of duty. The Dark Knight is a success on every level. Firstly it does keep the core elements of the Batman myth intact, with Robin, Alfred the butler, Commissioner Gordon, and the old roster of villains, present yet brilliantly subverted. Secondly the artwork is fantastic--detailed, sometimes claustrophobic, psychotic. Lastly it's a great story: Gotham City is a hell on earth, street gangs roam but there are no heroes. Decay is ubiquitous. Where is a hero to save Gotham? It is 10 years since the last recorded sighting of the Batman. And things have got worse than ever. Bruce Wayne is close to being a broken man but something is keeping him sane: the need to see change and the belief that he can orchestrate some of that change. Batman is back. The Dark Knight has returned. Awesome. --Mark Thwaite

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Good Stuff...Revolutionary

Although originally published in a monthly serial format, this compilation, or Graphic Novel, started the generation of Graphic Novels being sold at local bookstores and Amazon. It's dark, gritty, and keeps your attention throughout. Certainly not suitable for young readers, we're introduced to Batman as being truly a Dark Knight, a vigilante protecting our future by any means necessary. If you're new to the genre, here's a great place to start. I've been a Frank Miller, Batman, and overall comic book fan since the first moment I picked it up.

So You've Never Read DKR?

"This book got me back into comics..." I'm not the only one who's said those words over the last 22 years. It was 1989 and the first Batman movie was about to be released when I read it. I was blown away and realized that in my time away from comics, I'd grown up and so had comics...

Now, for anyone who has never read this... comics have continued to grow up since this was first published in 1986, so for those readers it might seam over-rated. Please realize though that at the time no one had ever done anything like this with Batman. It was groundbreaking and it's effects have "darkened" the superhero genre to this very day. Read this and then compare it with any mainsteam comic from 1986 and you will see it's superiority.

The young modern reader has read and enjoyed the waves left by Miller's Dark Knight Returns, and this IS a must read for anyone who spends too much time and money at a local comic book shop. MUST READ.

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Superior story and characters

A great storyline and take on the batman mythos, not to mention the other DC characters featured. I've never been a huge fan of Miller's art, or it would have gotten 5 stars from me.

Fun, but dated and overrated.

Some of the sequences are classic and well drawn, but as soon as the mutants become the major villains the book becomes too ludicrous for its own good.

I immediately stopped caring. Yes, it's gritty, but Alan Moore's killing joke is much better.

Heck, Batman: Year One is much better.

If you want good Miller read Daredevil: Born Again, Sin City Vol. 1 or Daredevil: Man Without Fear.

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