Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns

In 1986, Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns proved a controversial portrayal of Batman's character. The interpretation saw an aging Bruce Wayne looking upon the dilapidated husk of his city and country, with Gotham and the United States having fallen to a more corrupt state of affairs than ever. Wayne has been retired from his role as Batman for ten years, and at the age of 55, he's had

just about enough.

 

Miller's portrayal of Batman depicts him with a new found willingness to kill if he has to, a total rejection of the municipal, state, and federal governemnts, where he may have previously cooperated with them, and a greater committment to his vigilantism than ever. Commissioner Gordon, who is aging himself, is nearing the end of his career, and a new anti-Batman police commissioner, who still has faith in the power of government, is nearing her appointment. At every level, the government have essentially washed their hands of the issues of criminality and lawnessness, and to make matters worse, the Soviet Union looms abroad, threatening US interests.

 

Wayne wanted out of the role he had played for so long, but after watching everything he had worked for falling into this deep regression, he was, for lack of better terminology, fucking fed up.

 

Gotham has been consumed by crime, moral bankruptcy, and social permissiveness, with the public and even the once-respected police force, now full of rookies, becoming increasingly apathetic to the damage done. A gang known only as the Mutants have taken near-complete control of Gotham, the impotent police effectively powerless to stop them without Batman's aid. The public doesn't care anymore, and would rather slog through their work day before going home to self-medicate and drown themselves in meaningless entertainment, locked away in their dwellings, shutting out the decay.

 

The public discourse in regard to Batman's activities has completely shifted: where Batman was once a respected hero, admired by the innocent and feared by criminals, he is now called all manner of smears and snarl words. He is no longer perceived by the public or portrayed by the media as being merely an enigmatic vigilante, but rather as being as much a threat to the public's safety as the criminals and degenerates themselves.

 

The news media, intellectuals, and academics smear Batman as a fascist, a tyrant, someone who has no respect for American 'democracy' or 'law and order': Ironic, given that Batman's greatest desire had previously been to maintain order, and his new found ambition is now to restore it, by any means necessary. Remember this for later.

 

Almost everyone has been turned against him, save for a tiny minority of the public, including one young girl named Carrie Kelly. One night, when walking with a friend from school, they're attacked by a group of Mutants. A mysterious dark figure intervenes and thwarts the Mutants' attack. Recognizing the gravity of the social decay around her, and hearing rumors that the mysterious dark figure may signal the return of the Batman, she procures a novelty Robin costume and seeks him out herself.

 

The Mutants, too great in number and too wedded to violence for Batman to handle through his conventional means, must be dealt with differently: Batman saddles up a newer, deadlier version of the Batmobile, and besieges the Mutant compound in the Gotham City Dump, eventually defeating their leader in hand-to-hand combat with Carrie Kelly's aid. The only way Batman can win is to conquer them with brute force, killing some of them in the process, and upon seeing their leader quite literally broken by him and captured, the majority of the Mutants change sides and begin to call themselves the Sons of Batman. Sometimes Idiots really can be Useful, eh?

 

Meanwhile, President Reagan sends Superman to aid the beleaguered United States military in confronting the Soviet Union, who have taken control of the island nation of Corto Maltese. Before sending him on his way, Reagan briefs Supes on the return of the Dark Knight, warning him that he may have to be “dealt with.”

 

Harvey Dent, locked up in Arkham for years, has gone through what everyone believes to be a rehabilitation. Through extensive therapy and plastic surgery funded by Bruce Wayne, Dent has seemingly been remade into his former self, with both sides of his face now matching. The doctors pat themselves on the back for a job well done, but Dent once again threatens Gotham with a bomb plot, and even Batman is somewhat surprised to learn that Dent's psyche is so irreparably damaged that he sees himself as now being symmetrically disfigured rather than symmetrically normal, as everyone else sees him. Batman's intervention in stopping the bomb is, of course, portrayed as being nothing that the police couldn't have handled on their own.

 

The Joker, also locked up in Arkham for years, has successfully played the staff for fools: his doctors are convinced that Joker is, in fact, a victim rather than a monster, a projection of Batman's own alleged psychopathy, sociopathy, and malice. A psychologist personally assigned to Joker, applying his years of study to something beyond his understanding (big surprise), cries "This isn't the Joker's fault! Batman inflicted this upon him! If it weren't for the Batman, he never would've done any of those terrible things. Batman is the real monster here!"

 

Joker successfully convinces the doctors at Arkham to allow him a public TV appearance on a popular late-night talk show. Joker, of course, hasn't changed one bit, and kills, his doctor, the host, and the entire audience in a Joker Venom gas attack. Due to interference from the now-inept GCPD, Batman is unable to thwart the attack. The media and politicians, of course, blame the Batman for distracting the police from their goal, lumping him in as a symptom of the chaos rather than the antidote.

 

Batman and Robin are then lead on a chase through the Gotham faire, where Joker kills numerous civilians and nearly succeeds in killing Batman. In the end, the Joker apparently kills himself by snapping his own neck, a final act of defiance against his arch-nemesis. The GCPD, who have tracked both Joker and Batman to the faire, reappear and put a wounded Batman on the run once again.

 

At Corto Maltese, Superman roundly defeats the Soviet forces, who pose virtually no threat to him. However, as Reagan himself says, “those Russians are mighty sore losers,” and Red Army launches a nuclear warhead in a last-ditch effort to destroy Superman. Supes is able to divert the warhead from impacting its target, but not without triggering an airburst detonation, inconveniently in US airspace. The resulting EMP knocks out the power across the entire United States, plunging the country into further chaos.

 

As planes literally fall out of the sky, Gotham and other major cities descend into looting, and the police are no longer a concern: now, the problem is that the public are losing their minds and burning the city down around them. The Sons of Batman and the remaining Mutant gangsters are brought under control by Batman, who encourages them to use non-lethal means to control the rioting. They convince the public to restore order as best they can, putting out fires across the city and doing everything that the Gotham municipal government has utterly failed to do in the pandemonium leading up to this point.

 

With the rest of America in shambles, the federal government is deeply embarrassed by the Batman's success at Gotham City, and Superman is deployed to “deal with him.” Batman, of course, being the more intelligent and calculating of the two, eventually defeats Superman, with the assistance of Robin and the Green Arrow. In a final act of genius, Bruce fakes his own death, leaving the public and government under the impression that the Batman is gone forever. Heading underground, he founds a new Batcave to serve as an HQ for the Sons of Batman, so that his legacy may be preserved and the now-restored order may continue.