Maybe I should change name of this blog to Dorky McDork Dork

I was three years old when Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns first came out in 1987, but I think that it impact on me when I first read it 13 years later was very similar to the impact it had on Batman fans when it first came out.  There is a simple reason for this.  My main exposure to Batman comics had come from a book that my Uncle gave me, Batman from the 30's to the 70's.  It had a cross-section of comics from each decade showing the evolution of the character.  In my mind, as time went on, the books got worse.  Batman started off in the 30's as The Batman, with the article before his name.  He was a scary figure who worked despite, and sometimes against, the police.  The stories were a little heavy handed, but they were written for children, and I was a child when I read them.  As time went on, he lost his edge.  There was an attempt to darken the comic again, in the 70's, but it failed.  And that was all I knew.  I didn't bother to look at newer Batman comics, because I figured they were all in the same mode.  Then a friend showed me Miller's book.  And it blew my mind, the same way I assume it blew the minds of readers when it first came out.

I just reread the book and I have a few more complaints than I did  the first and second times around.  I think that some of the political themes interfere with the main points of the book.  I also think that Miller made a mistake by putting a national crisis at the center of the action, as opposed to a local one.  But Miller got one thing massive, hugely, wonderfully right.  Something that makes my little complaints irrelevant.  He realized something that nobody since Bob Kane (the creator and first author of Batman comic books) has thought of, and he actualized it far better than even Kane (who as a writer was really a second-rate hack) ever did.  It is an idea which is so obvious when you think about it, but somehow eluded half a century of comicbook writers and artists.  Simply put, you have to be a f**king psycho to dress up as a bat and beat up criminals.  Batman, unlike most other superior's, has no superpowers.  Despite this, he goes out night after night after night to fight bad guys.  He never uses a gun.  And he enjoys it.  For this to make any sense at all, the man has to be nutcase.  Miller figured this out, and he made it work.  There is one drawing, on page 78 of the paperback collection, that captures this perfectly.  55 year old Batman just took out an army of punks with the Batmobile (reinvented as a tank).  Their leader, who is younger, stronger and faster than he is, challenges him by calling him a coward.  He thinks for a second, then decides to fight  the gang leader.  The picture, which takes up an entire page, is centered on Batman as he hops out of the Batmobile.  He's grinning like a loon.  He loves this.  And he thinks he's probably going to die.  What makes Batman so fascinating a character, even when written poorly, is exactly that.  His grip on life, and on himself, is always tenuous at best.  His inner beast is always about to escape, and the Bat doesn't care what happens to Bruce Wayne.  When written well, it's astounding.