The Dark Knight Returns (again) to make me happy

It is difficult to remember who much an impact The Dark Knight Returns had when it came out in 1986 because the hard Batman persona that brought in has become standard since then.

But if you consider the camp 60's TV series you get some idea where the transformation started. Of course he was not still camp by 1986 but at that time a lot of emphasis was on the detective side of his character and the stories were about his brain power not his physical prowess.

I, of course, bought the books when they came out and now I have them safely bagged and boxed. Somewhere. I just do not know where that somewhere is.

When DC put 750 digital Batman comics on sale and that included the four issues of The Dark Night Returns at only 69p each then I bought them again just to read them again.

I have always liked Frank Miller's artwork (possibly because we were born on the same day)  and I still found it visually striking after the best part of thirty years. Other artwork from that period has aged much less well.

The story is also familiar now but was fresh then. Superheroes had gone bad (that was mostly Batman and Green Arrow) and had disappeared when they were no longer seen as heroes. Some had been locked up. In the meantime the world had gradually become a worse place and heroes were needed.

There are other nice themes running through the book like the hopeless American President (based on the then President Raegan) having to deal with a Cube-like crisis.

Two Face and the Joker play significant roles but the story is really about Batman dealing with general lawlessness rather than supervillains. And he deals with it using extreme physical force and psychology. He hurts people to make his point. That means that is return is seen as a double-edged sword, some think he is doing good in tackling crime while others think that he is the criminal.

I had not read the book for a couple of decades but large chunks of it had stuck with me. A lot of it had gone though and that made the rereading almost as much fun as it had been the first time.

One scene that had stuck with me was the confrontation between Batman and Superman in the fourth and final book. One of the tricks Batman had was some synthetic Green Kryptonite. I wonder where that came from?

I really liked the idea that Batman had put so much effort in to preparing for a fight against Superman, even when they were friends and colleagues.

The Dark Knight Returns was a great book in 1986 and it still is.

Frank Miller's Holy Terror (not good)

Frank Miller and I share a birthday and a we have a deal on comics; he writes and draws them and I read them.

I first came across Frank Miller by accident in 1979 when he started drawing Daredevil for Marvel Comics, which I was reading at the time.

Since then he has produced some iconic masterpieces, notably Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Sin City (1991).

Now we have Holy Terror but its not very good.

A lot of what you expect from Frank Miller is there. The landscape book is rich with black pictures with driving rain, spots of colour, a Batmanesque character, water towers on rooftops and a few terse sentences. What is lacking is a story to bind all this together.

This is odd as the spark for the story was the terrorist attacks on 9/11 so he has had ten years to think of one. But instead of a story we have rage.

Frank writes on his web site "I wish all those responsible for the Atrocity of 9/11 to burn in hell. I’m too old to serve my country in any other way. Otherwise, I’d gladly be pulling the trigger myself." I can understand the sentiment (though I do not share it) but it does not make a story.

We have no characterisation either. The man who gave Daredevil the passion to bring Elektra back to life serves up simplistic terrorists and even more simplistic vigilantes to fight them.

These are not heroes that we can cheer for. We have no love for the terrorists but it is hard to think that the cruel and violent response is any better. Frank rages about the 3,000 of his neighbours killed on 9/11 but cares naught for the many more killed, and still being killed, by his countrymen in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Even his Robocop scripts had more subtlety and this.

The one redeeming factor of the book is the artwork and that is such a big factor that it makes it readable despite the story.

Conveniently the landscape format makes this a coffee table book rich in striking artwork that you can skim through without worrying about the script.

Here we see a barely disguised Batman and Catwoman swinging through Empire City.

It's a dramatic and vibrant picture and one I could look at for ages.

But comics are about words as well as pictures and it's impossible to forget Holy Terror's flaws. Much better to read Dark Night or Sin City.

Sin City

My plan to read more comics than I acquire this year took a welcome step backwards with the first volume of Frank Miller's Sin City which I got for my birthday. Like the Sandman that I got for Christmas and the Planetary that I got last year, this is a large size edition on top quality paper and with a hard cover.

If you have seen the Sin City film then you'll know what the comics are like as the film is a very close copy of the original comics with many of the shots taken directly from the books.

Sin City is one of the highlights of Frank Miller's distinguished career in comics which also includes The Dark Knight Returns (1986) which is probably his most famous work. He returned to this theme with The Dark Knight Strikes Again.

I was lucky to get into Frank Miller at the start of his career on Daredevil at Marvel Comics where he wrote and/or drew around thirty issues starting in 1981. I still flick through these issues when I come across them, e.g. when trying to sort out my office. I guess that I will have to put the hard cover collection on my Christmas list for this year (assuming that by then I have managed to clear most of my large to-be-read list)!

Oh, and today is Frank Miller's fiftieth birthday too. Happy Birthday Frank!