Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again
Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, by Frank Miller & Lynn Varley, DC
A MUCH publicised follow-up to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns that I commented upon in print briefly oh many moons ago; describing it as an extended imaginary story of the sort DC used to run, with art that looked like someone had poured acid in Carmine infantino’s coffee.
Surely you all know the story to that book by now – how can any comic book reader not? It lead to the Batman line of books going from average sellers at best and kept alive for its worldwide lunchbox sticker franchise to actually becoming a feudal empire within DC itself, and leading to several successful movies.
Miller remodelled the classic Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers Batman short run of the 70s and gave it even more of an Old Testament eye for an eye approach that suited the bleakness of the Reagan-Bush Senior- era times if first saw print it.
Times have changed. Not necessarily for the good. Are dystopian nightmares what the kids want? Sometimes it feels they want their kicks even on the bleakest of days, and no matter how sick the joke is sometimes. Miller seems to get that, but he isn’t a youngster himself any more and for a large part of this collection of the 2001 series it feels like a man out of step with the times doing the comic book equivalent of a daddy dance.
For me, Miller is read best in collected form, his serialisations or issues of part works don’t tend to work for me as a reader, but when I’m in for the long haul I have tended to appreciate his plotting, and his long-term character developments that eventually resolve themselves and give the book a theme. For me, it doesn’t work here.
Basically, Batman’s back, his female Robin is now a young Catwoman working for him, with a load of trained street gang hoods playing ball as his Bat boys. Luthor and Brainiac rule the world – which for the most part is simply taken to mean the USA – and they hold Superman to ransom by threatening to destroy the Bottle city of Kandor. Batman’s got a plan: bring back the heroes, thus the Flash, Atom and Green Arrow and others are found or rescued and the war on the baddies begins – only it’s not so much a fight against people as much as on social apathy, current trends, and complacent ignorance.
They’re good themes as far as I’m concerned and Miller uses the very media that propagates such things to tell his message, but as the saying goes: Americans lack irony, and it all gets lost in an overblown, fatuous tale with smart-ass one-liners that rarely hit the mark or feel cutting edge as much as self-serving diatribes – Don’t get me wrong, there are some truly classic, timeless and insightful lines, but too often they get lost or are rendered pathetic by comparison.
Too often it reads like classic Wagner/Grant British writing team having lines from their Judge Dredd and Ace Garp Trucking Company series in 2000AD pulled out at random and placed willy-nilly in a William S Burroughs cut and paste technique on the comic page and instead of being intended as humorous in their original state now meant to be serious. And artwise, Miller tends to revert back to the style he used on his Ronin series with a curious pastiche towards the design of those artists who’ve followed in his own wake: art imitates art that imitates art? Irony or sarcasm? Intentional or not? Some odd colouring from Lynn Varley too.
As I’ve said, I tend to prefer Frank Miller’s work in completed form but this is not a good book for me. It tries too hard while hiding under the facade that it’s cool and in the pocket for our times while in truth it feels dated, and out of step with the world. But then, that’s just my opinion, I’m sure it sold loads and continues to do so.
Sponsored by Target Media.
