Luecken- The Dark Knight Returns

Mike Luecken

In the early 1980s, DC Comics promoted Batman group editor Dick Giordano to editorial director for the company. Writer-artist Frank Miller was recruited to create The Dark Knight Returns. Giordano said he worked with Miller on the story's plot. During the creation of the series, fellow comics writer/artist John Byrne told Miller, "Robin must be a girl", and Miller complied. Giordano left the project halfway through because of disagreements over production deadlines. Miller said that the comic series' plot was inspired by Dirty Harry, specifically the 1983 film Sudden Impact, in which Dirty Harry returns to crime-fighting after a lengthy convalescence. Miller also said his own increasing age was a factor in the plot. DC published the issues of The Dark Knight Returns in packaging that included extra pages, square binding and glossy paper to highlight the watercolor paintings by colorist Lynn Varley.

Now if you’re a Batman fan you must of read this book over 5 times when you got it because this is one of the most greatest well developed storylines that I for one have ever read. This graphic novel brings in so many well-known and beloved characters from the DC universe while adding some new characters with in this mix. This story came out back in 1986 so if your someone who is new to comics and started reading comics within the last 5 years some of the plot wont make sense to you. For instance I’m a huge fan of the new 52 series Red Hood and The Outlaws, which is based up of Jason Todd who was the second robin and his 2 counterparts of Arsenal who was Green Arrow’s sidekick Speedy, and Starfire from the Teen Titans. Anyway in the beginning of the book Bruce Wayne is talking to James Gordon and they mention that something had happen to Jason. Now the cool part is that hinted to the death of Jason in the series A Death In The Family that came 2 years later. But as most of us know and as I just said Jason comes back as the Red Hood while also putting Batman through hell in the process. I mention Jason because this leads up to Batman retiring and never having another robin after that until this book. As you read that you are probably saying what is he talking! But I assure you I know what I’m talking about and I will tell you why. SPOILER ALERT (If you don’t want to read this portion go to Book 1 and come back to after Book 4) This is why it would have been the end of Bruce Wayne as Batman at 55 and you would of never had the other three robins that came after Jason they would of never existed if they had all the comics after this as a prequel to The Dark Knight Returns. So DC comics did what they do best and made this into a multi verse story.

Book 1

 The book starts out with a newspaper article written by Jimmy Olsen (who is Superman’s best friend for those who didn’t know), where he talks about the glory days were there were heroes. There’s a saloon where villains hangout and talk about the old days. Olsen talks about the bartender named Jones, and says he’s from mars which I think is a reference to Martian Manhunter who’s name is Jon Jones. This Saloon is where the villains come to talk about old war stories from the “golden age”, they say, it was the age of heroes. They always talk about a Man of Steel and an Amazon Princess but know one talk about him. They call him the mean one, the cruel one, the one who couldn’t fly or bend steal, the one who scared the crap out of everyone and laughed at all of the rest of us for being the envious cowards we were. They never would never talk about him without some ones jaw dropping or even the scariest one of among them bursting into tears of the name of Batman. They all do still think of the Batman and wonder what ever happened to him.

            The book starts off with a charity race that Bruce Wayne is driving a stock car in. Where Bruce pushes the car to far and ends up making the car explode but ejects from his seat to safety. Then afterwards it’s all over the news of what happened to Bruce Wayne. These beginning 2 pages already gives you the sense that Batman is retired and Bruce is trying to feel a rush again of danger. After the news of Bruce Wayne’s accident it cuts to the retirement of commissioner James Gordon for his service of 30 years and the 10^th anniversary of the last known sighting of the Batman. This next page shows Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon having a celebratory retirement drink at a restaurant. Jim who is proud to be retiring, unlike Bruce who doesn’t like being retired and Jim then reminds him of two of his former robins. Jim mentions Dick Grayson for a moment asking if Bruce has spoken to him lately and also about Jason Todd to remember why he retired from the cape and cowl. Bruce then after the comment about Jason decides to call it a night. After this it cuts back to the media were they speak about the rehabilitation of Harvey Dent, for those of you who don’t know or have never seen Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight, Harvey Dent is two face. Dent has undergone plastic surgery so that both sides of his face are now normal. Dent then makes a public announcement of how he wants to go back to public service and will try to earn the respect of the people as he had as district attorney before his accident and became two face.

The next couple of pages from there are of Bruce Wayne having nightmares and visions of why he became Batman and even visiting the bat cave to look upon Jason Todd’s former robin suit. Bruce is then seen watching television and all those reasons come back and then see all the terrible things that are happening to his city. At this point Bruce decides to dust off the old uniform and come out of retirement to clean up Gotham City once and for all. The next couple of pages are of Batman back to work taking down thugs and finding out who the thugs are working for. Batman searches a thug and finds a coin and that one side is deeply scratched. Batman instantly knows Dent is back to his old game. Batman is then seen all over the news and so we cut to arkham asylum where the joker is comatose watching television and then suddenly awakens to find Batman back out in the streets and out of retirement. Batman now is on the hunt for Harvey Dent who has sent out a terrorist threat to blow up the Gotham twin towers unless he receives 5 million dollars. Batman then tracks down Dent to see that his face is bandaged all around and Batman thinking that he destroyed his whole face now. Batman now takes the bandages off where now Harvey has gone insane thinking his face were both sides of two faces face’s but the surgery just had a psychological effect on Dent’s mind state and thinks the inside matches the outside now.

Book 2

            Book 2 starts with Jim Gordon. Jim is walking into a liquor store and a mutant teenager tries to murder him but instead Jim ends up shooting the mutant teen and dies. The mutant gang is out to get Jim Gordon before his retirement but Jim is still fighting back to take the gang down.  The next page introduces the new robin, Carrie Kelly. Carrie then sets out on patrol to help Batman on his war on crime where she stops a mugger. At this time though Batman has no idea of her existence. Then we cut to Batman were the mutant gang has abducted a child for ransom. Batman of course finds the gang members and incapacitates them and saves the child. Batman on the other hand also interrogates one of the mutants to find out who is supplying the gang with weapons and where the gang is meeting for a big meeting. Where now Batman is now holding 5 star general Nathan Briggs in his arms after he had committed suicide after Batman had found out he was the supplier for the mutant gang. The general was using the money to help his wife who had a rare form of cancer get treatment because the army would not help pay for it. Next we see Carrie tailing a couple of mutants to a meeting for the gang, which she hopes to find Batman to fight alongside of. Batman is then seen driving a tank like batman mobile to the meeting place for the gang at the dump. Batman then takes on the mutant leader in an epic battle where the mutant leader almost beats batman to death until Carrie decides to jump in. Carrie jumps on the mutant leaders face and as the leader tosses her off his face Batman throws a gas pellet at the mutant leaders face and Batman and Carrie end up escaping. As Batman and the new robin are on there way to safety we cut to the white house where the president is talking to superman about getting batman to go back into retirement and to remain retired. To make matters worse we then cut back to the joker who is now fooling the doctors into thinking is sane and the doctors believe it.

            Now back at the bat cave Batman is being treated for his wounds and is now recovering and plotting on a way to take down the mutant leader. After the fight though the mutant leader was captured and is now in custody of the police and so the media starts buzzing about that between interviews from the people of Gotham and the mutant gang members. Jim then meets his new replacement Captain Yindel. Jim then tells the new commissioner of the job and what it comes with. As this is going on Batman and robin are back on patrol but this time robin is in disguise dressed as a mutant spreading a fake meeting to all mutants at the west river pipe. This plot is for all the mutants to see the mutant leader and Batman go up against one another again. Batman then breaks the mutant leader out of jail just to have one last show down. Batman ends up beating the mutant leader and the gang is now of no more.

Book 3

            We start out the media talking about the fall of the mutant leader and now there’s a new gang called the sons of the batman who were once part of the mutant gang and now align themselves with Batman. Next page there’s a robbery in a liquor store of a new gang called the Bruno’s who are represented by a big butchy Nazi woman. Batman ends up taking down the robbers disguised as a crazy old lady. While Batman is interrogating Bruno non other than the Boy Scout himself, superman shows up. Superman shows up to talk to Batman but they reschedule for the next day to discuss the matter. After these events we cut to the retirement party of Jim Gordon where he is relieving his title to captain Yindel. Yindel decides in that moment as her first act as commissioner is to bring the Batman in to justice for his crimes around the city. Two pages later we have the meeting of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent to talk about what Bruce has been doing around the city. Clark talks of how Bruce is upsetting a lot of people since he’s come out of retirement. Bruce retaliates at Clark of how he has sold out and is working for the government. Clark tells him if he doesn’t go back in to retirement that some one is going to come out for him to stop him. Bruce responds with saying that, that some one will be Clark and to bring it on. The next couple of pages go back and forth with superman helping fight a war in Corto Maltese and The joker going on to a talk show to talk about his revamping and his change to sanity. Of course though you can’t end up trusting the joker and he uses his special gas to bring smiles of deathly grins to each audience member within the live television event. While that was all happening Batman was trying to prevent these event from happening but had a run in with Gotham City police and was to late help the people from jokers massacre. The joker is now on the loose and makes his way to the annual carnival in Gotham where joker goes on another rampage and Batman needs to stop him. Joker on his rampage kills dozens of people and Batman has his last fight with the Joker. The Joker pulls out a hidden blade and repeatedly stabs Batman until Batman snaps the joker’s neck and paralyzes him from the next down. In jokers last breath he tells Batman how he finally made him lose control and that he will see him in hell and the joker by twisting his neck to snap it he finishes himself off.

Book 4:

            Book 4 starts with Batman escaping the carnival after the police blame Batman for the death of the Joker. Batman escapes the carnival badly injured to return to the cave to get stitched up. While Batman is getting stitched up Russia has launched a nuclear warhead designated to hit the United States. Superman flies towards the nuke and prevents it from hitting the country. Although superman deflected the threat the nuke still went off and caused a black out for the entire United Sates. Back in Gotham the citizens go nuts and start rampaging and looting everything in the city. So Batman takes control of the city by riding out on a horse and promotes the citizens in the city to all work together whether there normal people or part of the sons of batman or the mutant gang. Batman now has taken order over the city when a red beam of light strikes down and asks, “when and where?” The government has had enough of batman and now has asked superman to take care of the situation. While Bruce is preparing for this battle with superman, Oliver Queen makes an appearance. Those of you don’t recognize the name he’s Green Arrow. Oliver tells Bruce he wants a piece of superman for revenge for taking his arm. When Bruce retired it wasn’t because he wanted to it was because he had to. It was a government clause to have all heroes to stop what they were doing and be forced to retire. Oliver did not cooperate his superman was force to take him down which led to Oliver losing an arm and going to prison. Bruce now prepares wit the fight with a new suit that gives him increased strength and protection from superman. Bruce then swallows a pill says one hour and tells Alfred to destroy all evidence of the Batman. Then comes the final battle between Batman and Superman, which was epic. Through Batman tazing superman with the charge of a light post and superman using brute strength to fight back. Oliver even comes in with a kryptonite arrow to incapacitate superman, Batman takes his opportunity to defeat superman. The battle between the two was too much for Batman and his heart failed but just before his heart failed he let superman know that he should remember who was the one man who beat him. In that moment Bruce Wayne the Batman died. As the soldiers are coming into the battlefield to see the death of Batman, superman screams to stay away from him as superman holds Batman in his arms. The next page is the funeral of Bruce Wayne with Clark standing over his grave after the service. Clark turns around to walk away and as he walks away he hears a heart beat and then turns around to see a girl in all black but notices that it’s Robin. Clark knows that heartbeat isn’t Robin’s but its Batman’s, so he walks away and smiles. The next page is the end to a new beginning; you see Batman, Robin, and Oliver Queen setting up a new base underground with gang members of the sons of the Batman. Bruce tells them that he will teach them all of his secrets and will carry out his work undetected by all.

            Overall this is one of my favorite Batman stories of all time. This story had it all. The book was first a 4 part comic then went to graphic novel to a 2 part animated movie. It also had its own sequel called The Dark Knight Strikes Again, which I hear is decent a decent read for a sequel. To everyone who has read this and has not read the story, DOOOO ITTTTT!!! Its one of the greatest stories ever told and has some really great artwork done that was all done in watercolor. Hope everyone enjoyed the post.