Hush, hear the lower tones of the characters minds

All the superheroes have gone.

A restless public finally decided that the benefits of having super-powered caped crusaders bouncing across America was outweighed by their lack of legitimate accountability. Superheroes are just vigilantes, cries the public, and a hard-pressed President must be seen to assure the public that this will not go on. En masse, the stars of countless comic books are asked to quietly de-robe and seek other work.

Unfortunately, this is not as easy for some as it is for others. What do you do if you never wanted to be a superhero to be begin with? If you are a tortured soul, who is merely forced by conscience to don the cape and gloves, and cruise the streets for evil-doers? How do you just leave your costume in a wardrobe and go about your business, when without the catharsis of it all you will go mad?

Such is the dilemma of the unfeasibly wealthy Bruce Wayne.

Bruce has had a bad ten years in Gotham. He bites back on his anger, and self-hatred, and a plethora of neuroses, as he endeavors to keep his promise and stay off the streets. All the time his already sick mind twists on itself, further torturing him with loathsome images of his parents brutal murders, and a sense of personal impotence which overwhelms his soul. Bruce cant keep this up, something has got to give. America is in the grips of a war, Gotham has become helpless prey to gangs of young ruffians, and nobody and nothing seems able to turn back the tide. It seems to be time for the Dark Knight to return……

So begins a fascinating reinvention of Batman, bought to us in trade paperback through the imaginings and illustrations of Frank Miller.

Comic books have been around for a long time. So, obviously, have been the people who grew up with them. Dark Knight Returns is a fantastic example of what can be achieved when an adult perspective is placed on characters many of us remember as nothing more than pulp fiction fantasies. This work brings together all the old familiar faces from the Batman world…joker, two face, Robin the (now girl) wonder, and even superman and wonder woman grace the pages.

Now, you may be thinking this is some indication that you don’t care to read this book. You don’t go for all that superhero stuff. Guys who wear their shorts outside of their pants and have x-ray vision are best left out of your lifestyle. I challenge you would be mistaken, I suspect you would find this one of the most refreshing paradigm shifts you have encountered for years, a sparkling example of how artistry can reform what you thought you knew and make it afresh.

To return to the plot, the superbaddies are back on the streets. Pandered to by the bleeding hearts and artists, psychopaths such as Twoface have been in “therapy” for years, and are now being rehabilitated, and put back into general circulation, cured of their nasty former habits. You may guess, this turns out to be a clever ruse on the part of the villains who are in fact just as vicious as they ever were. But Bruce Wayne is on to them….dividing his nightly labor between youthful mobs of dropouts, and high-maintenance supervillians with genius IQ’s, Batman begins to clean up Gotham once more. This however is not to everyone’s tastes.

You will recall the superhero thing has been shelved by the populace. Little more than a legend, the Bat is loved and hated in equal parts by those who support or oppose his new assaults on crime. And the laws forbidding costumed crusading are not entirely without means of enforcement…..behind the president (who has a startling resemblance to one Ronald Reagan) is a dark shadow, the presidents right hand man. First agent of the office of the president, enforcer deluxe, Agent Clark Kent.

Sure, Clark took off his uniform. In public. But no military worth its salt is going to ignore the potential benefits of a patriotic young man like Clark. Now a secret weapon, Clark wins wars. Faster than a speeding bullet indeed! The reinvention of superman in this work is one of the most volte-face turns towards realism I have ever read whilst staying in fiction. Superman in this book is what, if real, superman would actually be. No more “what was that in the sky mommy?”….this son of Krypton moves much too quickly to be observed at all by humans. His hearing is so acute he hears the verbalized whim of the President at continental distances, and has completed the assigned task another second later, regardless of location. Wars are short with Clark as your secret weapon. A tense scene depicts the raising of an enormous media blackout around a conflicted region at sea in the Central Americas. No sooner is the press looking the other way, than enemy aircraft carriers are flipping mysteriously upside down, and their planes falling from the sky, their missiles choosing suspiciously to head out into space. Nice to have on your team, eh?

Clark is sent to “have a quiet word” with Bruce.

They don’t really get along to well.

Bruce Wayne sees Clark Kent as the ultimate “yes man”, blindly subservient to the office of the president, unable to think for himself, and therefore beneath disdain in the eyes of a man whose city has been destroyed by lack of governmental intervention. Bruce and Clark must head towards show down.

Will Batman rid Gotham of its terrible plights? Can he find a way to soothe his soul and graciously retire? Will he wake up and smell the coffee, and stop picking fights with the Man of Steel? You will have enormous fun learning the answers to these questions, I utterly assure you.

Dark Knight returns is beautifully illustrated. The artistry is by turns earthy and fundamental, then epic and breathtaking, dependant upon the scene portrayed. The art adds emotional tone to the writing, in just the correct measure, augmenting scenes of activity, but visually played down during moments of introspection, as though hushed for us to hear the lower tones of the characters minds.

Well written, well seen, achieved with craft, inspired by love, and realized through sheer magic, I loved Dark Knight Returns, and recommend it to you.

Some of my other science fiction book reviews:

Rama Revealed
Prelude to Space
Stand on Zanzibar
The Demolished Man
The Stars my Destination
Cat's Cradle
The Gods Themselves
Watchmen
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Hammer of God
The Left Hand of Darkness
Flowers for Algernon
Lord of Light
Rendevous with Rama
The Tombs of Atuan
The Dispossessed
I am Legend
The Einstein Intersection
Earth Abides
Peace on Earth
The Farthest Shore
Methuselah's Children
A Call to Arms
To your Scattered Bodies Go
The Lion of Comarre / Against the Fall of Night
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Doomsday Book
Frankenstein Unbound
Batman - The Dark Knight Returns
Imperial Earth
A Case of Conscience
Solaris
The Sands of Mars
The Land of Laughs
Eden
His Masters Voice
Citizen of the Galaxy
King David's Spaceship
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Double Star
The Fabulous Riverboat
Songs of Distant Earth
Way Station
The Fountains of Paradise
The Long Tomorrow
Lincolns Dreams
Alas Babylon
More Than Human
1984
The Forever War
All the Myriad Ways
I Sing the Body Electric
Gateway
Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said
This Immortal
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress