If any comic has a claim to have truly reinvigorated the genre, then The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller--known also for his excellent Sin City series and his superb rendering of the blind superhero Daredevil--is probably the top contender.
Batman represented all that was wrong in comics and Miller set himself a tough task taking on the camp crusader and turning this laughable, innocuous children's cartoon character into a hero for our times. Batman is a character known well beyond the confines of the comic world as are his retinue and so reinventing him, while keeping his limiting core essentials intact, was a huge task. Miller went far beyond the call of duty.
The Dark Knight is a success on every level. Firstly it does keep the core elements of the Batman myth intact, with Robin, Alfred the butler, Commissioner Gordon, and the old roster of villains, present yet brilliantly subverted. Secondly the artwork is fantastic--detailed, sometimes claustrophobic, psychotic. Lastly it's a great story: Gotham City is a hell on earth, street gangs roam but there are no heroes.
Decay is ubiquitous. Where is a hero to save Gotham? It is 10 years since the last recorded sighting of the Batman. And things have got worse than ever. Bruce Wayne is close to being a broken man but something is keeping him sane: the need to see change and the belief that he can orchestrate some of that change. Batman is back. The Dark Knight has returned. This is best personified in Plastic Man who keeps shouting the normal tough guy talk while transforming himself into eggbeaters or a toilet to flush down enemies.
The intent is to mix obviously humorous Silver Age and just laughable all the grimdark crap of 90's into one book and point out how silly it is at its core. Surely you can't take the very last shot of Batman seriously? Read it as a criticism of what happened after TDK and Watchmen and you'll gain a new appreciation for it. I have no idea why it wasn't received as such. Maybe it hit too close to home? It exists simply to poke irreverent fun at the characters, tropes and superhero cliches we all know.
My only great regret is that Miller quit the book before he had a full issue with Joker. I really wanted to see what Goddamn Batman and the new Joker would've done. Post-Sin City Miller has clearly attempted to write something new. He's a sick old man, there's no point in writing the same stuff over and over. His stylistic choices may be odd and they don't always work but they're always interesting and fresh.
That's very rare in comics. It is one of the most influential superhero comics ever written. Since its publication it has shaped the way the character of Batman has been depicted in print and on film. It has also contributed to a change in how the medium of comics and the genre of superheroes are generally percieved. Ask a comics fan where to start when getting into comics and there's a good chance that The Dark Knight Returns will be one of the recommendations you recieve.
Unfortunately DC Comics and Frank Miller have spent the decades since the publication of The Dark Knight Returns doing their very best to lessen the impact of this seminal and unique comic.
Miller has also proclaimed that all of his DC Comics stories featuring Batman are set in the same fictional universe. In my opinion this robs The Dark Knight Returns of much of its power, and much of what I found compelling about it as a story. In his introduction to the softcover collection of The Dark Knight Returns , Alan Moore wrote: "Beyond the imagery, themes, and essential romance of Dark Knight, Miller has also managed to shape The Batman into a true legend by introducing that element without which all true legends are incomplete and yet which for some reason hardly seems to exist in the world depicted in the average comic book, and that element is time.
All of our best and oldest legends recognize that time passes and that people grow old and die. The legend of Robin Hood would not be complete without the final blind arrow shot to determine the site of his grave.
The Norse Legends would lose much of their power were it not for the knowledge of an eventual Ragnarek, as would the story of Davy Crockett without the existence of an Alamo. In comic books, however, given the commercial fact that a given character will still have to sell to a given audience in ten years' time, these elements are missing. The characters remain in the perpetual limbo of their mid-to-late twenties, and the presence of death in their world is at best a temporary and reversible phenomenon.
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