Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1 by Frank Miller

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1 Reviews

• 
  Jon Nakapalau

  It would be hard for me to explain the impact this book had on comics at the time (if you were not there) - the sheer audacity of the book (contextually) compared to the drivel of bad art/writing that almost destroyed the industry. Tracing the arc of Batman (BM) over twenty years you could see a character lost: from the clownish character in the 60's TV series to the gritty Adams/O'Neil reimagining - BM seemed doomed to 'peaks and valleys' - and most of us were tired of the inconsistency. Then this book hit the shelves...word spread that 'the guy who did DD' was working his magic on BM. I passed on the first issue; my disappointment was so deep - in what had become of one of my favorite characters. Picked up issue #1 and #2 after a friend made me promise to 'just check it out' - still blown away to this day. The rebirth of BM - the BM we all know today.
• 
  Saleem Khan

  I originally rated this 5 stars. Now, it's a 1.
  
  I first read it as the original series of prestige-format comic books, and thought it was a brilliant satire commenting on society in the late 1980s.
  
  What has changed is my understanding of Frank Miller's intent. In blog posts (now deleted) and interviews 20+ years after first publication, Miller revealed himself to be a bigoted neo-fascist.
  
  This made one thing clear: The world and attitudes he depicts in the Dark Knight Returns are not a satire or a cautionary tale at all. It is his prescription for how to solve what he sees as the world's problems.
  
  And that changes The Dark Knight from a being a brilliant work of art into being a puerile but terrifying adolescent male power fantasy.
  
  No thanks.
• 
  Matt (Fully supports developing sentient AGI)

  For me, this is the etched mark in the timeline of comics that divides all that came before, and those after forever informed by Frank Miller's alchemy
• 
  Faye Fite

  Wow. That was much deeper than I was expecting.
  
  "I see a reflection."
  
  It's interesting that Batman's villains are almost always similar to himself. It's also interesting to see how much this hurts him. I wonder if that's why he's so reluctant to kill...? He thinks that saving them can save his own soul? Hm. I feel a blog post coming on. =)
• 
  RG

  Solid batman outing. Old school artwork but great story from Miller. Seems to have aslightly different style to the more recent novels.
• 
  MiM Metwally

  I'm still in the beginnings of my Batman reading, and I picked this piece by Frank Miller because it was the source behind the movies, it is a standalone story of 4 parts, showing Gotham city 10 years after the bat has retired from the scene yet the presuure keeps building, both in the streets and inside Bruce wayne, until the Batman returns again to set things straight, coincides with this is the return of the joker as well.
  
  The story shows a split scene between those with and those against the batman, and the opposition reaches up to the President, who calls on superman to put an end to the Batman's vigilantism and put some 'sense' into him
  It is a Dark tale, telling that no one is perfect, and psychologically imbalanced people are not always the villains, sometimes they are the super heroes...
  
  Can't say it's the best Batman story I read because I haven't read much Bat stories, but it definitely deserves a 4 star rating
  MiM
• 
  Nicolo

  I've read this countless times in the trade paperback that but this is the first time I've read it as an individual comic book, and on digital. Wildstorm did a great job remastering this issue.
  
  What is there more to say? This is the first part of Frank Miller's seminal miniseries on Batman. He aged Bruce Wayne to the edge of crankiness, removing it as far from the smiling corporate pitchman he had become and returning him to his roots as a dark knight.
  
  I love reading it on digital, a new experience to say the least. I could easily zoom in on the panels and enjoy Lynn Varley's lush coloring. This is one of the two best Batman stories ever. The other one is also written by Miller. A must read for any fan of the comic book medium.
• 
  José

  Old Bats still can kick some ass. It was awesome!
  
  
• 
  Bullet Train

  Didn't like the overuse of news station comic panels . Seems like a rather lazy way of providing exposition . Overall I understand the significance of this graphic novel but I don't not feel like it stands the test of time . Millers use of dialogue can occasionally be hard to follow and the pacing just seem awkward to me personally .
• 
  Alice

  The artwork works with the plot but the style is definitely outdated. I'm excited to see more squabbling with Harvey Dent.
• 
  Erin Cataldi

  So many aspects of the movies and other Batman comics I have read make much more sense now after reading this. The fact that this is 30 years old is astonishing, it still feels so fresh. The story is great, the asides told through television interviews and bulletins are genius, and the illustrations are out of this world. The comic picks up with the mutants causing more and more trouble in Gotham, Batman has been in retirement for a decade but feels he must put on his cape and save Gotham from itself. Understandably not everyone is happy to see him back and many are quick to lay Gotham's problems at Batman's feet. He has to battle evil, save face, and try to stay healthy and fit (which is hard because he's legit old now). Throw in the fact that Harvey Dent is let out (they fixed his face, no more two sided evil nature!) and there are rumors that the Joker is sane enough to do interviews on television, and that a young girl has started tagging along as Robin and you've got one hell of a great graphic novel. Solid from start to finish.
• 
  Garrett

  I just recently purchased the hardcover collectors edition of The Dark Knight Returns which collects each issue as a separate hardcover book all in a really nice box set. I think this was the comic that sort of started my Batman obsession.
  
  The first issue of the Dark Knight Returns is a personal story about an aging Bruce Wayne and him trying to move on from being Batman after retiring ten years earlier due to the death of Jason Todd. Frank Millers artwork is definitely dated, and could be deemed ugly by today’s standards but for the time it was groundbreaking. The real reason The Dark Knight Returns remains such a classic though is because of the writing. Frank Miller has very organic and realistic dialogue, and some of the real highlights are in this first issue with Bruce Wayne’s monologues. Miller also reminds us that Gotham is in fact a city, with news reporters, politicians, and people for and against the idea of vigilantism. Much of this book is from the viewpoint of Gotham’s citizens, and is thus made a very intriguing sociopolitical satire.
• 
  Vítor Leal

  “While in my gut the creature writhes and snarls and tells me what I need ...”
• 
  Abhi

  I liked how the news playing on TV was used consistently throughout the book as a device of storytelling and to present contrasting opinions. In addition to the fact that Bats makes a comeback to crime-fighting 10 years into retirement.
• 
  Harper Lee

  Probably my all time favourite Batman story next to Dark Victory.
• 
  Moataz Mohamed

  Batman comes back after 10 years to fight a gang that calls itself The Mutants. That might be a good way to describe the start of this quadrology. But I think it'd be more honest to say that he came back because he needed to. Batman came back because the society forgot and surrendered to its demise, and he needed to remind them one more time.
• 
  Thomas

  Really cool but the thing about buying comics in series is that they aren't satisfying until you've read the whole story arc........
• 
  Phil

  I think it’s fair to say that Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (1986) has by now acquired a status nearly as legendary as its title character. The story is familiar. The Comic Book Code of 1954 and the Batman TV series of the 1960s turned the caped crusader into a farcical caricature of himself in the public eye. Then along came Miller with his gritty and incisive vision of the character to restore him to his darker roots and infuse him with a newfound cultural relevance. This version of events is not without exaggerations and omissions, of course—in particular, it neglects the good work done by Denny O’Neil in the 1970s—but it is for the most part accurate.
  
  The Dark Knight Returns could not have a set-up more appropriate to its character. Ten years have passed since the last sighting of the Batman, the masked vigilante who took it upon himself to wage a one-man war on Gotham City’s criminal underworld. In the interim, a new breed of criminal has strung up. The Mutants, a gang of disaffected youths who kill for sport with sheer indifference to human life, terrorize the streets of Gotham. Unable to remain silent in the face of the Mutant threat, an aged, alcoholic and depressed Bruce Wayne decides to don the cape and cowl once more to impose order on a city that is spiraling out of control.
  
  One of the most striking aspects of Miller’s story is its biting political commentary. Gotham City, it seems, is comprised of two distinct worlds: The public sphere of news broadcasts, talk shows, public opinion polls, and so on, and the lived reality of ordinary citizens on its crime-ridden streets. In the former, incompetent officials, disconnected experts, and insipid radio personalities all weigh in on current events in an incoherent jumble of noise, incapable of gaining a unified grasp of the situation and therefore of taking action. In the latter, there is the Batman, who, because he operates outside the system, is the only person willing and able to act.
  
  Miller has said on a number of occasions that he was tired of hearing The Dark Knight Returns described as “dark” and “gritty.” With all due respect to him, though, those are the most appropriate descriptors. Miller’s Gotham City is a dangerous, crime-infested cesspool and his Batman is a haunted old man driven by a pathological need for order and control. And it goes without saying that both have had an enormous influence on later iterations of the character: Without The Dark Knight Returns, there is Tim Burton Batman, no Batman: The Animated Series, and no Dark Knight Trilogy—which means, to my mind at least, no Batman.
• 
  Ruby

  Holy Moly– YES.
  
  As someone who thoroughly disliked Man of Steel and didn't finish the Dark Knight movie, I have to say that this graphic novel series was surprisingly fantastic and showed me something about DC that the movies just didn't communicate to me.
  
  First of all, this was my first graphic novel, so I may just be reeling from this new style I've been exposed to. But I cannot deny how much the style, art, and story absorbed me from the very beginning.
  
  For people like me who have never read a graphic novel or superhero comic before, I'll lay out the main things about this read that surprised me that I liked:
  
  1) The style was like watching a really old cartoon– in each panel, you can tell that there is almost a shocking amount of thought going into the components and layout of each panel. It's more poignant than a movie because every single panel/frame tells a miniature story of it's own. I didn't know that the position and dialogue of the characters mattered so much– I'm used to funny comics, so I didn't consider the careful design of the story through the panels in Dark Knight Returns. It was super cool because it was like a game where the goal is to find all the information/symbolism in a picture (speech bubbles, posters in the background, color, lighting, etc). It was like a powerful storyboard to a movie– I could almost hear a soundtrack!
  
  2) Satisfying characters. Although the backstories of the characters are not fleshed out as much as in a book or movie, the character art, dialogue, and storyline is so masterfully designed/plotted out that it makes up for the lack of words (as in a book) or screentime (as in a movie). I particularly thought the speech choices for Clark Kent and Commissioner Gordon said a lot about their characters in a way that was to the point and almost better than reading a book or watching a movie. I hate every DC movie I've seen (with the exception of Wonder Woman :)), and this book does a much better job of handling the characters than the movies, in my opinion. I've always been uncomfortable with Batman because I didn't understand his motivation or how we were supposed to think of him– but, reading this, I get now that he's troubled and you're supposed to go-"heyyy...maybe, wait....are you...?" etc, every once in a while. From the movies, I got that he had issues, but I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to forgive them or not. This Batman made a lot more sense to me. I also really liked...Yindel? Is that her name? The art style made each character sharp and unique, which I loved. I loved the art for Yindel and Robin!
  
  3) Variety. It wasn't just one type of panel. I really liked how some panels had rounded edges to show that we were watching TV, and how other panels were huge for cityscapes or falling-off-building shots... the art wasn't just good and perfect for the story– it was also creative and varied in its design, and that went for the speech bubbles as well– I was surprised that I could easily figure out if a character was thinking, talking, on TV, in a recording, etc. Certain styles were used when people were talking in different ways, which I suspect is common in graphic novels, but I had never considered it before, and I liked that that was an aspect of this type of book. The fact that the panel styles changed strategically, modeling quick movie scenes and with interested transitions/cut-off points between each– that was neat. Also, the repetition of different styles of panels (like with the TV broadcasts) made the story more impactful and exciting.
  
  4) For people who don't like dark or intense stuff– hey, there's violence but it isn't that bad! I'm not even kidding! There's bright red blood and punching and people planning how to destroy each other and these creepy mutant guys that maybe want to eat people? I didn't really understand them besides the fact they were mean and had crazy teeth... point is, I was expected huge, distasteful amounts of blood and gore and guns and explosions– but, like the panels, the conflicts were varied, and it wasn't a giant punch-fest! There was more psychological stuff going on, really. And there was hardly any swearing (which I wasn't worried about but was expecting). A huge part of the reason I hate most DC movies I've seen is how dark they are– not scary, but just the whole hopeless ambience really gets me down, and the knowledge that people are making the Joker as awful as possible just to freak you out and make you doubt yourself– that gets under my skin. But the Joker here was actually a really interesting character who didn't make me uncomfortable– you got a sense of...if not his depth, than of the depth and uniqueness of his evil.
  
  I thought Batman v. Superman was just "pretty good" until the end– but I really, really liked Dark Knight Returns 4. I may even call it epic– iconic, of course! And I'm saying this as someone who knows of comic superheroes only what I've heard from A) my nerd friends B) pop culture and C) Big Bang Theory.
  
  Complaints? Couldn't stand the bold/italicizing of every third word. Made for some interesting dialogue, but it was mainly distracting.
  
  In general, a surprisingly good read in a style I found awesome– with less violence and more variation in design than I expected! I recommend it to teens– I don't think tweens would understand some political themes and darker ideas presented in the book... and you want the readers to understand. It makes a bigger impact that way.
• 
  Diego Munoz

  A very different take on the regular Batman story. Bruce Wayne, now old (only 40!! Like me!!) comes out of retirement as crime is rampant. At the same time, Harvey Dent is released from Arkham Asylum.
  
  The art work reminds me of Miller’s work on Daredevil at times. It’s very wordy, but that is not a bad thing.
  
  Underlying the story is the doubt that Batman had what it takes to make a comeback, and the aura or reputation that he created before, and it’s ability to strike fear into potential criminals.
• 
  A.J. Vanderhorst

  Birthday present! I can see this being a landmark graphic novel, but man is Batman’s character grim (and a bit one-dimensional). Nolan’s movie series definitely borrowed from this, and went further, adding nuance to the title character.
• 
  rubama⁷🌿

  I had to read this as a course reading for one of my classes. And most of the time, I don’t like the books I have to analyze but this one was great. I love Batman and the darker vibes and mystery and atmosphere of the hero. It was a fun time reading.
• 
  Koen

  not many words required: Wauw, Miller brings it out good!
  I'm a fan, and I'm on to the next one!!
  
• 
  Radu Ionut

  My third Batman graphic novel and I enjoyed it !!! Even buying the action figure from Mafex and seeing the animated movie as well.
  Great story for old Batman.
• 
  Dr.SnowWolf

  Einfach Epic
• 
  Cameron Scott

  Late to the party, but the party is still going....
  
  I can see the inspiration behind The Dark Knight movie series here, but there is also so much more. Wry, witty social commentary. A gritty lens worth descending into. And like all good books/graphic novels/etc. perhaps you will emerge with a new perspective. Cutting edge at its time, and still commenting on society today.
• 
  Andres

  Outstanding.
  
  Bat-Man is menacing as ever. Beating the tar outta punk-ass villians but also finding the brutality of man.
  
  Also, getting older means we get to see this Bat-Man as a seasoned fighter. He's not green anymore . The art was terrific but some of the TV's in the graphic novel were all over the place with what they were saying.
  
  An instant damn classic! Worth 6-1,000 more reads. Frank Miller's pacing is excellent.
• 
  Bilbo

  A good read. It’s deep-critical perspective of the society makes you have doubts about the actions of Batman and its direct and undirect consequences. You can understand why he was retired and come back.
  
  It has many references to other stories of Batman, as its name indicates “Returns”, so you should know a little bit about this character before reading it.