The Dark Knight Returns.....Again

Evening peeps! I know I've been a bit slow in releasing new posts, its just a bit hard to find the time. When I do have time I don't know what to write about, so I end up playing Playstation or reading comics so that I have something to write about. Then  I have no time to write because I've been gaming and reading. Anyway no such problem today as there is a guest writer today!

Helena Jidborg Alexander has this to say on Batman:

I have a complicated relationship with comic book films, well I should suspect a lot of us do. I love it when they get it right, but when they get it wrong, man do they get it wrong. Batman has most likely suffered this more than most.  I first saw Batman in the form of the very campy 60's TV show when I was around 10 years old. Even then it seemed a bit silly to me. Little did I know that Batman had started out as a very dark and not afraid to kill vigilante character many years earlier.

As I young teen I rented with excitement the 1989 Batman film by Tim Burton and then my love for Batman was born. I sat through the sequel and loved that, but I fell out of love again with the two following Joel Schumacher films. About 7 years after I watched the horribleness that was Batman and Robin a workmate told me I really needed to read the Dark Knight Returns graphic novel. We had been talking about Superman and how neither of us was really a fan. Back then I wasn't really that in to comics, I had read Watchmen and been blown away and my work mate had just lent me some Sin City. And I guess he wanted to further my education. It is safe to say that the Dark Knight Returns was a turning point for me and was the catalyst of me starting to read more and more comics.

The Dark Knight Returns came somewhat as a turning point for Batman as well, he had after the Adam West TV series turned rather campy in the comic too and after the TV series was cancelled the sales of the comic started failing. So in stepped Frank Miller and created what I can only describe as one of the best comics ever.

The premise of the Dark Knight Returns is an aged Batman forcing himself out of retirement as Gotham is falling apart. He has to battle his old foes such as Two Face and the Joker. The latter snapping his own neck in order to implicate Batman in "murder". Batman also gets a female Robin in the form of a 13 year old called Carrie. But the story that interested me the most is his battle with Superman.

Superman no longer of secret Clark Kent identity is working as an agent for the government and during a mission he cocks up a bit and makes a nuclear missile crash, causing the US to be hit by an electromagnetic pulse creating a blackout (well he did save people too I suppose, he didn't just mess up). Cue a lot of loitering and chaos all over the US. In Gotham Batman takes charge and keeps the city running with help from some former foe gang calling themselves Sons of Batman. The government finds it very embarrassing that Gotham is doing so well and sends Superman to deal with Batman. I won't give away the ending because you really need to pick this comic up if you haven’t read it.

You see with this new Superman vs Batman film coming up, which is said to be influenced by the Dark Knight Returns I do worry that they might cock it all up again. After all, Batman got good again with the Nolan silver screen incarnations after Schumacher had caused the franchise to nosedive yet again. So this film following on from the Man of Steel and then (if it is indeed going ahead) leading onto a Justice League film I keep on seeing flashing warning signs (big exclamation marks carried around by George Clooney). But hey, let's give ‘em a chance shall we? Meanwhile if you haven't already I urge you to read the Dark Knight Returns because I suspect Batman may never be better than this.

Helena Jidborg Alexander is a web editor from originally from Sweden but now living in the UK. She is a Whedonverse obsessed nerd who spends most of her time online, reading comics or watching clever TV series. Married to someone she met in 1998 known as Deckard in an #industrial IRC channel, they now have two sons, Tycho and Huxley. Loves a really good TV-series, blippy music, Sushi, A.M Homes books, Heidy Kenney Urban Vinyl figures and comic book heroines. Find her on Twitter under the name Hyperism.