THE DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN - A Comic Review

There's absolutely no denying that Frank Miller is a talented writer. There was a time when he was Midas, and everything he wrote garnered critical acclaim. "The Dark Knight Returns" is widely regarded as not only one of the greatest Batman tales ever told, but one of the greatest graphic novels ever written. "Batman: Year One" was so beloved that it is essentially regarded as canon in the Bat-lore. But Frank Miller is...a touch inconsistent. If TDKR is a masterpiece, and "Year One" is flawless, is Miller's return to Gotham in "The Dark Knight Strikes Again" as amazing? Well, let's talk about that.

I was 21 years old the first time I tried to read "The Dark Knight Strikes Again". I'd just finished TDKR and Y1 by happenstance earlier in the year, and loved them, so when I'd heard that Frank Miller was writing a new Batman mini-series, I was totally stoked about it. But I had no idea what was going on through much of the first chapter of DK2. I felt lost, as if there was something that had happened between TDKR and DK2 that I had missed. It is a direct sequel but leaps into the future in a way that feels a bit disorienting.

Having faked his death three years prior, Bruce Wayne has re-emerged with his young Bat-army, many of them reformed mutant gangmembers from TDKR. He is also aided by his most recent Robin - Carrie Kelly, who has ditched the yellow cape and now wears a skin tight catsuit, roller blades and goes by "Catgirl". When the Batman first came out of retirement in the previous book, it was not only to combat the growing crime problem in Gotham, but also his own personal demons. The entire book was spent with Bruce Wayne coming to terms with who he is and what he wants. But what he wants in the second book is none too clear. Yes, he is fighting for freedom, but he does it with an almost unappealing arrogance, as if he is fighting only to prove he is right, rather than for true justice.

Cool, but ultimately pointless. 

In addition to Batman and Carrie, there at least a dozen other major characters, all servicing multiple plot lines. Ray Palmer (the Atom) and Barry Allen (the Flash) have been held prisoner until they're released by Batman's forces. Green Arrow comes back into the fold with a mechanical arm. Hal Jordan emerges from a psychadelic netherworld where he exists and an embodiment of pure will. Superman is back, still reeling from the beating Bruce put on him three years prior, and he and Wonder Woman have a surprise for everyone - a child named Lara, who mixes Superman's power with the Amazon's skill and thirst for battle. While there are many forces at work trying to keep the people of not just America, but all of Earth in check, Lex Luthor and Brainiac are the two foremost antagonists of the book.

That is until the "Joker" seems to come back from the dead toward the very end of the story, in a way that seems forced, and unecessary. I'd explain more about it, but I don't want to give away a pretty major spoiler. But...it really doesn't make any sense.

While the original Dark Knight graphic novel had dozens and dozens of panels of talking heads dissecting each and every action of the newly re-emerged Batman, DK2 brings the talking heads back, but without the same satiric punch they brought before. Miller seems to only be interested in exaggerating their absurdity even further than before, with either their over-the-top sexuality (one fictional segment is called News in the Nude) or their relentless fearmongering. The talking heads were once there to poke fun at the way the media examined and re-examined and re-examined ad nauseam the various newsmakers of the world. But DK2 pushes the media to the forefront, making them as ubiquitous a presence as Batman himself, yet he doesn't say anything new or particularly interesting about it.

In addition to sending up the media, Miller does not waste an opportunity to poke the Bush administration with a stick. This is a series that was written in a world that had just been through 9/11, and though the president in Miller's world is a CGI illusion, his words are pretty spot-on for what politics sounded like in those shaky, scary years, where many people were happy to let the politicians do whatever they like as long as they said we were safe. There are even illustrated members of the fake-president's cabinet who bear striking resemblance to Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft.

Slightly exaggerated features here.

But it takes the better part of all three issues (they are not short - all coming in at close to eighty pages long) for the entire picture Miller is painting to become clear. Lex Luthor is trying to control the world, and Batman is trying to stop him. TDKR was a tightly written story with very clear arc throughout. DK2 is a much more meandering story, with frequent bursts of colorful insanity. Much of it plays like an illustrated acid trip.

Like the story itself, Miller's artwork is raw and exaggerated. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. No one looks realistic in any way, with hunched heads, and giant hands and feet. It's a far cry from Miller's stylized yet still basically traditional work with Klaus Jansen on TDKR, and not nearly as good. While all those spirals and geometric gibberish with trippy colors may look really cool, they don't add anything and frequently break any kind of momentum the story itself is building by making your brain stop and think "What the fuck am I looking at?"

Once you do make it past all the zaniness, Miller's annoying habit of creating his own slang and dialect, and way too much focus on what TV is like in the future, it actually isn't a bad story. The bottom line Miller presents is that Batman wants the world to be free to forge its own path, out from under the control of the Luthors of the world. But that gets lost though in all the other noise he presents. Like I said - not a bad story, but it is in desperate need of editing. And maybe Miller needed someone to say to him "maybe tone it down a little, Frank. Not everyone needs swastika-styled shurikens." If he'd had a voice of reason guiding him (as he does with DKIII), this could have been a worthy follow up to his masterpiece. But...it isn't.


FINAL SCORE: 5.5/10