Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Back, or, WTF?

Cafe Society
1

I waffled between here and the Pit. Then I figured, here, because I’m more baffled than angry, and I don’t feel like using gratuitous profanity.

So I wander down to the nearby Barders and Norders bookstore a few nights ago, because as always I don’t have nearly enough books to utterly drown my apartment in yet. (It’s a neverending quest. You understand.) At one point in my wending through the racks, I browse through their small but impressively non-organized clutch of graphic novels. A couple things caught my eye: The Dark Knight Strikes Back it says here. Frank Miller. “Long-awaited follow-up to The Dark Knight Returns.” Neat, I think. DKR is one of my favorite standalone comic book collections, ranking right up with Watchmen. There’s two volumes, out of three apparently, rather slim things.

I grab them with the armload of other weightier material, and settle into a comfy chair that’s more a chair-shaped pile of soft cushions than an actual chair. (My spine, praise be, is still young enough to enjoy such seating arrangements.) I open volume 1 of 3, and…

What the hell am I reading here? Apparently, everyone in this story has pretty much lost their inner narrative. Batman looms about in the background while his army incoherently frees a bunch of superhero types. Superman’s gone from someone exiled by hard choices coexisting with his ideals to a whining cowardly puppet. Batman’s no longer a tormented soul, now he’s just some psychotic jerk bellowing about war on his rare appearances, the longest of which is a gratuitously brutal beatdown of Supes. The flow of the panels themselves are incoherent–I’m theorizing that perhaps there was a massive printing error, only every other panel was put on the page. Or every third. And then randomized.

Is there some other guy named Frank Miller running around doing comics? I carefully checked the covers after I got through this trainwreck, thinking perhaps I’d misread and that it was actually by Frank Myller, or perhaps Franc Miler–you know, sort of like at Bruce Lee’s popularity-height there were various cheaper kung-fu flicks starring people like Bruce Li and Broose Leeee. But it appeared to have been spelled the same.

Now, I don’t know the world of comics all that well, or the personalities within it. I just know that this Miller fellow has done some books I rather enjoyed. Did he have a debilitating stroke between DKR and DKSB? I don’t know–I’ll feel pretty badly about saying such harsh things if that’s the case, like I’d feel pretty low badmouthing a fingerpainting by some unfortunate soul who lost his fingers.

All in all, I didn’t like it much. I think I can do without reading volume 3.

2

It’s awful. I got the first issue and just hated it. Miller has become a parody of himself, and he’s confused “stylized” with “sloppy”. The artwork is painful to look at. The story is just a bunch of pointless splash pages. It’s like a spoof of a Frank Miller comic. This idiotic sequel has absoluely zero reason to exist other than hype.

I like DC, but I’ve become embarassed for them at their blatant attempts to have another “Watchmen”. The vastly overhyped “Kingdom Come” was a huge mess of a letdown, after having been touted as “Watchmen for the 90s”. And now this pointless exercise. I expect any day now they’ll release “John Byrne Draws Superman By Holding a Pencil in His Butt Cheeks!” and declare it a major comics event. They’re drowning in their own hype.

3

Forgot to mention - this fight with Superman is basically a note-for-note replay of the climactic one in DKR, too. Apparently Miller was unhappy that everyone ripped off this battle from him and decided only he was fit to rip off himself.

4

I read the first Dark Knight Strikes Back comic, and was somewhat letdown, as well. I didn’t know what to really make of it. I think the Flash bit was very cool – something like him would be the perfect energy source.

But I was dissapointed when Batman started beating on Superman. It just didn’t make any sense. As legomancer mentioned, it felt like it was just Miller fooling around with his readers.

I picked up the 2nd one, but I’m not too thrilled about reading it. If only to see what comes of Superman, but I’ve no interest in Batman’s side project for his “crime fighters.”

Why the dissapointment in Kingdom Come? I didn’t read Watchmen, so I probably have the great benefit of not comparing the two, and I loved it to death. It’s my favorite comic book series. Even moreso than DKR. Moreso than Preacher. The artwork = uber cool. Alex Ross is my god. And the story was equally captivating.

5

I read the first Dark Knight Strikes Back comic, and was somewhat letdown, as well. I didn’t know what to really make of it. I think the Flash bit was very cool – something like him would be the perfect energy source.

But I was dissapointed when Batman started beating on Superman. It just didn’t make any sense. As legomancer mentioned, it felt like it was just Miller fooling around with his readers.

I picked up the 2nd one, but I’m not too thrilled about reading it. If only to see what comes of Superman, but I’ve no interest in Batman’s side project for his “crime fighters.”

Why the dissapointment in Kingdom Come? I didn’t read Watchmen, so I probably have the great benefit of not comparing the two, and I loved it to death. It’s my favorite comic book series. Even moreso than DKR. Moreso than Preacher. The artwork = uber cool. Alex Ross is my god. And the story was equally captivating. I felt that DKR2 ripped off of Kingdom Come.

6

I actually picked up Kingdom Come that night, and read it last night. I was neither baffled nor angry with it, my main reaction was primarily “enh.” I ended up wishing I’d picked up the Dork Tower collection instead, but not horribly disappointedly so.

Then again, I didn’t know there was any hype for it, much less claiming it was Watchmen level, so that probably helped matters there–no expectations going in beyond having vaguely heard it was okay-to-good.

7

My main problem with the miniseries, so far, is that two-thirds of the way through, we’re still wondering why hell we’ve assembled all these characters together. What exactly is the objective, other than to “bring down the system”? No real character development…

But I like the new Supergirl. And that last two-page splash was tight.

8

I believe that Miller hasn’t released issue 3 yet is because he doesn’t know how to write it.

Web-porn starlets in spandex are the key to toppling the status quo? Okie-dokie…

( I really liked parts of the first two. The Atom’s prison was inspired, and Lara shows great potential. “I’m not from Kansas.” Gotta love it.)

Oh, and I still think we have an army of Joker clones specifically trained to take out second-tier heroes. Although I haven’t quite worked out why Luthor would go through all that expense when hired guns are much cheaper.

9

You know, lame as it sounds, I hadn’t considered that. Though, in addition to your comment, I seriously doubt an army of Joker clones would really function as an army, the original being as insane and unpredictable as he was.

Besides, his villainy was about more than DNA. At least judging from Killing Joke, the Joker had to go through quite a lot before he went completely off the deep end. Which means Luthor would have to clone them and subsequently drive them all insane.

Screw hired guns, even giant robots are cheaper at this point.

10

Maybe not clones. Maybe just a special tactical squad. Like the crack Suicide Squad of the Judean People’s Front.

11

I thought that was the People’s Front of Judea.

12

Splitters!