1.
I must confess. The only Frank Miller I’ve really been able to enjoy is Batman: Year One. Reasons for this disconnect no doubt abound, from the objectification of women and sadism that pervade All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder to the deliberate discursiveness and unanswered continuity questions of The Dark Knight Returns, from the sheer brutality of his pencils in 300 to the bizzare nature of the coloring in The Dark Knight Strikes Again. However, I believe one of the most fundamental problems I hit consistently is Miller’s consistent portrayal of the impossible reversal, and the clearly heroic masculinity idealized in this recurring device.
This device occurs four times in The Dark Knight Returns. An emotional version appears (pp. 17-20) when Bruce Wayne recalls the the genesis of his obsession with the image of the bat. His first battle with the Mutants leader fleshes out the structure in physical, brutal life (pp. 77-83), as does the battle between Batman and the Joker (pp. 143-151). Lastly, the fight with Superman somewhat subverts the trend, albeit with an even more impossible reversal in the form or chemically faked death and resurrection. Miller’s fixation on this device as an indicator of heroic masculinity appears in the Sin City story The Yellow Bastard, in which the main character saves himself from being hanged by tensing his neck muscles after the hanging has actually taken place.
The two middle battles, with the Mutants leader and the Joker, present the most solid embodiment of the trope in The Dark Knight Returns. In both, Batman faces defeat at the hands or plans of his foe. Despite being for all intents and purposes defeated, he pushes through the pain and wrestles victory into his grasp (all narrated quite grimly in Miller’s trademark neo-noir monologue). The connection I make between these impossible reversals and Miller’s idealized heroic masculinity come in the word choices and imagery chosen to go along with the action. In the battle with the Mutants leader, the monologue constantly drips with almost sensual joy in combat – “A BEAUTY to his SOLAR PLEXUS,” “BONE bites into my KNUCKLES” – not to mention the aggressively (and in my view sadistic) domineering view Batman takes of the fight. His focus on the fight is forcing his opponent to take his orders – “I make him eat some GARBAGE—-then I help him SWALLOW it,” “SHOW me EXACTLY how MUCH it takes to BREAK YOU,” “Least I can do – is shut him UP,” “Teach him brand-new KINDS of pain” – all creating a hypermasculine view of a hero who teaches evildoers that they cannot act as they want in HIS world. Combined with the overmuscled, triangular torsoed Batman images which continue to dominate the panels, Miller’s hero in The Dark Knight Returns emerges as a physically perfect (not to say impossible, considering Batman’s ostensible age at the time of the story), paternalistic pedagogue who delights in pain both to himself and others, considering it the mark of a true, manly hero.
Though I’m not sure I can completely assimilate Alan Moore’s vision in Watchmen (and apparently, he doesn’t either, since he went on to write Tom Strong and other extremely idealistic versions of superheros), I find his depiction of Rorschach acting out the same basic pattern on taking impossible amounts of pain and overcoming them as suicidally insane, rather than heroically masculine a less troubling portrayal.
It does occur to me that in the two instances I examine here, Batman actually requires saving from his situation from the petite, female Robin. So it’s possible (if unlikely in my mind, given the other instance of the trope in Miller’s other work) that Miller is actually attempting to subvert the trope. I remain unconvinced and unallured.
2.
Looking at The Dark Knight Returns for recurring formal elements, I noticed the consistent placement of splash pages (a page in which the panel is either the whole or almost the whole of the page) on the left side, in a consistent pose of heroism which often contrasts with the actual narrative point, such as Batman holding the suicide general wrapped in a flag, the pose and colors superficially suggesting honor to a fallen soldier, the details pointing to Batman’s contempt instead. The image of Robin hugging the wounded Bruce Wayne confuses with the combination of tenderness of action and harshness of pose (mitigated somewhat by Wayne’s small smile, without cruelty for once), and most of the panels with Superman (unsurprising, given Miller’s take on Superman as a naive sellout) which undercut his pose with the real meaning of his action, or a metaphoric commentary, such as the image of him lifting the tank suggesting the taint and burden he bears of all the war and death cause by his acquiescence to the powers that be.
Great points. Glad to know I’m not the only doubter…(wink)
One thing that I keep being told is that I have to judge the work as a reaction to the rest of comic book history. This is interesting to me, as someone who is just now starting to read the genre–and solely by diving into (post-comic?) works like TDKR and Watchmen. Did you grow up reading their predecessors? Perhaps if I’d grown up reading ’em, I’d be more awed by their subversion…but as for now, I too remain rather “unallured” in the face of friends’ near-reverent admiration.
That said, they certainly are top-notch for starting some fascinating conversations!
Agreed – the discussions here have been superb.
However, I didn’t actually grow up reading the “original” incarnations of the superheros deconstructed by the likes of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen – I grew up reading their successors, which (in my opinion) take the lessons learned from deconstruction and reconstruct them, injecting a realistic look at the effects of superheros and the psychology of those who would seek out the life of a costumed vigilante without necessarily resorting to apocolyptic scenarios and deeply disturbed head cases.
Which is not to say that I think the comics of the late 90s and early 2000s are less campy and idiotic than those of the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and early 80s.
While I do see the elements of the impossible reversals you mention, I feel like they aren’t that out of place in this text. Where’s the suspension of disbelief, fellas? Batman is consistently beaten down and manages–somehow, at the last minute–to emerge triumphant. I feel like it’s part of his story, even if these reversals were a bit extreme. For example, in the case of the mutant leader fight, I don’t see that so much as an impossible reversal but a plot device. Batman is older and weaker than the mutant leader, but he’s also smarter. So it follows that the fight would be pretty even. As Batman starts to falter, Robin steps in with some nice heroics. Enter the sidekick. We now have two heroes! In this case I saw that as more of a plot device than an impossible reversal. Also, I wonder if any reversal is really impossible in the Dark Knight’s world. By this I mean that we’d have some pretty boring stories if Batman always whooped up completely on his foes, never getting more than a scratch. And as we’ve discussed elsewhere, the Dark Knight can die, but it wouldn’t do much good to have him die in every comic run. I’m not a huge fan of the noir-like dialogue you mention in your post, but I don’t see any way around these reversals when we’re talking about how to tell a good Batman story.
So the only way to write a good Batman story is to glorify this type of violence? I’m not convinced…
There is a lot to dislike about Frank Miller’s view of the world, a view he often manifests in his comic books. For me, most of my issues with Miller evaporate because of the obviousness of them — if he were a more subversive writer/illustrator, perhaps I would be troubled, but all of Miller’s flaws are right on the surface, not hiding below it. And, to be fair to Miller, he is obsessed with noir-ish, dystopian narratives and characters. These genres are rich with human and artistic imperfections and are often rife with misogyny, racism, the glorification of violence, strong parallels drawn between masculinity, violence, and heroism, etc. I mean, you can watch the future President of the United Stated Ronald Reagan punch a woman in the 1964 remake of “The Killers,” a scene that was left uncut because that act of violence was seen as a trope of the noir/crime genre. If what inspires you creatively is this dark, seedy world and the people who inhabit it — and there is indeed a discussion to be had about why artists like Miller are allured and inspired by this darkness — you are going to end up with some rather troubling material. Though, as Josh inferred, troubling material that is the basis for great conversations.
To walk a razor’s edge, I agree to some extent with both your issue with the “impossible reversals” and Jared’s call for the suspension of disbelief and view of these impossible battles as plot devices, not just ridiculous instances in the graphic novel. I think the major issue I had with Batman’s survival and recovery after the first Mutant Leader and Joker battles was not so much that he shouldn’t have survived, but that he basically took a 5-minute breather and was right back in the saddle (quite literally in one instance), ready to engage in yet more violence. My only real criticism here — and this would extend to my comments on the character development blog post as well — is that Miller shouldn’t have tried to do so much in 4 issues. If he had done 6 or 8 issues (Moore was smart and did 12), he could have shown that Bruce Wayne was pretty battered after his first fight with the Mutant Leader and the violent encounter with the Joker, perhaps even unable to go out and fight crime for a while because of these injuries. This could have allowed for Robin to have a larger role — and if she’s out fighting crime (teenage rebellion) while Bruce Wayne is recovering, Miller could have played more on Bruce Wayne as adoptive father figure.
There’s not much debating the fact that Batman’s internal monologue during combat is disturbing, to put it lightly, but knowing that Miller sees Batman as a force who channels his childhood trauma and human darkness into his desire to fight criminals, I feel that these scenes underscore that it is only Bruce Wayne’s moral compass and desire for justice and order that separates him from the likes of the Joker, Harvey Dent/Two-Face, and his other enemies. This aspect of his character has always separated Batman from other superheroes, especially Superman, because Batman isn’t necessarily a ‘good guy.’ As Superman’s internal monologue reveals, Batman sees himself as a criminal using criminal methods, thus Bruce Wayne allies Batman’s driving forces with the very people he seeks to stop and punish, he just uses his criminal mindset and methods to fight crime, not perpetrate it. He is filled with the same sadistic darkness as the criminals he battles, also shaped/created by being victims of trauma, but Batman unleashes this darkness on criminals alone, not innocents.
I really appreciate the reasoning here – and I’d not considered that Miller’s blatantness helps in reading with a resistant mindset. I still think it’s troubling that even with this element of audience resistance Miller remains so popular.
I mentioned this in class, but I also have a problem with the the “stacked deck” Miller always plays with, from DKR to 300 to Sin City and beyond – the world he posits is so vile and corrupt that Batman’s own cruelty, as long as it’s guided by his admittedly pure motives, cannot but be seen as heroic. This way of constructing an argument seems very artistically shallow to me.