Category: Week 3 – Watchmen

It’s not surprising that Watchmen was a Hugo Award recipient for excellence in science fiction in 1988. The artwork is purposeful and the storyline is provocative-definitely an alluring mix for young adults and adult readers. Moore’s work is one to return to again and again, with Gibbons’ bright artwork offering readers subtle details and symbolism in each panel and on each page. Readers can relate to the various characters’ struggles to deal with personal weaknesses while appropriately managing their talents or abilities, though a less mature audience may find the story challenging to take- in due to the gritty episodes, contemporary and mature themes and confusing reference to time throughout.
This story is particularly popular because it is based on fictional events (politics, power, war) with interesting characters that are generally complicated with multi-layered personalities. This might be a useful (though unusual!) piece for individuals looking to understand governmental authority and policy and its ramifications for citizens. It examines champions from the past and poses the question of how one might become a hero and the challenges of being widely known by everyone.
As a future librarian I would enthusiastically recommend this graphic novel, especially to patrons looking for a story about a hero, forgiveness and survival. Similar to The Dark Knight Returns, this story offers a more sinister impression of the world while keeping readers mesmerized with quality writing and pace.
The attention to artistic renderings and prose is exquisite; making this a piece that will surely stand the test of time. When asked about his role in creating such a masterpiece, artist Dave Gibbons accurately commented, “…comics are stories in words and pictures.” (http://www. wired.com/ underwire /2008/12/ archaeologizing/); those who enjoy variation in their reading will enjoy this classic, thought-provoking selection.

an·ti·he·ro

–noun, plural -roes.

a protagonist who lacks the attributes that make a heroic figure, as nobility of mind and spirit, a life or attitude marked by action or purpose, and the like.

Would you consider it irony that a super-hero is also an antihero?

The reader is brought into the world of Watchmen by an unreliable narrator, Rorschach. His inner voice filled with criticisms, misgivings and blatant paranoia. From the cops we are told that his body count is impressive and somewhat indiscriminant. This is now a world where vigilantism, or being a masked superhero, is outlawed. There is no place for him in this new world order but retiring was never an option for him.

What about him do we find gripping? Why does a part of us still believe his mental meanderings?

With the Comedian’s death we watch him systematically follow leads that, for the most part, hold loose logic. He immediately leaps to the conclusion that the Comedian’s death is just the beginning of an all out slaughter on heroes. Even though there is no direct evidence to correlate his hypothesis, added to the fact that we know the Comedian had plenty of enemies, we still think there is truth in what he says.

I just find it mystifying that I hold some type of faith in this unreliable character. Am I somewhat programmed to believe in him just because he allied himself on the side of “right”? Unlike Batman, whose moral code is sparse but unbendable, Rorschach only sees himself as judge and executioner. What are a few broken bones if he can get some answers? If he couldn’t get any answers, well, then it’s just a few broken bones.

Maybe it’s his chaotic lawlessness that attracts me, a character that can’t be typified as a criminal or a hero. Someone directly outside the lines of comfortable labeling. The perfect antihero.

In one of the best novel introductory quotes of all time (in my opinion at least) Alan Moore places before the reader, almost all of the great themes of the Watchmen. Great disclosure of Rorschach’s mind informs us of the state of the union, no, the world. Most importantly, we learn more about the stories characters, masked or of the masses, in these two sentences: “The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘save us!’…and I’ll look down and whisper ‘no.” Rorschach assumes he (or the superheroes) is the subject to which the masses are calling. I don’t believe anyone can state that his assumption is unsubstantiated, however, it raises the question, “Where is religion and faith in the masses”?

Also alarming, is Rorschach’s response, although his actions leave questions to any truth behind his words. A world surrounded in choice (as we all have the choice for good and evil), I found it most amazing that even the most powerful of characters, when provided the opportunity to stop the actions of evil, chose inaction. The inaction or wrong actions of so many characters, primarily the masses, whose “filthy” actions allowed America to slip into such a “gutter” have got to be the greatest crime. Can’t blame Veidt. Can’t hate the Comedian. Forget about Rorschach. To me, the masses culminated to the greatest character, interestingly personified by Seymour at the conclusion. I wonder if he has religion…
Mr. Hollis Mason, in his excerpts from “Under the Hood” often spoke of “the moral instruction”; he states he received it from his grandfather and that it was a leading foundation to become the Nite Owl.  However, I must wonder, where did this “moral instruction” come from? Alan Moore created a world full of real, down-to-earth, societal and sociological issues but how did he forget religion? Religion, the subject of so may wars (probably the most), discords, battles, skirmishes, debates, and pure disagreements; I find it hard to believe that Alan simply “forgot” the theology of the world. No…no; it was intentional.

First, I suppose religion may have provided an easy “out” for quite a few of the social problems. In a simple line from Dan to Laurie (for I believe she needed the most psychological assistance), “Why don’t we go to church and pray on it.” Of course, there are no guarantees religion could provide assistance, moreover, we have to assume Alan would have used religion to further disrupt the masses although I like to think (and I feel others may too) religion often consoles humanity especially in the face of fears and pain we cannot fully understand or bear.   In thought, the purely chaotic world is one of infinite religion, or none at all. I believe this world was the goal; a world full of “The American Dream” where greed, money, and worldly desires are the substantiated goals and religion free falls to the sidewalk.

I have read Watchmen several times now and there is something unsettling about it. I think many of us have felt this, judging by the Twitter feed, though we are all struggling to put our finger on it. I think it is because for a book entirely about superheroes, there does not appear to be a single hero among the characters.

Rorschach is often pointed to as people’s favorite character, or the most interesting, and I think there is an initial reaction to think of him as the hero since he is the only one to continue to stand against Veidt. Also, the story begins with his voice and the book also ends with his diary potentially being what will undo the conspiracy. He is n0t the hero, however. While he appears to have many of the traits of the classic American antihero, like a Batman or a Mike Hammer (hard men making hard choices for justice), Moore clearly does not endorse his right-wing, near-fascist vision. As Rosen points out, “the creators of Watchmen make it clear that they also intend to undermine Rorschach and what he embodies.”

Rorschach’s black and white view of morality is not what Moore wants taken away from this story. The whole story culminates in moral ambiguity. I think that is what so many people struggle with. Veidt appears to fill the traditional role of the villain as he kills millions, but he is as close as Watchmen gets to a “hero” because his actions actually save the world. Obviously Moore and Gibbons are deconstructing what it means to “save the world” and playing with the expectations of the reader, Veidt spares the world from nuclear destruction and war by sacrificing millions of lives. Though the other masked adventurers do not necessarily agree that it was right, they can’t disagree with Veidt’s logic and success, with the exception of Rorschach who must also be sacrificed for the “greater good.”

The question comes down to moral relativity versus moral absolutism. Veidt’s moral relativity seems to be answer Moore and Gibbons want us to accept. In the world of Watchmen, there are no moral certainties. The black and white worldview of Rorschach leaves no room for humanity: wrong is wrong, and bad people are always bad. But even the grey, subjective morality of Veidt is not fixed and absolute. As Manhattan points out, “Nothing ever ends.” Veidt’s actions, the conspiracy and the world peace it achieves is only morally correct as long as no one finds out the truth. As long as the lie is maintained, it is the “right” thing, but if the truth is ever discovered, it is just mass murder.

Who is the narrator of the Black Freighter?  In many ways, he is a mirror of Dreiberg and Rorschack. Like Dreiberg he is naive and harmless, except to those who would do wrong.  He is cast adrift in his story as is Dreiberg in his.  While both struggle and appear to make a difference, their actions are futile against a much bigger world.  Neither seems to control their fate.  And, like Dreiberg, he is in love, but his love drives him forward and ultimate causes him to be cast out of society.  Dreiberg’s love for Laurie, on the other hand, seems to final give him a place of sorts in the world that remains.

Like Rorschach, the narrator can commit murder when it justifies what he sees as ultimately good.  He disguises himself, after murdering the money lender and the “pirate’s whore”, then becomes the “implement of God’s retribution.” (Chpt. 10, page 22) He, like Rorschach, suffers for his inability to see the futility of continued struggle.  Rorschach cannot let go of a wrong, even when to expose it would cause catastrophe.  Both pay with their lives.

The narrator and Adrian are also alike.  While the narrator built his raft on the corpses of his dead shipmates in order to warn the world of the Black Freighter, Veidt confesses that he has “struggled across the backs of innocents to save humanity.” (Chpt. 11, p. 27)

Following the emergence of the narrator as a character in Tales of the Black Freighter, Moore’s comic within a comic, is a gloomy process.  A sense of despair, horror and doom dominate the tale and parallels some of the story line of Watchmen.  In the end, like Dreiberg, Rorschack, and Veidt, the narrator has no choice.  He is destined to ride the Black Freighter, a member of it crew we presume, forever.  Their destiny, like the narrator’s, appears to be ordained by forces they cannot control.

It is interesting that Shea, the writer of the text of Tales of the Black Freighter, is also one of the creators of Adrien’s “new life form” (Chpt.11, p. 25) that brings peace to the world by threatening it with extinction.  The issues of Tales that Shea writes are published two years after he disappears, with the end coming as Veidt’s plan is realized.

I have a confession to make.

I hate time travel.

It just doesn’t work. Pretty much every story I’ve ever encountered that’s involved time travel is inevitably derailed by the paradoxes of relying on said plot device. From old Star Trek episodes to Lost, from Terminator to The Lake House, my disdain for the convention has only grown. Each plot devolves into a repetitive loop of causality that simply, aggravatingly doesn’t make sense. It’s true that 12 Monkeys—and its infinitely better predecessor, La Jetée—plays with this very idea, but the sight of Bruce Willis screwing up his own life for eternity was every bit as shallow (if beautifully designed) as it would later be in his Disneyfied attempt to redeem it in The Kid.

As a pure sidenote: I do confess a hypocritical appreciation for the sheer campy-ness of Back to the Future. It’s so ridiculous that I can overlook all of the improbabilities and accept it for the farcical comedy that it is.

But in general, it wasn’t until I encountered Joe Haldeman’s forward-only time travel in The Forever War that I was able to read a time-travel book without wanting to inwardly throw up at least a little.

I digress. All of this preamble is just merely to say that I found Dr. Manhattan’s existing outside of time to be rather distracting. Make that very distracting. I still can’t decide if I thought it was a well-handled discussion or not. It certainly seems to be a pretty major plot point…

I shared quite a bit of Laurie’s angst over Jon’s “predestination trip.” Can anyone ever explain that kind of thing? Maybe it’s because it’s just an infinite—“godlike?”—idea that my finite brain can’t comprehend. Well, damn it, despite his proclivity for the magic ‘shrooms, Moore’s brain is just as finite as mine, and I’m just not convinced that his character’s monotone “There is no future. There is no past.” schtick is that insightful (if at all).

True, are Jon’s pretentious metaphysical soundbytes even a serious story point? By the end of the story, as he fails to “save the day,” I can see why Moore would want to play with diluting the power of a too-perfect, too-omniscient hero—an ultimately fatalistic subversion that goes more than a step further than the grit of Miller’s Dark Knight. Indeed, the bitter deconstruction of all of society’s ideals is the real, persistent discussion drummed into our heads throughout Watchmen—and it’s a bleak one. Which I guess Jon’s soundbytes do reinforce…

Still, in the end, I found Jon’s insistence that “we’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings” more than just an emotional downer. How many strings can he see? How does one exist both within and outside of a timeline simultaneously? Why can’t he do more to “fix things?” Is the eternal energy of the universe dictating his life (and in turn, everyone else’s)?

It seems to me that there are two kinds of mysteries in stories–ones that make you bend even closer to the page in wonder and appreciation, and ones that make you sit back and scratch your head in frustration.

Which direction did you lean?

While Watchmen can never be accused of painting an optimistic picture of humanity, one thing that kept coming back to me during this reading was just how flawed virtually every type of human relationship is shown to be throughout the text. 

Moore is absolutely unrelenting in his portrayal of marital and parental relations.  Rorschach’s childhood is a nightmare of physical and verbal abuse, and Laurie’s strained relationship with her mother leads to resentment and a life of half-truths.  Likewise, the vast majority of marital-type relationships in the text are shown to be deeply flawed (Jon and Laurie, Jon and Janey Slater, Sally Jupiter and Larry, Dr. Long and his wife, Joey and her girlfriend).  These dysfunctional portrayals of family life fit well with Rosen’s reading of Watchmen as a very blunt critique on nostalgia, and it seems Moore is intent to hit his readers over the head with the message that family lives don’t always live up to the idealized views that society can present.

But Moore also seems to be making an interesting critique on humanity and the general inability in contemporary society for people to form connections with one another.  As the true “superhero” of the text, Dr. Manhattan struggles between the roles of protector and threat because of his inability to connect with humanity.  Likewise, two superpower nations are on the verge of nuclear annihilation, without seemingly any sense of their shared humanity.  Rorschach’s sense of isolation is so extreme that he chooses to lead a life as a deranged recluse.  And the physical failure to connect with another person is present on a sexual level in Dreiberg’s impotence. 

While much of these failures of connection are righted by the end of the story, it’s also interesting to look at just how these resolutions are brought about.  The fate of humanity is saved (at least temporarily) as Americans and Soviets can come together to fight a perceived common threat, but only after millions die.  And Dreiberg consummates his relationship with Laurie, but only after putting on his mask and costume.

Moore is certainly making some heavy political statements in Watchmen.  But I also think he’s intentionally making some interesting human statements.  His goal doesn’t seem limited to simply subverting any idealized views of our relationships with one another.  He also seems to be focused in questioning the fabric that serves as the basis for these relationships to begin with.   

John

Rorschach, also known as Walter Kovacs, seems morally frozen in his stances of what is good and what is evil. Rosen speaks to this as she states, “Rorschach is the dark side of nostalgia” and “It is clear that Moore and the creators meant for us to read Rorschach as the vessel of an outdated morality” (90). The morality in Rorschach’s view of the world not only pertains to how he judges things in his life, but how he perceives visual images as well, especially the image that is often repeated in his life, the one of distorted intimacy in a couple’s embrace.

Walking in on his mother having sex was to him a source of “Dirty feelings, thoughts and stuff” which “upset him, physically” and made him “feel bad just talking about it” (6:32). While he seems to want to avoid the subject of the “Siamese twins, joined at the face and chest and stomach,” he cannot escape the imagery as he sees it splashed in his vision at any sight of intimacy (6:32). He psyche is scarred by the scene of his mother with that man who was a stranger to him and the subsequent trouble he gets into from breaking up their brief union. It seems so scarred that, in Rorschach’s mind, all instances of intimacy or of romantic embrace is now deemed to be solely on the side of evil, or if it is not that far, it is surely a sign of immediate discomfort when Rorschach sees these encounters.

This can be seen when he sees the silhouette of a couple in a doorway. Immediately, Rorschach’s response is “Didn’t like it, makes the doorway look haunted,” as seen in the picture below. The image is echoed so often when dealing with Rorschach that it sees like the word “scarred” wouldn’t do his mental disposition justice. “Haunted,” as he put it, would seem more appropriate.

Yet, the ghost is also catching. Following the lover’s inkblot and Rorschach’s story from his childhood, Rorschach’s therapist’s mind view becomes considerably altered by his time with Rorschach (6:3). Dr. Malcolm Long’s marriage deteriorates. He is distracted, almost consumed by his need to understand Rorschach and his obsession with being Rorschach instead of Walter Kovacs. I say it is catching because the therapist seems to have caught the image of intimacy that echoes so often with Rorschach. The therapist sees two people embracing in an image of graffiti, and his comment about them is that “On 7^th Avenue, the Hiroshima lovers were still trying inadequately to console one another” (6:27). He may not be as haunted as Rorschach is by the image, but he does view the embrace as “inadequate,” which may be also echoed in the subsequent problems of his marriage.

The haunting image seems so engraved in Rorschach that it becomes a part of him. This can be seen near the end of Watchmen, when Rorschach sees Laurie and Dan embracing after hearing Veidt’s plot. The distorted image of the couple’s embrace that has been following him throughout the novel is displayed on his mask immediately following him seeing the two together. He himself displays the image, only to have it disappear right after.

It would seem that the image of the couple is a visible marker of both Rorschach’s possibly instability when it comes to looking at the world and his distorted view of intimacy in general based on his upsetting childhood.

~Kelley

The DKR is intense. Almost too intense. The violence, either in the dialog or in the illustrations, never stops. There is no time to pause and reflect– is there a reason? There are interjections by the “media” that, at first, I thought served as a humorous commentary on violence. They are funny, but they appear to be there only to move the plot along and illuminate, in case we don’t understand, what we’ve just read. They have a plot and momentum all their own. Besides these instances of comic relief, there are even fewer moments of compassion and tenderness. Mainly though, DKR is violence: open the book to any page and find never ending mayhem and carnage. This is what we expect from anything in the universe of Batman.

We have black people and hints of gayness, alcoholism, drug addiction, and transgender villainy – all reflections of our “time”. But other than these, it appears that the “Comic Code” prevails in DKR. A flawed man is redeemed. The wicked are punished. The Batman doesn’t attempt depth. Life for Miller, at least reflected in his work, is a simple binary.

There are no surprises in DKR. We know what we are getting from the moment we begin. Adversaries change and grow; some are more colorful and kinkier that others, but in the end, good triumphs and evil is vanquished. Life goes on until the next time. In the Sharrett interview, Miller says that DKR is not pessimistic because the “good guy wins.” We knew that from the outset. How else could it possibly end?

As a kid I liked it a lot. I like it now, but not so much. It wears me out. It quickly grows stale. Maybe that is the reason for the intensity and violence. It hides the fact that there is really nothing to reflect on in DKR.

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.

Throughout The Dark Knight Returns there exists a tension between a fantastical world and a world based on reality.  This distinction stands out for me in the contrast of black-and-white versus color images, most notably in that the images of Commissioner Gordon  are always in black-and-white.  Gordon’s contrast is particularly evident on pages 58-59.  On page 58, fourteen of the sixteen images consist of Commissioner Gordon and the only one with color is the image of a member of the mutant gang.  The adjacent page includes images of the television, Robin, and Batman all in color.  Even the darker image of Batman stands against a blue sky and the density of the black used to color him, well, colors him. Even in the color heavy second half of the DKR Gordon’s images remain in black and white as can be seen on page 175.

The juxtaposition of these pages pronounces a distinction the book desires to make between Commissioner Gordon and the other images of the book.  Perry Nodelman’s article on picture books states that black and white pictures remind us of our “experience with newspaper photographs” and that they “tend to imply seriousness and authenticity” (137).  I agree with this in that having the Commissioner in black and white we are reminded of his humanity. Look at Gordon’s face and the evidence for seriousness and authenticity can be read in the marks of age and stress as compared with the lack of these lines and expressions in the faces of the people on the adjacent page.  Moreover, Gordon is a kind of realistic batman or maybe the poor man’s version of batman because he fights crimes and fights for justice from a more real-world perspective. Or maybe the black and white evokes a sense of nostalgia for a Gotham City before the mutant gang and before Batman was needed to instill justice.

If black and white is meant to bring a sense of “seriousness and authenticity,” what sense are the heavy color images throughout, but particularly those of the television, supposed to evoke?  I don’t want to say triviality and falsehood, but maybe to be very literal it speaks to the idea that television colors the seriousness and reality of its reports. The character of Batman also coincides with this idea – one must look past the costume and mask to discover the real man behind it all.  Do we see a triumph of authenticity in the end when Bruce leaves Batman behind and rallies his troops as Bruce?

I agree with the assessment that the villains that Batman faces in The Dark Knight Returns are reflections of himself.

Harvey Dent/ Two Face is the most obvious. It is clear that Bruce Wayne/ Batman sees Dent as a mirror of himself. Dent, a former District Attorney and hero is deformed and turned into a criminal at the hands of criminals. Dent is of two minds as well as two faces: The hero and the criminal. He cannot decide between these two, and so uses a coin to make decisions. When we first meet Dent he has been “cured” physically and mentally. He tries to return to society as a normal man, reformed, but as we discover he is incapable of remaining this way and his true divided nature reemerges. Wayne follows a similar trajectory. After the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd, Wayne has retired from being Batman and tried to return to normal society. He even sponsors Dent rehabilitation because he needs to believe that people’s “private demons can be defeated” (17). Both men finally succumb to their private demons and Batman must defeat Two Face. In this confrontation, Batman acknowledges that they are mirror images when he says he sees a reflection.

Less obvious reflections of Batman are the other enemies he confronts. Batman is a character of many divisions. The conflict between these divisions is reflected in Dent, but the divisions themselves take the form of the others that Batman faces off against. Batman squares off against the Mutant gang leader. The Mutant Leader represents raw brute force and criminality. Batman walks the line between law enforcement and criminal. To defeat the Mutant Leader, Batman must circumvent the law and defeat the leader at his own game. The Mutant Leader is the reflection of Batman’s criminality and barbarism.

The Joker is a distorted reflection. Joker is in many ways the opposite of Batman. While Batman seeks a kind of fascistic control over the criminal element in the city, the Joker is the anarchistic soul of crime. He is a villain and a murderer, but by defeating him, Batman has become a villain and murderer in the eyes of the public.

Finally, Batman must square off against Superman, the hero. In this confrontation, Batman must face the publicly accepted superhero as the public villain. In defeating Superman, he must himself be defeated. He beats Superman, but it costs him his life.

The most titillating aspect of the Dark Knight Returns, and many other comics for that matter, is how everything seems to represent something else.  Metaphors rule the superhero, and DKR is bursting at the seams with them.  While Miller discusses some of this in his interview, I wanted to try to walk through the narrative and pull out the largest ones and see what happens.

In the first book batman faces Harvey Dent, who Miller points out is a reflection of Batman because of his two-sidedness (Bruce Wayne & Batman).  In returning to the batman self, Bruce Wayne must face his own evil, represented by the bat, and not ignore it or silence it, but rather let it empower him so that he can fight for the weak and average human.  Batman sees his own reflection in Harvey’s vision of himself, as someone who has let the evil side of him rule entirely.  This one idea has many implications.  For instance, batman might have thought that by retiring for so long, he let his worst side of him (fear, laziness, old age) take over his persona to the point that he became a bystander in the increasingly chaotic city of Gotham.  Alternatively, he might have recognized that his own evil (the bat) had in the past taken over so completely that he let things happen that shouldn’t have.  I do not know what happened to the previous robin, but it’s obvious that whatever it was, Batman regretted his role in it.  When Batman faces Harvey Dent, then, he is facing the doubleness of himself, his good and his evil.

The mutant gang of book two seems to represent the anonymous group of mediocre villains, who are the same type of people who murdered Batman’s parents.  In facing them and finally taking out their leader, Batman has regained the power he lost when his parents died.  By killing the mutant leader and gaining the adoration of the mutant gang, Batman has essentially wrestled with the past, and then become the master of it.

Book three is Batman’s epic fight with his archenemy the Joker.  As Miller explains, the Joker represents chaos, and it is specifically this chaos that Batman, a control-freak, cannot stand.  It is also this chaos that killed his parents.  In facing the Joker batman is facing not only his past (like he did with the mutant gang), but also the larger universal force that ultimately lead to the murder of his parents.  In other words, the mutant gang was a replica of the type of people that killed his parents; the Joker is the puppet master that made them do it.

In book four Batman has to face Superman, and it is here that I get a little confused.  It seems that Superman is what would happen if Batman was all Bruce Wayne, in other words was all good.  Superman is not a complicated figure, but rather the simple easy example of pure good.  Batman is more complicated and so it seems that Superman might represent the other side of Harvey Dent – if Harvey Dent did see himself as his surgeons did.  Batman has to balance Bruce Wayne and the Bat in order to fully live out who he is.  If either the good or the evil was to silence the other, he would be out of balance and would become something akin to Superman – hired help who doesn’t think twice when asked to kill an old friend.

This is the second time I have read Frank Miller’s, The Dark Knight Returns, and, as is common when reading something a second time, I noticed aspects of the novel which were not apparent the first time around – in particular, Batman’s relationship to key characters in the novel. Though I believe the writing of this novel is excellent, I found the character development of almost all “secondary” characters to be lacking.

Miller undoubtedly provides the reader an intimate knowledge of Bruce Wayne’s emotional evolution, revealing a side of Batman the reader has never seen. He also provides us a decent view of Carrie Kelly’s/Robin’s growth as a person. However, I would argue that Miller could have provided additional development for characters like Harvey Dent/Two-Face, The Joker, Commissioner Gordon, Alfred, and Superman. After all, these are pivotal characters in a story that is, ostensibly, concerned with the development of these characters over the years and though Miller does give us insight into their emotions, personalities, etc., he seems to tease us by laying a framework of character advancement which never seems fully resolved.

By the end of the novel, Miller shows us that Batman will, in fact, continue fighting crime; albeit he will do so in a completely new way. Miller provides us closure and an ability to anticipate a path Bruce’s life may take. He does not, however, give us the same foundation to anticipate the other characters futures. Instead, we seem to be left in a state of Limbo.

The Joker, who we are led to believe has an almost supernatural tie to Batman, is simply killed off without providing the reader any real sense of closure. In fact, Batman seems to be disturbed by him even in death, asking The Joker to “stop laughing” even as he watches him burn. There is an undertone which implies that Batman’s struggles with the Joker are not over…but how could that be? The same can be said about Harvey Dent/Two-Face. Miller shows us that Dent falls into an even deeper state of psychosis, only leaving us to wonder what will become of him. Commissioner Gordon is left in a similar state of uncertainty; will he continue to help fight crime in Gotham City (possibly as part of Batman’s new “underground” force) or does his story end here?

The most interesting character development (or lack thereof), in my opinion, seems to be Superman’s. In this novel, Superman has become a type of pawn for the Government; a role which both Batman and Superman seem uncomfortable with. Not only is this a strange role for Superman, but it is a role which causes more problems than solutions – According to Batman, Superman has even become “A Joke.” Though there seems to be a hint of change in Superman’s demeanor by the end of the novel, again, the reader is left to wonder if anything has really changed.

Without a doubt, it is the participation of these characters in the overall plot of the novel that makes this story so intriguing. However, by expanding upon the development of each character individually, Miller may have been able to escalate the prestige of his novel, and his writing, beyond what he already has achieved in The Dark Knight Returns.

My previous experience with Batman and Superman was pretty simplistic. Superman was the one with the big S on his chest. Overall, he was a good guy, and I owned a Super-Girl hat at one time in my life. Batman was different. He was the rich one, the one with the underground layer. He had the cool car, and I didn’t think he had any real talent as a superhero, but he did have the money to make the powers that other superheroes have. After reading DKR, yes, things have changed as far as my perspectives go, and now I’m starting to like Batman more, in comparison to Superman, in large part because of how they look when the two are pushed together.

In DKR, when we see the first sign of the Superman S, I already wanted to paint Superman and Batman as opposites. The flood of media images on Batman, through the panels and panels of news feed, talk shows, and television commentaries, have Batman as the unruly vigilante who couldn’t be bothered to play by the rules because he had things that needed to be done. Obviously, he saw that the laws weren’t working; so why heed them? Superman, however, being called a “Good boy” by the government is shown, right off the bat, to be the errand boy who does play by the rules, and might just like it that way, arguably (Miller 84).

For a while, when I was reading, I wanted to say that Batman and Superman were like the two sides of the Two Face coin, but I’m at the moment not convinced that that’s good enough. It’s too simple, but at the time, I had believed that the theory could work. If they would be two sides of the coin, one constant would be that whatever side the coin landed on, good would prevail. The side chosen would only dictate the means by which the “overall good” would win over evil. Or, in even more simplistic terms, regardless of whether or not it is heads or tails, you would still have a quarter in your hand to buy something with at the end of the day.

Coming full circle, I want to attempt to give my overly simplistic evaluations of Batman and Superman an overhaul, in light of the DKR take on the Batman story. Batman is not the rich guy with a hobby of fighting villains; now, he is the gangster for the good of the people. Boichel describes it as Batman being the “figure who, like the criminals, operated outside the law and on his own terms, yet did so on behalf of the status quo…” (7). Conversely, Superman is now the morally obligated hired help of the powers that be, also known as the government.

If the coin analogy simplifies things too much, does anyone have something better to describe the Batman/ Superman dynamic? Would “more and less complicated shades of good” be any better?

~Kelley