He sees that his city and his people need him and he can’t help but let Batman return. Bruce, on the other side, may be retired, but sees what is happening. The author presents them as a background noise, where everyone is unable to properly interpret what is going on. The story is told as if the television was constantly switched on, and TV programmes take up a lot of space in the story, commenting on events in the plot, in the same way as which three news channels are used by Todd McFarlane in his Spawn. The story is set in an alternative universe where the superheroes are all retired and only Superman still stands as America’s guardian angel: Gotham City is on the verge of a civil war, while the Cold War itself risks escalating. The Dark Knight Returns: the Gotham City of Frank Miller Each confrontation sheds light on all the various characteristics and inner conflicts of the Caped Crusader. In each episode of The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller makes Batman confront a different nemesis: Two-Faces, the Mutant Leader, Joker and Superman. For many, it’s still considered as one of the most relevant and influential comics ever, and serves as a guideline for the way in which the comic made its transition onto the big screen, particularly in regard to Christopher Nolan’s trilogy. Apart from the deconstruction of the superhero, works like these brought more to the forefront the presence of tormented characters, and subject matter geared to grown-up readers. Along with Alan Moore’s Watchmen, this comic legitimized a new language which had been spreading and consolidating over the previous years. The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, published in 1986, marks a turning point in the history of comics.

Saying these very words to himself, a fifty year-old Bruce Wayne decides, once again, to don the Batman cape. And yet, the rain on my chest is a baptism. I should be a mass of aching muscle, broke, spent, unable to move.

Dark knight returns 1986