A Dark Knight?
Miller’s Vigilante for Reagan’s America
He who fights monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
Table of Contents
Chapter I – Introduction……… p. 2
Chapter II – Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Batman………. p. 3
Chapter III – Frye and the Hero………... p. 6 Chapter IV – A Reaganite Vigilante?... p. 9
Chapter V – The Mutants and SoBs………... p. 12 Chapter VI – Redefining Batman…….………. p. 17
Chapter VII – The Duel with Superman………... p. 23 Chapter VIII – Drugs……… p. 25
Chapter IX – Social Medicine……… p. 28
Chapter X – Batman……… p. 32
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Introduction I
Perhaps the most striking attribute of Batman is that he is one of the darkest heroes of the comic book world; quite possibly his popularity is due to the fact that he has no real ‘special powers’. He has no powers other than his own strength and intelligence.1 The most important factor, therefore, is that he created himself. This is essential when analyzing Frank Miller’s
The Dark Knight Returns because Miller is presenting society not with a superhero but with a
mundane vigilante who transcends all previously considered superhero archetypes, thus creating a more ‘human’ hybrid, one which is ultimately more recognizable by the readers. Batman first appeared in Detective Comics # 27 in 1939. 2 Batman’s real name in the series is Bruce Wayne, although his alter ego is immortally known as the “goddamn Batman”. He lives in Gotham City.3 Wayne is characterized as a billionaire industrialist and philanthropist, however, one that lives with a terrible trauma. He witnessed the murder of his mother and father. The series was popular from its inception; however it truly became popularized during the 1960s with the television series of the same name.4 The TV show and subsequent Batman comics of that period were happier and were made more family-oriented. Batman needed to be reinvented again to appeal to its readership, 5 because society had changed in the 70s and early 80s.6 The positive mindset of the post-World War II mentality had all but disappeared.
1
DC Comics published that Batman is a master of different fighting styles and an escape artist; in addition he is the ‘world’s greatest detective’. See Heroes & Villains: Origin Stories: Batman. p.2.
2
Batman’s creation resulted from the success that Superman had achieved in Action Comics in early 1939. National Publications’ editors, which was to become DC Comics, requested similar superheroes for its titles. He was created by Bob Kane. See Les Daniels, Batman: The Complete History, Chronicle Books, 1999. p. 18.
3
Gotham City is a fictional American metropolis filled with criminals and vice, such as the Joker, Harvey ‘Two Face’ Dent, and the Mutant gang. The three villains are Batman’s nemeses throughout The Dark Knight Returns.
4 The television series starred Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin respectively. The comic book
suffered a drop in sales in 1964, so much that Bob Kane noted that DC was “planning to kill Batman off altogether”. See Daniels, p.95.
5 In 1969, writer Dennis O’Neill and artist Neal Adams tried to distance Batman from the ‘family-oriented’
portrayal from the 1960s TV show. The character, they believed, needed to be returned to his roots, as a “grim avenger of the night”. See Bradford Wright, Comic Book Nation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001. p. 233.
6
The Dark Knight Returns illustrates how the environment can shape and modify such a hero.
Gotham City is always aware of Batman’s actions because its inhabitants are actively observing and pursuing him. There are the television sets and cameras; the media reinforces Batman’s accountability, thus shifting his position in relation to society to that of an inferior one because prior to The Dark Knight Returns Batman was not held accountable for his actions.7 He executed his sense of justice beyond the reach of the law and the prying eyes of the camera, however, in DKR his actions–whether heroic or reckless–are broadcast to all the citizens of Gotham. The media is controlled by the very people against whom Batman was rebelling in the first place; a morally impotent society incapable of pursuing its most violent criminals.8 Miller’s DKR ushered in a new era for comic book heroes and ultimately helped to elevate the level of superhero comics as a valid art form on par at least with Art Spiegelman’s
Maus or Will Eisner’s A Contract with God.9 10 Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Batman II
The topic of graphic novel versus comic book has been highly debated ever since the first attempts to elevate comics to a more ‘adult’ level. The modern-day perception is that adults read graphic novels, whereas children read comic books. However, since Will Eisner’s A
Contract with God there has been much discussion concerning the distinction between the
graphic novel and comic book. Edward Tan suggests that ‘from an aesthetic point of view, comics may be called formulaic, in the sense that they present the reader with endless
7
Since the publication of the Dark Knight Returns, subsequent writers and artists in the 80s honored the ‘dark’ side of his character due to the success that Frank Miller achieved with DKR. In 1986 Dennis O’Neill assumed the role of editor for the Batman series and stimulated the continuation of ‘darker’ toned series. Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli redefined Batman’s beginnings. See Daniels, pp. 155-57. Also, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland furthered the ‘dark’ tone by writing the one-shot Batman: the Killing Joke. In the Killing Joke, the Joker attempts to drive Commissioner Gordon insane through both psychological and physical torture. However, none of these subsequent Batman stories achieved the depth that Miller had reached with DKR.
8 The Batman saga achieved much praise in the 1980s, which saw the release of the movie Batman, directed by
Tim Burton. The movie firmly established Batman’s presence in the modern public’s attention. Yet, the ‘revamp’ that the series needed begun with the Dark Knight Returns.
9 This was the first ever work to be labeled as a ‘graphic novel’; the term was coined by Eisner himself. A
Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories was first published in October 1978.
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variations of plots, characters, and styles, that in essence remain unchanged’.11 Tan suggests that comics were predictable. He affirms that ‘the classical formula…has not only been canonized as to genre, themes and (generic) iconography…but also regards details of its lay-out.12 Hereby, the content as well as the format of the comic book appears to be fixed.
Michael Chabon comments that for at least the first forty years of their existence comics were viewed by lover and critic alike as ‘juvenile’. He affirms that
almost from their inception, a battle has been waged by writers, artists, editors, and publishers to elevate the medium, to expand the scope of its subject matter and the range of its artistic styles, to sharpen and increase the sophistication of its language and visual grammar, to probe and explode the limits of sequential panel, to give free reign to irony, tragedy, auto-biography, and other grown-up-type modes of expression.13
There has always been the drive to argue passionately for the artistic credibility that comics have the potential to please in every possible way even the most sophisticated readership. The
Dark Knight Returns is a case of stunning innovation. Chabon affirms that Miller, along with
Bernard Krigstein falls into the category of comic book artists who have inspired
innovation.14 He concludes that they achieved this through their “attempts to approximate, through radical attack on the conventions of panel lay-outs, the fragmentation of human consciousness by urban life”.15 Urban and everyday life during the 1980s was exactly what Frank Miller was depicting in DKR. The Dark Knight Returns was initially a four-issue miniseries; however, I propose that by presenting the reader with a deconstructed comic book hero for the first time and that through this deconstructed hero one may be capable of
deconstructing American society in the 1980s and the effects of 1980s Reaganite social policies on America’s citizens, Miller elevates the four-issue miniseries to the realm of the graphic novel as well as presents the reader with a totally new kind of comic book hero.
11 Ed S. Tan. The Telling Face in Comic Strip and Graphic Novel. In The Graphic Novel. Ed. Jan Baetens. Leuven
University Press, 2001. p. 31.
12 See Ed S. Tan. The Telling Face in Comic Strip and Graphic Novel. p. 31.
13 Michael Chabon. Maps and Legends. San Francisco: McSweeney’s Books. 2008. p. 87.
14 Krigstein was an acclaimed American illustrator and artist. He received much praise for his influential and
innovative approach to comic book art during the early and mid-50s.
15
The Dark Knight Returns is the pinnacle of Miller’s endeavors to elevate the genre of
comic books, including the hero. Prior to DKR, Miller had worked on the Daredevil comic series.16 Miller helped define the modern Daredevil. He worked on reinventing the visual
dynamics of the city itself, incorporating much of New York into the panels. This innovation led to a substantially increased ‘darker’ and ‘grittier’ feel to Daredevil. Though Miller redefined Daredevil, it still lacked the depth and influential aspects that the Dark Knight
Returns enjoyed. The series also included a radical approach towards villains; it introduced
Kingpin as a ruthless organized crime boss.17 It emphasized a more reality-grounded approach to villains, foreshadowing Miller’s inclusion of gangs and drugs in DKR. Thereafter, Miller pursued a different approach to his art and storytelling techniques with Ronin.18 It dealt with a dystopic futuristic society where a traditional ronin is reincarnated and pursues retribution.19
Another hurdle Batman had to overcome was the ‘American Pop art’ movement, which began in the early 1960s. It included artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, among others. The seemingly endless array of ‘variations’ to the hero nearly destroyed Batman, but also other comic book heroes. Daniels notes “that the idea of something could be amusing because it was corny or ridiculous was essential to Pop and its allied aesthetic, camp […]”.20 Superheroes prior to DKR were susceptible to the media and artistic interpretations of the time. Spiderman, Superman, Green Lantern, and many other heroes retained many of the conventions of the previous generations of comics. Flashy colors, simple plots, and superficial heroes were the order of the day. Pop culture removed a need for the ‘deep’ and emphatic superhero and replaced it with a more humorous superficial
character.
16
Daredevil was created by Stan Lee and Lee Everett. Matt Murdock (Daredevil) has heightened senses due to his blinding by a radioactive substance. He lives in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. Though he shares the same ‘human condition’ as Batman, he stays within his limits as a superhero. Miller first worked on Daredevil in 1979.
17
Traditionally comic book villains were always costumed anti-theses to the hero.
18
Frank Miller. Ronin. DC Comics. The comic was published as a six-issue miniseries in the traditional 48-page format. The series spanned from July 1983 to August 1984.
19 Ronin were samurai with no lord (shogun) or master during the 12th and 19th centuries in feudal Japan. See
Stephen Turnbull. Samurai: the World of the Warrior. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2006.
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Frye and the Hero III
In this essay I argue that Frank Miller in the Dark Knight Returns creates a hybrid superhero. Firstly, I will argue that due to the manner in which Batman is depicted he is not an
archetypal hero but rather a more mundane character easily identifiable by the reader. Easy identification is a trademark of the comic book; however, through analysis of Batman and his characteristics one may be able to ‘put oneself in his shoes’. Miller’s clarity of narration and recognition manipulates the reader without the reader noticing that Batman is an emphatic hero. Secondly, this identification with him by the readers stems from the social and political climate of 1980s Reaganite America and that the sentimentality associated with Batman in the 1980s was quintessential for his own reinvention, not only Frank Miller’s contribution.
Thirdly, as a result of this the comic book hero entered a darker era; an era where the reader was not only shocked by the hero but experienced the psychological aspects alongside the main character and that this experience with a ‘darker side’ created a feeling of empathy with the hero. Moreover, the reader is identifying with a masked vigilante who takes the law into his own hands. The feeling of empathy or self-realization was catalyzed by the similar circumstances which society and the fictional society of the hero shared with each other. Lastly, due to these factors Frank Miller created with the Dark Knight Returns a hero that transcends preconceived notions of the ‘heroic’ and enters a realm of the ‘mundane heroic’ vigilante hero. The reader is presented with a deconstructed hero for the first time; one that not only gives more depth to a comic-book superhero, but also elevates the comic book genre to a previously unseen level of artistic creativity.
Northrop Frye states that there are differences among works of fiction which are caused by the different elevations of the characters in them.21 In some fictions, according to Aristotle, certain characters are better than us, in other fictions they are worse, in still others they are our equals. Frye argues further that if the individual is the hero, and he or she fails to accomplish that he or she was first created to do by the author, and then this will have an effect on the expectations and the reactions of the audience. Fictions, therefore, may be classified not morally but according to the hero’s power of action, which may be greater than ours, less, or roughly the same.22 By focusing this perspective on the character of Batman, I
21
See Northrop Frye. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000. p. 33.
22
hope to show that he was not only ‘just’ a hero, but also the kind of hero who at first was reviled, feared, criminalized, and persecuted but one who was ultimately needed because Batman is the embodiment of what a superhero becomes when society rejects its own sense of justice and replaces it with a flawed one.
Frye subdivides the types of heroes into five different categories. He attributes the power of action, the other characters in the story, and the environment as the determining factors for placing the hero in a specific category. Firstly, if superior in kind both to other men and to the environment, the hero is a divine being, and the story about him will be a myth in the common sense of a story about a deity. Secondly, if superior in degree to other men and to his environment, the hero is the typical hero of romance, whose actions are marvelous but who is himself identified as a human being. In this situation we have moved from myth into legend. Thirdly, if superior in degree to other men but not to his natural environment, the hero is a leader. He has authority, passions, and powers of expression far greater than ours, but what he does is subject both to social criticism and the order of nature. This is the hero of the
high mimetic mode of epic and tragedy and is primarily the kind of hero that Aristotle had in
mind. Fourthly, if the hero is superior neither to other men nor to his environment, the hero is one of us: we respond to a sense of his common humanity and demand from the poet/artist the same canons of probability that we find in our own experience. This gives us the hero of the
low mimetic mode, of most comedy and of realistic fiction. Fifth and lastly, if inferior in
power or intelligence to ourselves so that we have the sense of looking down on a scene of frustration or absurdity, the hero belongs to the ironic mode. This is still true when the reader feels that he/she is or might be in the same situation, as the situation is being judged by the norms of a greater freedom.23 The character of Batman in the DKR, as will be argued, exhibits the traits from three of the above categories. He is a hero of romance, a leader, but he is also ‘one of us’. He, unlike many other superheroes, put on a mask and cape without any innate superpowers and took on crime with only his intelligence to rely on. He is a truly self-made superhero, a true vigilante.
The categories described by Frye will hereby be referred to as the divine, romantic, heroic, human, and ironic categories. He is human, insofar as the story in The Dark Knight
Returns progresses. However, the concept of Batman, what he is and what he stands for are
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universal traits that are attributable to a myth. The myth is in this sense being the popular conception of the individual or thing that exaggerates or idealizes truth. Not only is Batman portrayed as an ideal, but he is also considered a legend. According to the OED, a legend means “a person held in awe or generally referred to with near reverential admiration on the basis of popularly repeated stories (whether real or fictitious)”. Fighting injustice is Batman’s
modus operandi; however, there are times when he is not always in line with the ‘greater
good’. This is where the subsequent categories postulated by Frye are essential in
understanding what Batman is, was, and will be. Furthermore, it begs the question why he was needed in the first place. I analyze the relationship between the depiction of the hero on the panel and the implication that the panel attempts to convey. In particular, the panning view of Batman filling in the whole panel with an iconic pose is the most important representation of Batman as the ‘hero’.24 It also shows many different heroic facets of Batman, not only the conquering hero, but also the compassionate and caring one. He embodies three different types of hero; Frye’s romantic, heroic, and human.
24
A Reaganite Vigilante? IV
Batman portrays the role of the ‘vigilante’. The root word of ‘vigilant’ means, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: “wakeful and watchful; keeping steadily on the alert; attentively or closely observant”, whereas a vigilante – in the modern sense of the word – would be better defined as “a man or woman who takes the law into his or her own hands, as by avenging a crime” or, as the OED puts it “a night-watchman”. This introduces the
possibility that the hero is not guided by ‘divine order’ or by righteousness but rather by personal trauma. This is certainly the case with Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne. However, the hero is acting outside the norms and rules of regular society in a defiant statement that the actions and motives of those in power are not ‘good’. Thus, he/she who wishes to take the law into his or her own hands is in doing so, making himself a de facto criminal. Batman is
assuming the role of the police force; effectively, he is becoming Gotham itself. This is someone who is outside regular societal boundaries. The most striking factor when
considering Batman’s power of action is that he is held accountable more than any incarnation prior to Miller’s DKR. The reader is presented with an environment that seems to exude an omnipresent view of Gotham and debate Batman’s every move.25 Indeed, it seems that the hero, instead of being the character that the reader needs to like, he is one that the reader needs to despise. After all, Miller is placing Batman in a position where – if he were in a real society – he would be prosecuted for being a mad billionaire, flashing a cape and mask
rounding up criminals. And yet, in DKR, the reader is sympathetic to Batman’s cause. Despite being held accountable for all his actions, the hero continues as if accountability was
nonexistent. In this sense the hero would be superior to his environment and to other men, therefore making him the typical hero of romance. Ergo, in this sense he is allocated to Frye’s romantic category.
According to Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the individual’s putting aside of the societal bonds that keep them tied down is a form of a quest
In his life-form the individual is necessarily only a fraction and distortion of the total image of man. He is limited either as male or as female; at any given period of his life he is again limited as child, youth, mature adult, or ancient;
furthermore, in his life-role he is necessarily specialized as craftsman, tradesman,
25 Consider the panels with ‘experts’ that discuss Batman’s every move on the television screens. They seem to
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servant, or thief, priest, leader, wife, nun, or harlot; he cannot be all. Hence, the totality–the fullness of man–is not in the separate member, but in the body of the society as a whole; the individual can be only an organ. From his group he has derived his techniques of life, the language in which he thinks, the ideas on which he thrives; through the past of that society descended the genes that built his body. If he presumes to cut himself off, either in deed or in thought and feeling, he only breaks connection with the sources of his existence.
[…]
But there is another way–in diametric opposition to that of social duty and the popular cult. From the standpoint of the way of duty, anyone in exile from the community is a nothing. From the other point of view, however, this exile is the first step of the quest.26
What Batman is looking for is a way to guarantee that his sense of justice, one which exacts an absolute toll on criminals and crime in general, is continued.
Figure 1 Miller, Frank. The Dark Knight Returns. 1986. p. 199
26
Batman’s quest is to ensure that Batmanian justice endures. At the end of the story, with Batman having been hero, myth, living legend, outcast, criminal, and leader, he prepares to train the next generation of SoBs (Sons of Batman) to get ready for the fight against crime and injustice. In this situation, what Batman is doing is taking those who were outcasts and criminals and turning them into an army of crime-fighting vigilantes. On the page one notices that Batman is preparing his ‘guerrilla’ army for crime-fighting. He rallies his troops for battle and states “this will be a good life…good enough”.27 This statement shows that Batman is hinting that the world is not ideal, but through his own volition someone can manipulate circumstances so that they are tolerable. In this particular setting one notices that Bruce Wayne acknowledges that he is human and that by himself he cannot ultimately accomplish justice. The hero accepts that he is not superior to his environment, but necessitates that he is superior to the ones that he is leading; therefore he is allocated to Frye’s heroic category.
However, the manner in which Batman is drawn as a military commander preparing his troops mimics US involvement in guerrilla conflicts in South America during the 1980s. The ‘regular’ basis of society is turned upside down. The question is raised whether
rehabilitating and reintegrating social outcasts, criminals, and psychopaths would be a feasible solution. This treatment would be a sort of ‘trial by fire’ for those willing to take up arms against injustice, instead of them being the ones causing the injustice in the first place. It may have been a comforting thought for the people during the 1980s who read The Dark
Knight Returns to feel that despite descending into the darkest domains of the human
condition it would still be possible to contribute something to society if given the opportunity to do so, especially in the light of Reaganite social policies. Reagan implemented what critics called “Reaganomics”, which included substantial reductions in government assistance and services, coupled with tax-cuts.28 Many critics argued that his policies targeted the lower classes, creating more impoverished conditions for the nation’s poor.29 It is a form of hope that Miller gave to the readers of Batman that the world was a dark place, yet filled with pockets of light. One could either help or let somebody who was willing take over the job. This demands from the reader a commitment to social involvement that was not present, it
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inspires the reader to action; not that they needed to become vigilantes. However, the idea of having hundreds of ‘copy-cat’ Batmen swarming Gotham City is far more disconcerting than having a single one. Though Batman’s sense of justice seems utterly fascist, it is rather a moral and emphatic sense of justice based on helping the weak and placing fear on criminals.
The Dark Knight Returns is an example of socio-psychological crime-fighting.
There are instances in DKR where the SoBs are not much better when trying to be ‘good’ than when they were ‘bad’. In book 4 there is a scene where the media is interviewing a young man who was closing up his “7-11”.30 He talks to a reporter from a hospital bed and starts relating his encounter with a group of robbers in Richard Nixon masks who had gunned down an off-duty police officer inside the convenience store. The clerk goes on to say that he heard a “thunderclap” and then “the last one watched the S.O.B. reload his shotgun and didn’t say a word”.31 One might say that the S.O.B. was dealing in Batman-styled vigilante justice, however, the following scene offers the reader a glimpse as to why Batman needs to first train and mentally ‘rewire’ the SOBs. 32 The clerk further adds “then the S.O.B., he told me I should’ve put up a fight with the Nixons. Said I didn’t deserve to run a cash register, he grabbed a pair of wire cutters—“.33 This one instance of torture illustrates that the SOBs are not pursuing a higher ideal as Batman, but rather vigilantes shooting at anyone who commits a crime and are much worse when torturing those who enable, i.e. those who allow crimes to happen.
The Mutants and SoBs V
Batman reshapes the Mutant gang or army into something of a paramilitary force. This paramilitary force is an army to be used as he sees fit. Oddly enough, that is exactly what the United States had been doing in the early 1980s in Central America. Intellectually, during the Reagan administration, the policies for dealing with communism and terrorism internationally were fundamentally different than those of his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, and the numerous foreign policy experts who served both Democratic and Republican parties since World War
30 Miller, Dark Knight Returns, p. 162. 31
Miller, Dark Knight Returns, p. 162.
32
Batman deals primarily in absolutes. If one is a criminal, then one shall be treated as a criminal.
33
II. The Reagan world view is best expressed by Jeane Kirkpatrick, who was appointed US ambassador to the United Nations by Reagan himself. She was a professor of political science and wrote an essay that caught Reagan’s attention. Kirkpatrick drew upon the distinction between the rulers of “authoritarian” and “totalitarian” governments. Good ones
(authoritarians) – Nicaragua’s Somoza, the shah of Iran preserved “traditional” societies and encouraged capitalism and the profit move. Bad ones (totalitarians) – Hitler, Stalin – ruled by iron force and controlled every aspect of a nation’s political, social, military and economic life.34 Essentially, these autocracies protect their own wealth and power but leave most other aspects of life relatively untouched. The movement is more concerned with who in society will wield the power. Therefore, authoritarian regimes preserve the basis for building a democracy. This is the reason why the United States helped supply the Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas. In 1983, the United States openly voiced its support for the Contra rebels. The US aided the fight of the Contras by supplying them with weapons. This secret relationship is paralleled in The Dark Knight Returns with the weapons that the Mutant gang uses and is represented by the Mutant gang itself. Even Batman is astounded by the weaponry that they have, he comments on them being rather peculiar. The Mutants in The Dark Knight Returns use weapons that exhibit tailoring specific to different branches of the US Armed Services, namely CIA-type weapons and US Army-type combat weaponry. Batman ultimately asks if the Mutants have a “wholesale deal with the Army?”.35 Miller may be commenting on the US relationship with the Contra rebels, and by placing the weaponry in the hands of the Mutants is presenting a negative correlation with the US involvement in Central America. This example supposes that Miller supplanted a national problem–i.e. gangs and violence in the US–with an international one. Large portions of the plan to supply the Iranians with weapons so that the money from the weapons’ sales could be diverted to fund Sandinista and anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua were devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North. And in
DKR the link between the Iran-Contra affairs cannot be clearer than the following illustration.
The main difference being that Oliver North did not commit suicide.
34 See Hayes Johnson. Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years. New York: Norton, 1991. p.
254.
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Figure 2 Miller, Frank. The Dark Knight Returns. 1986. p. 70.
The phenomenon of observing the parts and perceiving the whole is called closure or inference.3637 This mainly focuses on what the text does not say but rather what it implies. The association of a draped American flag resembles the burials observed by the US military. This connects the picture the reader sees with the US military. The gun, paperwork, and dropped attaché case suggests a plan with weapons, specifically one that failed. This establishes the association with US military program that dealt with dealing weapons that failed. Crucially, the dead soldier establishes the biggest association with a military blunder because it was dealt by his own hand. Similarly, the Iran Contra affair was a US military operation to supply weapons to Contra rebels and this occurred during the mid 1980s.
36 See Scott McCloud. Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. p. 63. McCloud
truly delves into the mechanics of comic books and traces their genealogy all the way back to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
37 See Mario Saraceni. Relatedness: Aspects of Textual Connectivity in Comics. In The Graphic Novel Ed. Jan
However, this ‘affair’ failed and this illustration gives the reader the ‘closure’ that they need to establish the connection between the Iran Contra affair and the single illustration.
The SoBs in The Dark Knight Returns are characters who are easily romanticized by a powerful character. They are symbolic for a cornucopia of social and political ideas; in DKR they represent the gang members who were responsible for selling and spreading drugs during the 1980s. They represent the Contra rebels, the drug addicts, and most disturbingly the country’s youth. The manner in which they are first controlled by the ‘Mutant leader’ is akin not to mind control but rather to an idolatrous sense of obedience. They are easily converted to Batman’s ideals when Batman defeats the Mutant leader, thus showing that he is the stronger of the two. However, ‘SoBs’ has a negative connotation, it is also a slang acronym for ‘sons of bitches’, further placing the SoBs as outcasts; yet, this is the same perspective that society has regarding Batman, he is also outside society’s grace. This is a somewhat
sympathetic view regarding the vigilante hero and his ‘fanatics’ are prevalent throughout
DKR. Miller not only alters the position of the hero, but by creating Batman as such a
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Above there are the representations of both the Mutants (on the left) and an SoB (on the right). 3839 The distinction–though they are different in appearance–is embedded in their philosophy of justice. The Mutants are the ‘bad guys’ and the SoBs are the ‘good guys’, yet there is much to be said about the representation of the two sides association with Reagan’s foreign policy. The Contra rebels had committed atrocities prior to their obtaining of US aid but these crimes were omitted when they became the US’s ‘bad guys’. This is similar to the Mutants and SoBs in DKR, the wolves mainly change their sheep’s clothing as it were. The philosophy of ‘Batmanian Justice’ influences and motivates the SoBs. They are easily swayed by Batman, almost as if his sense of justice is similar to a sense of religious zealotry.
Theodore Draper comments in his book A Very Thin Line that there was not a single Iran-Contra affair, but that there were two separate operations that dealt with separate problems and countries. Moreover, putting the Iran affair first reverses the order of
precedence in the chain of events.40 Nevertheless, the United States was actively pursuing its global influence. Noam Chomsky comments in Deterring Democracy that
In the evolving world order, the comparative advantage of the United States lies in military force, in which it ranks supreme. Diplomacy and international law have always been regarded as an annoying encumbrance, unless they can be used to advantage against an enemy41
Chomsky further adds that “furthermore though the US cannot regain the economic
supremacy of an earlier period, it is committed to maintaining its status as the sole military superpower, with no probable contestant for that role”.42 This statement by Chomsky clearly shows that in 1991, when the book was published, the awareness for US meddling in foreign affairs had reached a breaking point. However, during the time frame of DKR, the Soviet threat was highly visible, and the Soviets even succeeded in derailing the position of the US in DKR by detonating a nuclear warhead capable of disabling the power in the US. The type of warheard is an electromagnetic pulse bomb. DKR is therefore the culmination of all the
38 Miller, Dark Knight Returns, p. 63. 39 Miller, Dark Knight Returns, p. 162.
40 Theodore Draper. A Very Thin Line: The Iran Contra Affair. New York: Hill and Wang, 1991. p. 3.
41 Noam Chomsky. Deterring Democracy. New York: Verso, 1991. p. 3. Chomsky presents a searing indictment
and condoning of American imperialism. He focuses primarily on US foreign policy.
42
societal and foreign worries embodied into a single comic. Miller delivers not just a powerful story but an amalgamated universe of problems that plagued the US in the 1980s.
Redefining Batman VI
The move to alter the image of Batman was one that lay on the shoulders of Frank Miller. He was in charge of creating a ‘new Batman’ for the 1980s. He had the opportunity and the freedom to mold Batman into something fiendish, yet heroic. This change, however, did not come out of the blue. In an interview for The Comics Journal in 1981, Miller stressed and hinted, at the possibility of turning his creative talents to Gotham City. “I almost wish I was doing Gotham City instead of New York, because then I would have total freedom”, Miller stated at the time.43 This desire to give Batman a makeover would not go unnoticed by the editors at DC Comics. Dick Giordano, who was the editor at DC Comics for Miller at the time, gave him the green light. Naturally, Miller’s own experiences and opinions of New York and its social situation came into play when working on The Dark Knight Returns. Miller had moved to Los Angeles, quite possibly the most eye-opening experience leading up to DKR. In a second interview for The Comics Journal in 1985, Miller had voiced his utter disgust at New York
After eight years, it became clear to me that the normal human response to the crime and unending hostility of the city would be to become ungentlemanly and uncivilized as the city’s customs demand. One Bernhard Goetz is enough, though I’m amazed there aren’t more people doing what he did.44
Miller mentions Goetz because he embodied vigilantism as a response to the crime in New York City. He came to symbolize the frustration that most New Yorkers felt at the high crime rates of the mid 1980s. Goetz had shot four young men he insisted were intent on mugging him. He was acquitted of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder, but was charged and convicted for unlawful possession of a firearm. Goetz faced a civil suit after his criminal trial. However, this took place in 1996, well out of the timeframe of having influence on Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. But it showed that vigilantism was present in New York, and Miller drew upon that to adapt Batman to the present dangers of the 1980s. When asked by Kim Thompson how much his perception of New York was sharpened, Miller answered
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In the Dark Knight series, there’s much more direct use of my real-life
experiences in New York, particularly my experiences with crime, my awareness of the horrible pressure that crime exerted on my life and the fury of the fact that crime is so much taken for granted that people live in fortresses and walk around looking and acting like victims, carrying money to bribe muggers, acting as if it’s all a numbers game–all up to chance–whether or not some monster can rob, rape or kill them, for all intents and purposes giving total power over their lives to anyone who’s savage enough to take it.45
Oddly enough Miller forged Batman into something savage. This recasting was needed because Batman was lax in his methods in his previous incarnations. Miller believed that his methods “needed to become a lot harsher and he had to become a lot smarter”.46 Batman did not have any superpowers after all, only his gadgets, his raw strength, and his intelligence. Miller wanted to get rid of the old fallacy of ‘the criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot and incorporate some criminals that were equal to Batman. 47 Batman needed to be an
extremely powerful, menacing figure in order to even function in the world Miller created, let alone dominate and overpower it.
Traditional superheroes, myths, and legends that society associated with were no longer effective. Miller states that
Superheroes have lost their human context. […]In the early adventures of
Superman and Batman, the superhero was an unusual, often mystical element that focused and defined real-world situations and issues in a way that was clearer and more direct that a simple recitation of the facts could, just as a political cartoon can cut through the yards of statistics and rhetorical bullshit we get from the news. […] Now, modern superhero comics have reached the point where there are so damn many superheroes and so damn much superpower flying around that there’s no room left for anything human, and the only way to make the genre seem interesting is to wildly escalate the powers[…]. Just look at how many characters are being killed these days. It’s as if all there is left of them is the pathological thrill of the snuff film48.
Strikingly, by giving the superheroes ‘ultimate’ power, their creators made them ultimately powerless to the extent of the effect they had on society. Crucially, Miller hints that the modern superhero, or the one who would have the most impact on society, is not one with
laser-vision or the ability to release nuclear weapons from the palms of his hands, but rather a superhero with a more ‘human element’. One would argue that this is the reason that Miller chose to present a mature Batman at the age of fifty. Showing his humanity Miller not only praises the capabilities of human ingenuity but bridges the gap between societal
understanding and comics. This Batman is Miller’s reaction to real life, thus putting him closer to humanity than any other superhero. How would a ‘normal’ person react seeing their parents killed? Batman is an empowered citizen’s response to a violent environment. The reader identifies more with him whenever society is ridden with fear and in the 1980s society was reeking of fear.
Real life and indeed the media helped propagate the concepts and actions of violence throughout each household. However, violence was always synonymous with superheroes. The hero cannot defeat the villain with rhetoric alone, which does not work in the world of comic books; certainly not in Batman’s. In The Dark Knight Returns Superman appears to confront Batman. Superman could also have been a project for renewal for Miller; however Miller stated to Decker that “I find Superman to be a very boring character because I never believe that he’s really in danger. Bullets bounce off of him. But somebody who could actually have trouble getting through rush-hour traffic interests me a great deal”.49 This comment clearly shows that Miller was looking for a hero who is challenged by his environment. This is clearly evident in DKR, where Batman is judged, condemned, and persecuted by the very people he is trying to protect; Gotham hunts Batman. Indeed, having a superhero with the power of God would almost seem redundant. Miller continues “If you take the idea of a host of heroes out there seriously, you’re pretty soon going to end up with a story where the entire world is radically transformed. If you really take seriously the idea of
Superman, a character with the power of God, there’s really no reason why he wouldn’t completely transform the world”.50 Considering this, the reason why most comics failed around the same time that The Dark Knight Returns was first published, is because they had lost that connection between a feasible reality and pure fantasy. This connection between the reader and the comic enhances the reader’s ability to either sympathize or elicit no emotion
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from the comic. People did not relate to superheroes and the superheroes were nothing compared to the people that they were supposedly saving.
Does Batman control Bruce Wayne, or does Bruce Wayne control Batman. The reader knows that Bruce Wayne is the cover for Batman, the entrepreneur, daredevil, and playboy billionaire, i.e. the archetypal person who would be most likely to thrive in 1980s America, a satirical caricature of the successful yuppie. However, it is Bruce Wayne who uses Batman to carry out his own brand of justice. One would suggest that in order for the character of
Batman to function, he has to be something, a force that is both beyond good and evil. Batman is essentially an abstraction of a sense of justice and because he is an abstraction, as an idea he cannot be judged in the same way that regular people are. The force that is behind Batman is what is needed to wake people up to the social problems at the time of The Dark
Knight Returns. Society cannot deal with the problems that it has, people are simply impotent
to do anything about its problems. That is where the quality and substance of Batman as a ‘Dark Knight’ comes into play. The quality, as pointed out by Miller, that superheroes have lost is that the hero is a moral force, a judge, plainly bigger and greater than normal human beings, and perfectly willing to pass judgment and administer punishment and ‘make things right’. However, the task of dealing with societal ills falls onto the shoulders of the
government. Yet, during the early 1980s, it seemed that the American government was fighting a losing battle. According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, in the years 1982 and 1983 unemployment was at its highest. Furthermore, the years leading up to and including 1982 and 1983 showed the highest rates of unemployment since 1948. The government was meddling in overseas affairs, such as Iran-Contra and the Columbian drug cartels. It seemed that the government was more concerned with overseas affairs than domestic ones. Batman is the idea, the concept of the vigilante superhero in its truest essence. The morality concerning the actions of Batman is rather simplistic: undiluted aggression towards criminals. Batman as a hero, leader, and human does not apologize for his actions. Miller urges that
Batman, in my series, does not apologize or question what he does or its effects. There’s a whole world out there who can argue about that, and they do, constantly throughout the series. And the effects of what he does are tremendous. He
the substance of what makes them ‘larger than life’. Not that they can fly or eat planets, but that they can, or should, manifest the qualities that make it possible for us to struggle through day to day life51
This response to the implications of the superheroes’ effect on society was a driving force for Miller and, indeed, the people behind The Dark Knight Returns at DC comics. This reaction and response to the 1980s gave society one of its most understandable and popular
superheroes, albeit a rather violent and aggressive one.
Why a ‘Dark Knight’? Knights were often seen as an extension of a king and the king’s peace. They embodied the code of chivalry. Knights have always been regarded as either a positive force or a negative one. Modern notions of the knight are mainly positive ones. “A Knight in shining armor” is a commonplace expression for a hero, or someone coming to the aid of another person when the need is greatest. There is also the business term ‘White Knight’, this is when a company that is targeted for a hostile takeover seeks out a ‘White Knight’, this is a company that is not seen as ‘hostile’ and one that the ‘company in distress’ considers acceptable. There is the direct link that a ‘White Knight’ is something positive, whereas a ‘Dark Knight’ would be something negative. Yet, why is Batman labeled as a ‘dark’ knight? Is he not a superhero? The connotation of the word ‘dark’, in figurative speech the OED gives us a definition of “Characterized by absence of moral or spiritual light; evil, wicked; also, in a stronger sense, characterized by a turpitude or wickedness of somber or unrelieved nature; foul, iniquitous, atrocious”. However, Batman is not bereft of morality. He inspires good, he fights criminals and battles evil, then why is he still hunted? He is a dark knight, not because he is bad or evil, but because he realizes the position he has within the society and the responsibility his sense of justice entails and the consequences of his actions.
The notion of the ‘dark’ knight can also be traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer. In the Wife of Bath’s Tale she mentions how a knight from King Arthur’s court committed rape. One would think that the image of the knight in the Middle Ages would be a positive one, but knights were considered ‘vigilantes’ in their own right and the Wife of Bath’s Tale illustrates this. Chaucer does not mention any ordinary knight; he takes a knight from King Arthur’s court. King Arthur’s court embodied the ideal chivalric brotherhood, therefore taking a knight from this ‘ideal’ position and bringing him down to a more human level eliminates the ideal and thusly the ‘ideal’ knight. In this narrative, the knight is an example of a hybrid hero, just
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as Batman is. Fryean categories of romantic and ironic are applicable to the knight in the Wife of Bath’s Tale. Frank Miller does the same with the Dark Knight Returns. He is taking an ‘ideal’ superhero and turning him into a more human character, removing him from the realm of impossibility to a scenario that is mundanely feasible. In addition, Robin is by no means a regular sidekick. When one combines “Robin” and “vigilante” it is easy to see the association between the comic book ‘Robin’ and ‘Robin Hood’ from medieval lore. Furthermore, the costume that Robin wears resembles the stereotypical ‘tights’ that Robin Hood characters were clothed in.
The true term for ‘dark’, I argue, comes from the fear that Batman uses; fear is his weapon. The choice to use a bat as his emblem is not coincidental. Batman functions in the very same manner as a bat would, at night and using its strengths for its own benefit. And yet, as Dennis O’Neil noted:
there is certainly more to Batman than simple sweetness and light. There’s a sinister side to the character, which appeals to everyone who grew up, if not as brutally as Bruce Wayne did, to realize the world can be a very dangerous place. For these millions, there’s a certain satisfaction in imagining what it might be like to be Batman, to be alone in the dark and not be afraid, because everyone else out there in the dark is even more afraid of you.52
Batman focuses on a very special part of the human experience: sight. When a person cannot see, then that person cannot function optimally. That person cannot fully defend themselves either. People are left in a very vulnerable state when they cannot see. It is this ‘fear of the dark’ that makes Batman such a fearful character. It is not simply because he wears black or operates primarily at night, but because of man’s inherent fear of darkness creates the
association of Batman with a ‘Dark Knight’. Frank Miller created a Batman who is not what a superhero is expected to be, but a superhero who is whatever is required of him to be. Gotham condemns, condones, and hunts Batman because he is the only superhero who can endure persecution and still function; he is both human and hero. Batman is a watchful, silent guardian, the kind of hero that does not need a ‘thank you’. Throughout DKR he transcends the romantic to the heroic and ultimately coalesces in the human category. However, the abstraction that is Batman can transcend all Fryean categories because then he would become an idea, not just a superhero character.
52
The Duel with Superman VII
Working Superman into the storyline was one of the reasons why Batman needed to become more resilient and more violent. Miller responds to Thompson’s assertion of this fact by stating that he is
trying to come in on the whole notion of Batman, the whole notion of the
superhero with clean hands, and have the story proceed logically from the premise of the character. […]One of the main problems with Batman as he had been treated is that in DC Comics, like Marvel Comics, the ridiculous number of superheroes creates a sense of a very benevolent universe. […] Superman alone, since they made him able to fly through suns and survive nuclear explosions, implies that the world is okay, that he’s powerful enough to protect all of us. But Batman only works if the world really sucks. […] Kids with a sort of happy, benevolent view of the world tend toward Superman, and the kids who find the world a big, scary place go for Batman53.
However, at the time of The Dark Knight Returns, most of the children who grew up reading Batman and Superman had children of their own. DKR pushed and altered their perception of what Batman was, not just a crime fighting detective hero, but rather a dark, isolated
character. Miller presents the older generation of comic book readers with a more
psychological conundrum in the form of Batman; the same troubles that torment Gotham, torment Batman. In essence he is Gotham personified, trying to ‘cleanse’ himself. Whenever Batman attempts to save Gotham it is an attempt to save himself. Gotham city needs Batman, however Batman needs Gotham city, it is almost as if one cannot exist without the other. This new Batman had to be tailored to appeal not just to children but also to adult audiences. The placing of Superman at the ‘right hand’ of the government is another ploy by Miller to substantiate the position of Batman as the ‘right’ side. Therefore, Batman is in direct opposition to Superman, i.e. the government; he is by comparison a ‘super’ outlaw. In addition, Miller’s choice of Batman (over Superman) also points to a pessimistic view of the world then where such a dark character was needed to alert and motivate the public about what was going on in their society. Superman calls Batman’s dealings with crime an
“obsession”.54 Superman is more in favor of ‘assimilation’ into society. After all, Superman is an ‘official’ superhero, whitewashed, sanitized, and presentable. He is the type of superhero
53 Miller, TCJ, p. 36.
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that everyone would like, a ‘goody two-shoes’. He follows the rules and most importantly , he follows orders. For example, there is one scene where the president is meeting with Superman and the president starts talking about how he likes to think that he learned everything he knew about running a country on his ranch.55 The president further comments on whenever a “crazy bronco breaks out of the fence and gets other horses crazy” how that is “bad for business”.56 In essence, a vigilante or citizens standing up for themselves is something that the
government does not want. Or at least, that is the impression that The Dark Knight Returns makes clear. The final sentence by Superman and the President illustrates the relationship between the government and Superman, after the President asks Superman to ‘Settle him down’, Superman answers loyally “Yes, Sir”, with which the President replies “Good Boy…”.5758 The expression “good boy” hints that Superman is akin to a loyal dog, after all that is how a faithful dog is rewarded. It clearly shows that Superman is subservient to the President and, by extension, the ‘Law’. It is obvious that Superman is a puppet, whereas Batman is a character who acts according to his own volition.
The role the hero needs to have, at least in The Dark Knight Returns according to Superman, is a more passive role, ‘blending in’ with society. He states “We must not remind them that giants walk the earth”.59 Superman blames Batman for the conviction and
persecution of superheroes. There is one scene where Superman is fighting off an army it seems, however all the while he is contemplating something, locked into an interior monologue with himself, addressing Batman as it were
These lines spoken by Superman reinforce Batman’s position. Because they show the reader that the hero, like Batman in this case, does not always operate inside the rule of law, that what they did was necessary because sometimes the law is inadequate. That is the
quintessence of the vigilante; he takes the law into his own hands because he is dissatisfied with the criminal and political system and thusly expresses his lack of faith in its remedies by taking up arms himself. What makes Batman so ‘terrible’ is specifically the appeal that he has with disenfranchised youths, such as the Mutant gang. They ultimately ‘convert’ to the ‘side’ of Batman. Helping him battle injustice is ironic since they were the ones who created and caused most of the mayhem that occurs within The Dark Knight Returns.
Drugs VIII
During the early 1980s the drug problem in the US had become so severe that the Drug Enforcement Administration dubbed the cocaine problem ‘the crack epidemic’. It is important to consider that crack cocaine was not the only drug causing significant problems within US society at the time. Another drug exploding onto the streets at the time was PCP, or
phencyclidine. In the early 80s, most of the cocaine being shipped to the US was coming through the Bahamas. There was a huge influx of cocaine powder in these islands, thereby leading prices to drop by as much as 80 percent. With this influx of product and availability of the drugs, drug addiction became more commonplace. In 1985, the number of people who admitted using cocaine on a routine basis increased from 4.2 million to 5.8 million, according to the Department of Health and Human Service's National Household Survey.61 Presented with this supply and demand problem, to avoid losing a substantial amount of money, drug dealers made a sinister decision to convert the cocaine powder to ‘crack’ or ‘rock’ form of the powder. Cocaine is a narcotic alkaloid extracted from the leaves of the coca plant. In its most common and historical form it was most often a powder. However, by converting the powder form of the drug into ‘crack’, the dealers created a smokeable variant of cocaine. It was a cheaper, simpler, more efficient way to consume cocaine; the aerosolized particles enter the bloodstream quicker than simply inhaling powder and the ‘high’ was quicker. This venture proved highly profitable for the drug dealers. According to the DEA, in as early as 1981 there were reports of crack usage in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, and the Caribbean. From the DEA record books, it was established that powder cocaine was available on the street at a
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mean of 55 percent pure cocaine for 100 US$ per gram, whereas ‘crack’ was sold at an average purity of 80-plus percent for roughly the same price. Furthermore, in some major cities, such as New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia, one dosage unit of ‘crack’ could be obtained for as little as 2.50 $. This was the first time that any form of cocaine had been available at such low prices and at such a high purity level.62
The problem with ‘crack’ cocaine was that it was not fully appreciated as a major threat because it was primarily consumed by middle class users who were not associated with cocaine addicts. According to the DEA, crack was initially considered a purely Miami-based phenomenon until it became a serious problem in New York City, where it first appeared in 1983. In the NYC area, it was estimated that more than three quarters of the early ‘crack’ consumers were white professionals or middle-class youngsters from Long Island, suburban New Jersey, or upper-class Westchester County. However, because ‘crack’ was extremely cheap, it sold for as little as 5 $ a rock and it ultimately spread to less affluent neighborhoods. By early 1986, ‘crack’ had a stranglehold on the ghettos of NYC and was dominated by traffickers and dealers from the Dominican Republic. The distribution and abuse of ‘crack’ exploded in 1986 at the time of the creation of the Dark Knight Return.63
The suppliers were South American drug cartels. For example, the Medellín cartel was at the height of its power during the mid 80s, until a raid set up by the then Colombian Justice Minister, Lara Bonilla. The amount of contraband seized at the three sites was astonishing64. According to Jill Jonnes, the Medellín cartel had operated with such impunity since the mid 70s that it was obvious that they were shocked that they were being prosecuted at all. The cartel had saturated Columbia’s every institution with drug money and they were so
convinced of their own respectability, that the traffickers were shocked to be labeled criminals and that they had undermined their own country.65 The cartel responded by having Bonilla assassinated. This parallel is seen in The Dark Knight Returns. Oddly enough, the government and the very executors of the government (Superman) seemed little bothered with the ‘mutant
62 See 1985-1990. DEA History Book, par. 3. 63 See 1985-1990. DEA History Book, par. 2-7.
64 Jill Jonnes. Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of America’s Romance with Illegal Drugs. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins UP, 1999. pp. 355-356.
65
gang’ threat and more so with Batman. This implication of corruption and meddling in illicit affairs symbolizes the US during the 1980s, not only with the drug problem created by the demand for drugs in the US, but also by the US interfering with foreign nations. The reason why most of the dealers were so violent was because they did not want to be extradited to the US. It was seen as a fate much worse than death.
Here again lies the problem with the demand for drugs in the US. What made the ‘crack’ problem worse was that it was a vicious cycle; the drug itself was highly addictive. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the cocaine high makes the user feel euphoric and energetic. In combination with PCP, crack cocaine would have produced criminal ‘monsters’. PCP was developed in the 1950s as a class IV anesthetic, but it was never approved for human use due to problems during clinical testing, including intensely negative psychological effects. Users can experience several unpleasant psychological effects, with symptoms mimicking schizophrenia, delusions, hallucinations, disordered thinking, and extreme anxiety. Once this is coupled with the gang problem within the US, one emerges with the ‘Mutants’ in DKR. There is a scene where Carrie, the new Robin, tricks several mutants into meeting a specific place for a meeting. She says that “I’m sure that’s why you at th’ pipe”.66 Though the place has a counterpart in the fictional world of Batman, there is another connotation that the word ‘pipe’ has that evokes images of drug use. Both crack cocaine and PCP are preferably smoked through a pipe. The association of the Mutants and the pipe couples the drug problem with the gang problem, setting the stage for Batman’s confrontation with the Mutant leader and ultimately changing the Mutants into the SoBs. There is the association with the pipe and leadership. Batman challenges the Mutant leader at the pipe for a specific reason, along with the help of Carrie (Robin) he manages to assemble the whole Mutant gang at the pipe. There the Mutant leader challenges Batman’s ‘rule’ over Gotham, he states “I kill you—I show you who rules Gotham City!”.67 Batman simply replies “Okay, boy. Show me”.68 There is the inherent association between the gang, the pipe (gangs and drugs), and the control over Gotham. Batman however wants to use the setting for his own plans, to maintain control over Gotham and simultaneously make a start to building his army.
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Social Medicine IX
The Batman presented in The Dark Knight Returns is a character that is substantially darker and gloomier than his previous incarnations. The fifty-five-year-old Batman sees his enemies supposedly ‘healed’ and ‘cured’ by the so-called specialists of Gotham City. However, he does not trust their new ‘faces’. He dons the cape once more to give justice a final mission: continuation. On a certain level, the rehabilitation of his nemeses, Harvey Dent and the Joker, is a social commentary on the treatment of criminals and the persecution of the innocent and even, by extension, the victims. In The Dark Knight Returns Harvey Dent is helped to deal with his psychosis by Dr. Bartholomew Wolper and his face is reconstructed by Dr. Herbert Willing. However, neither doctor, despite their best efforts succeed in ‘rehabilitating’ Dent. Reconstructing the surface does not help to hide or obscure the problems underneath, neither for Dent, the Joker, or Batman himself. Oddly, in DKR Bruce Wayne is the one who finances Dent’s and Joker’s rehabilitation processes. Primarily, taking a look at the character of Batman and Bruce Wayne, there is an underlying psychological trauma that needs to be addressed. He appears to exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Vowing on the death of his parents to rid Gotham of its criminal element, Batman has encountered and fought crime in its many forms.
Perhaps Batman’s obsessive behavior gives us a glimpse as to what would happen if we were to become overwhelmed by our own obsessive behaviors. A warning sign, just like the Bat-signal would be to criminals. Batman may be intended to serve not as a superhero but as a symbolic call-to-arms for a society dissatisfied with the current state of events in the world. Though he is the hero of the story, he is also plagued by nightmares and seemingly psychopathic behavior, one of which, namely the one that compels him to go back to a life of fighting crime is triggered when he sits down in front of a television set and switches it on.
The Mark of Zorro comes on, suddenly Batman is plagued by visions of the night that his
parents were murdered. This is no coincidence, because Miller hints on a previous part of a panel that The Mark of Zorro was the last movie Bruce Wayne had watched with his parents, in so doing inciting his vigilante justice. The Mark of Zorro is a movie created after the character of Zorro.69 Though the image of Zorro has altered throughout several incarnations, he is basically a black-clad vigilante who defends people from tyrannical officials and
69
villains. Zorro, just like the stories of Robin Hood, features the heroic ‘outlaw’ crusading against injustice. This episode seems to be the catalyst for Batman to come out of retirement and fight crime again. Oddly, it is not a specific criminal incident that urges him to become a hero once more, but rather an incident of ‘vigilantism’.
Figure 3 Miller, Frank. The Dark Knight Returns, 1986. pp. 22-23.
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things…surely the fiercest survivor—the purest warrior…glaring, hating…claiming me as his own”.70
Figure 4 Miller, Frank. The Dark Knight Returns, 1986. pp. 18-19.
This episode suggests that Batman’s traumatic experience of watching his parents murdered triggered a fear inside that only would be removed if he were to rid the world of ‘damned things’, i.e. criminals. Also, the ‘obsession’ that Batman has borders on psychosis. It is as if Wayne is incapable of distinguishing whether Batman is a part of him or if Batman is a part of Bruce Wayne. Wayne hears a voice inside his head and the voice is the persona of Batman and it says
the time has come. You know it in your soul. For I am your soul…You cannot escape me…[…]you are nothing-a hollow shell, a rusty trap that cannot hold
70
[…]you cannot stop me-not with wine or vows or the weight of age-you cannot stop me but still you try-Still you run.71
To truly appreciate this sentence one needs to place oneself in the shoes of Bruce Wayne, fifty-five years old at the time. And experiencing the inescapable longing for the vigor he once had. After so many years of fighting crime, the characters of Batman and Bruce Wayne have become fused. Batman is a part of his psyche, just as much as Bruce Wayne is a part of Batman. The cave and the bat both symbolize Batman’s fortress of solitude in his fight against crime. The cave, just like the bat, ‘call’ to Bruce, urging him to take up the cape once more. This is comparable to Miller’s suggestion that citizens need to be able to react and to act for themselves if they feel threatened. Not because it is heroic, but rather because they would otherwise be handing power over their lives to savages and criminals who would not hesitate to take their lives. The ‘rehabilitated’ Dent and Joker were not aided by Batman’s social medicine; rather, they were ultimately opposed to it. They thought of themselves as
unstoppable forces, until they met the immovable object known as Batman, who was morally and universally ‘purer’ than their warped ideologies, despite Batman’s methods being as harsh as or even harsher than theirs ever had been. Yet, in Gotham, Batman is the criminal. One can ask what this example could mean; are not the good guys supposed to be better than the criminals? In the Dark Knight Returns society is the villain, therefore one judges Batman from our own societal viewpoint, removed from Batman’s. However, because Gotham’s society resembled 1980s America, this reinforced Batman’s position as a caped crusader and made him more popular; being the ‘bad’ good guy showed people a more human example of a superhero than previously seen before. One can apply Fryean analysis once more in this situation; Batman is thought inferior to his environment, but one still acknowledges that he is superior to other men (morally), therefore when Batman is put against society, he still falls into the category of the human (heroic) character.
The situation in the US at the time had deteriorated to such a degree that there were parodies of the crime fighting that was needed at the time, such as the 1984 movie
Ghostbusters.72 This movie is an analogy for ‘vigilante’ crime fighting.73 The ‘ghosts’ as it
71 Miller, DKR, p. 25. 72
See Ghostbusters. Dir. Ivan Reitman. Perf. & Writers Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. Black Rhino Productions, 1984. 73
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were represent the negative influences on society and the three psychologists represent how it was in the hands of the ‘every day Joe’, such as Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis to take charge and try to ‘correct’ society, this was social commentary in a comic form. This is the same with The Dark Knight Returns, the only difference being that the character of Batman is not fighting ghosts, but the ‘real’ problems that society faced at the time, i.e. drugs, gangs, crime, and corruption. The US had been ‘romanticized’ ten years prior to DKR with a movie
concerning a vigilante ‘hero’. In 1976 there was the movie Taxi Driver.74 It starred Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Cybill Shepherd and Jodie Foster. The movie was directed by Martin Scorsese. The plotline for this movie was that it involved a mentally unstable Vietnam veteran, who works as a night-time taxi driver. The city he works in is perceived as decadent and corrupt, this perception feeds his urge to ‘lash out’ violently. In his own little quest to ‘save society’, he (De Niro) attempts to save a young prostitute (Foster). Though the movie did not have any superheroes in it, it illustrates the revulsion that people felt towards a society they perceived to be decadent and corrupt. Though the time period is before Reagan’s era, it shows that the framework in which Miller could create his ‘revolting’ society was laid ten years prior to producing The Dark Knight Returns.
Batman X
His reluctance to take on a side-kick after the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin, shows that he feels guilt and responsibility for the death of his fallen comrade. However, in The
Dark Knight Returns one is never told the exact fate of Robin, other than that he is dead and
that Batman had somehow something to do with it. Again, there is the accountability inherent in a sentence like this that shows that Batman is no longer ‘accountable to no one’, but rather that he is a hero stuck between being a hero and a human being. In producing such a
character, Miller is moving Batman from the high mimetic mode to partially in the low mimetic mode. He is positioned between being superior in degree to other men and to not being superior to other men. The duel he has with the Mutant gang leader is an example. Where he assesses that he is inferior to the Mutant leader, however, Batman’s true heroic character is shown when he goes to face the Mutant leader despite being physically inferior to
74
