The Dark Knight Returns

A friend convinced me to try my hand at this—at reviewing graphic novels. I am new to graphic novels—having spent my life reading and studying works of dead white males. With that in mind, I begin with a review that is two decades late.

At that friend’s insistence, I started with Watchmen and quickly put it down. The intense, self-absorbed nihilism was old school—in this case literally. (Try Crane, Norris, Hammett.) Sandman also failed to capture and maintain my attention. The brooding, dark reflections on death seemed a repetitive offshoot of Poe and Melville—minus the levity.

Then I stumbled onto The Dark Knight. I had entered into the world. I was captivated.

Dated. It is most definitely dated, and I have the sneaking suspicion that is part of its draw. Perhaps being a child of the Cold War Era, I feel the resonance of the uncertainties of a world resigned to its annihilation. The battered ideologies of Batman and Bruce Wayne reflect dark undercurrents hidden by masks and good intentions. The topographies of troubled moralities emerge throughout the course of the graphic novel. The characters struggle to navigate these ethical landscapes. But they are not heading some sort of Frodo-like, apocalyptic showdown between good and evil, a showdown in which good triumphs over evil battering it into submission. That’s Superman’s job. (And notice, his battles have been resigned to the twice removed reality of comic book news reports.)

Batman (at least Frank Miller’s Batman) never destroys the evil in him or the world. Unlike Obi Wan and Yoda, Batman—to shift gears and throw in a comparison—seems to know that he must embrace his shadow; he must live with his hidden darkness. Purging himself and his society of all that is distasteful is a form of repression. When he fully understand Anakin’s betrayal, Obi Wan can only whine something along the lines of “You were supposed to bring balance to the force.” He might as well have cried, “It’s not fair.”

The struggle with the dark is not just a matter of agreeing to disagree. Save that for Dr. Phil. This shadow stuff is a matter of climbing into the muck and rolling around with the darkness, cheating it of its birthright, its place. Hitting it in the knee when it’s not looking. Like Luke Skywalker, Miller’s Batman must learn or relearn how to embrace and accept the dark forces in him and his world. And Batman does. Watching him do so is the glory of the text.

Vibrant, vivacious, and daring, he grapples with the nihilism others can only point at, and he contextualizes it—or in his milieu, he puts it in a headlock. And by doing so, Batman averts Armageddon, sidesteps pathos, and transcends the comic book. He becomes and remains human.

Bayard Sartoris