Elseworlds: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Frank Miller is well known as the creator of the popular comic book series's 300 and Sin City, but today I've decided to talk about the series that put him on the map, and kinda redefined comics from the happy, cheerful if gritty things they were in the mid-20th century. The Dark Knight Returns takes the Batman, a character well known to everyone, and really just fleshes him out. The series is set in a unspecified period of time, although Ronald Regan is shown as President. It has been 10 years since Batman was last seen, and the reason behind that is quickly revealed, because those 10 years prior, Jason Todd, the second Robin is killed, although the how is not given. Before I continue I should point out that this out of continuity death of Jason is published 3 years before his actual death in the 1988 Batman storyline, "A Death in the Family". Now back to the topic at hand. It's 10 years in the future, Gotham is overrun by crime, and Bruce Wayne is in his 50's and actually living as a billionaire playboy. But while out walking one night, he happens upon the place where his parents were killed all those years before, Crime Alley. He is then threatened by two thugs, members of the criminal gang known as "The Mutants", and this is the spark that galvanizes him into becoming Batman again. That spark turns into a blaze, when Harvey Dent, after undergoing massive reconstructive surgery funded by Wayne, has been hailed as finally cured of his Two-Face persona returns to crime. Batman stops him, and even though it appears that physically, Harvey looks fine, there is a brief flash where you see that mentally, he is still Two-Face, worse than ever before. The book proceeds with Batman taking down the Mutant Leader, and then the return of the Joker, having spent the last 10 years in Arkham Asylum catatonic. He pretends to be finally cured of whatever madness he suffered from, and then kills every person on the talk show he goes on. This leads to a final fight between Batman and the Joker in a carnival's Tunnel of Love, with Batman breaking the Joker's neck, stopping short of killing him. The Joker finishes the job, killing himself but making it seem like Batman did the dirty deed.
The rest of the book also shows Superman, now a puppet of the US Government, and the only superhero not retired besides Batman. After dealing with a Soviet warhead, Superman is then ordered to deal with Batman, and this ends in battle royal in Crime Alley, with Batman being aided by the one-armed, former Green Arrow, Oliver Queen. During this fight, the book shows Alfred, the loyal Wayne family butler and Bruce's confidant in his war on crime, detonating charges in the Batcave which level the cave and Wayne Manor, Alfred the dies of a stroke while watching the entire history of a good family and a good man go up in fire. After Bruce apparently dies during the fight of a heart attack, the last pages show him and the new Robin, Carrie Kelly, who seeks him out during the book to help him fight crime, along with reformed members of the Mutant gang, setting up shop in the other caves beneath Wayne Manor. Bruce is planning on building an army, which will take time, to save the world from "something worse than thieves and murderers" and he decides that this will be a good life, good enough. Before I finish this post I'd like to point out that there are at least two other classic Batman characters that are in this book, James Gordon, forced to retire the position of Commissioner in the book on his 70th birthday to the new, young, anti-vigilante Ellen Yindel. The second character is Selena Kyle, once the Catwoman, who now runs an escort agency. The artwork in the book is fantastic, the plot-line amazing, and I highly recommend this trade paperback to all who read this blog and are not comic fans. So go out, check your local library, comic book store or bookstore, and pick up your copy today!