He spears everyone. Look at how he trashed the guy hoping I would go for “the homos” next.
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Sure. He definitely thinks his point of view is superior, so he spears anyone that doesn’t subscribe to it. He’s a classic “law and order” guy. Look at how he endorses excessive force throughout DKR. Miller was mugged in NYC once and never got over it. After that it was: if you break the law then it doesn’t matter why, you deserve punishment. It’s all there down to Gordon’s speech about dropping nuclear bombs on Japan or his depiction of African American criminals in Batman Year One or his Daredevil run (which was spoofed by Alan Moore). Miller is the essence of “well if they weren’t doing something wrong, then the cops wouldn’t have hurt them.”
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Nothing screams supporting law and order like writing a story where the hero is chased down and nearly killed by the cops, and they accept they have to just watch as a vigilante saves the day.
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Yeah. Because Miller believes laws of due process and excessive force undermine law and order.
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By the logic he would portray The Mutant Leader as the rightful law and hero. Instead he is the murderous villain dethroned by the hero with police backing.
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No. The Mutant leader would be considered an “undesirable” or an agent of chaos to society. He’s “outside the walls” of order with his “might makes right” philosophy. Miller isn’t a “might makes right” guy. He’s a “law and order” guy. “Law and order” means that the peace is kept when the wealthiest and most accepted by society are protected.
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He wrote considerably more of me protecting children and small crime victims than anyone else.
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I don’t doubt that he meant well. But… like I said, he got mugged once and let that experience define his point of view. My point is that when he published Holy Terror, I was not surprised based on everything he had done up to that point.
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Ever read Miller’s “Adventures of Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder”? What were the cops going to do to Grayson in the woods after his parents’ death?
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You mean All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder? I gave up on that one pretty early in its run and never revisited it. The most I remember is Bruce locking Dick up in a basement and telling him to eat rats to survive.
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That’s the series and I’m talking first or 2nd issue
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Yeah, sorry, I just don’t remember it that well.
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Seemed like some male officers were going to either kill Dick or r@-- him
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Ah. Yeah, there were corrupt cops in Batman: Year One, too. I think corrupt police can be sorted into the criminals category. By “law and order” guy, I don’t mean to say that Miller thought all cops were good guys. By “law and order” I mean to say that Miller highly valued the punishment of criminals to maintain the structure of society. In that way, Batman was his great agent of “law and order.” Not the police.
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meaning Miller wanted to make sure criminals were arrested?
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Meaning Miller is more concerned with punishment than much else. He doesn’t seem too concerned with the causes of crime or with rehabilitation. That’s also why he characterizes almost anyone who believes in rehabilitation as either naive or a scam artist looking to cash in like with the whole Harvey Dent saga of DKR. A lot of his stories boil it down to crime and (often violent) punishment, and that’s all that matters.
I’m not saying don’t like DKR or Miller. If you like it, you like it. All I’m saying is, the older I got, the more DKR turned me off. There are very specific narratives and conclusions the story drives you to that are, at best, half truths and mean-spirited simplifications. It presents itself as gritty realism, but… it’s kinda just macho posturing with a bit of crime sensationalism mixed in. Or, at least, that’s how I read it. It’s just not my thing anymore.
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I think he was a lot closer to US politically center before 9/11. After that, he became radicalized right wing. I miss the writer he was before that.
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Nothing says gritty realism more than me dressed as an old woman racing with an alien to capture a costumed criminal. Clearly the most extreme case of realism ever put to print.
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Oh no… your sarcasm shames me and totally undercuts my point… whatever will I do… except point out that you know realism in comics is relative and the grim, gritty stuff of the 80’s was relative to the sci-fi, space opera stuff of the 70’s. So, yeah, DKR was presenting itself as being realistic for the genre at that time… bat-drag and all.
Fair enough. I won’t dissuade you from that. I just feel like he was headed in that direction the entire time and I do think I’ve offered enough examples from DKR to at least show why I feel that way.
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I know that to be false. I was never presented as realistic, or I would have been dead many, many times over.
70s were known for their focus on realism. That allowed a few fantasies like Star Wars to really stick out and dominate.
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