Issue 4: “The Dark Knight Falls”
The issue starts with a great wrap-up to the previous issue’s cliffhanger. Then after some redundant banter about the pros and cons of vigilantism, we get the most hilarious image in the book: the Gipper in a radiation suit. (Miller gets in a strange dig at Harlan Ellison, too!) Superman diverts the nuke, but it still sets off an EMP, and Batman chides him for it. Like, what was he supposed to do, Bruce: kill a bunch of New Yorkers with a fake alien squid in hopes of averting full nuclear war?
We see an airplane crash into a building, which strikes a lot harder now than it did when the comic was published. Gordon is there to witness it, but he needs to be careful: he might just beat Bruce to that heart attack. Batman shows up on horseback (an image that almost showed up in Burton’s film), and even though he used a gun earlier in this issue, he’s now totally against them. (Yeah, yeah, different contexts, whatever.) Of course, his position on firearms doesn’t stop him from otherwise talking like Judge Dredd.
Batman actually manages to inspire everyone to act for the greater good, like some kind of superhero. Meanwhile, Superman is off talking to Mother Nature as he tries to recover from the nuclear blast. (He doesn’t manage to talk it out of bringing on the nuclear winter.) He recovers just enough for the infamous fight that closes the story.
Speaking of the fight, this is where the book completely loses me, despite its “classic” status among fans. Oliver Queen can accuse the U.S. government of being fascists all he wants, but he’s the one who’s working with a man who thinks, “The world only makes sense when you force it to.” (Notably, this line shows up in BvS as an indicator of how far gone Batman really is.) Bruce is all for imposing a will on people as long as it’s his will.
Anyway, Bruce “dies,” Alfred actually dies (in a way that feels rather dismissive of the character, especially in light of his character development in the early 80s), and Clark realizes that Bruce is still alive at the funeral. Bruce finally accepts that he can peacefully co-exist with the Reagan administration as long as he runs his paramilitary organization on the down-low instead of acting as a superhero, and I guess that’s a happy ending.
This final issue threatens to ruin the entire miniseries for me, and it’s a sign of things to come for the sequel. Still, I’ll take Miller’s DK1 over that one…and over Year One.