[World of Bats] The Dark Knight Returns

Speaking of, I’m reminded of another interesting perspective that Grant Morrison gave when they were interviewed by Kevin Smith during his Fat Man on Batman podcast (man, I miss that podcast – like the current one is okay, but I miss the deep sit-down interviews) about it being less grim and gritty and more of an epic opera. I would say it’s more than a little of both.

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It’s WHY they’re fighting. I find it to be a poor representation of both characters: Batman as a macho jerk with a huge ego and Superman as a political stooge.

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That’s fair. I think it’s fair to say that The Joker probably should have been the real final boss of this, or perhaps Yindel, maybe actually confronting him before she decides she needs his help more than to put him behind bars.

Or maybe the Superman fight could work better if there’s more context. Like we are told that the heroes were forced to retire, but we never see the how or why of it, not really even in any subsequent books. The closest we get is All-Star Batman, and that doesn’t really go anywhere.

It would have been interesting if we got a glimpse of how their relationship deteriorated. In a way it sort of misses context that would make the fight more impactful outside of being well drawn and beginning the whole “Batman can beat anyone with prep time” nonsense.

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It’s interesting to compare and contrast this scene with the similar one in BvS. Batman is an egoistic jerk in that one, too, but he’s not framed as the “good guy” by the narrative, and he learns a greater lesson from the event than the virtue of doing your vigilantism quietly (which actually seems like a terrible idea in the comic’s context: the one time that he inspires positive behavior is when he’s in full superhero mode on the horse).

And Superman is in a similar position in both Dark Knight Falls and BvS: he’s already ticked off at Batman for the actions he’s taking (albeit in different contexts), but he has to be provoked by an outside force to take direct action. In the comic, it’s Ronald Reagan who pushes him into it. In the movie, it’s Lex Luthor. Personally, I strongly prefer the latter option, though I guess DK2 brings it together with Lex being the man pulling the strings behind a holographic POTUS. :stuck_out_tongue:

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He is and yet he isn’t. It’s very obvious that Snyder and Affleck were inspired by Dark Knight Returns for their take on the two, but in BVS the roles are reversed. Superman is the outcast with his every move and very existence being mulled over by the media, and Batman is the stooge on a mission to take him down, though more of an unwitting stooge, manipulated by his own trauma than some sort of duty or outside individual.

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Know how nukes work instead of blindly listening to the incompetent media listening to every fool waving a badge at him. Since Clark gave the US a way around Soviet nukes he needs to know that they would naturally make their own counter.

I am nothing like him. If he ever sets foot in my dimension Robin will make him street pizza.