The Four Color Media Monitor

A writer at ComicBook argues that Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns only wound up hurting mainstream comics, superhero or otherwise, in the long run:

Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns is widely considered to be one of the best Batman comics of all time. It revitalized Batman and was the story that finally let him shake off the Silver Age, kid-friendly reputation in the public eye, which had stuck with him since the 1960s Batman series. It is easily one of the most influential stories of its time, which is the largest credit any comic book can have, considering it released around the same time as Crisis On Infinite Earths and Watchmen. This comic is almost universally beloved by Batman and general comic book fans, and yet, despite how great it was, at the end of the day it did near irreparable damage to the comic book industry that is still felt to this very day. I love The Dark Knight Returns, but it almost ruined comic books.

Well it's not literally the comic itself that ruined comics, since the blame mainly has to be laid at the feet of countless editors and other contributors who actually believed the path it took was the absolute role model to follow in later years, culminating in abominations like Identity Crisis and Avengers: Disassembled. But seriously, DKR was the story that got Batman past the Silver Age? What about Denny O'Neil and Steve Englehart's Bat-stories of the Bronze Age? Well, I assume by the time DKR was produced, a lot of establishment press sources had become more organized, and knew how to look for and select the kind of overrated products they thought suitable for promotion as "holy grails" going forward. So, no matter what I think of Miller's resume, it's regrettable his so-called "masterpiece" was elevated to pagan status as if it were such a big deal. But in hindsight, I'd say it's nothing of the sort. Funny though, how it must've totally surpassed even his Daredevil run as something the mainstream make such a fuss over.

The Dark Age of Comics

The Modern Age of comic books is, like most ages, very loosely defined in when it started. This is especially hard to track for Marvel Comics, but with DC there is a much more concrete answer. Most generally agree that the Modern Age started with the release of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Watchmen, and The Dark Knight Returns, three comics that were released within a year of each other and totally changed DC’s approach to how they made comics. Specifically, the latter two books started the Dark Age of comics, a subsect of about fifteen years at the start of the Modern Age, from about 1986 to the start of the 2000s. The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen were unbelievably popular, and for good reason. Comic books were still shaking off the guidelines of the Comics Code Authority, which heavily censored the types of stories that could be told. These two stories threw those guidelines out to tell much darker stories with much more adult themes, and they were beloved for it.

And the only way to convince anybody these stories were to be taken seriously as adult entertainment was to emphasize darkness, or more precisely, themes like murder, sexual violence and graphic gore? Sadly, that seems to be the mindset that's held for a long time, and it's only done more harm than good to what we think of as entertainment for adults. What's overlooked here though, is that even before this, there were some independent comics that weren't attaching themselves to the CCA, including Nexus and Badger, and they managed to tell more mature themes too. I guess the problem here is whether mainstream could or should have to go out of its way for the sake of such mishmash. Seriously, is it that big a deal for mainstream publishers to tell stories so adult, they can't do it in separate products? Well, the point is alluded to in the following:

Yet while they were revolutionary, the rest of the comic book world took the wrong lesson from The Dark Knight Returns’ success. It introduced a grimdark and near hopeless world starring not original characters, but Batman, a foundational superhero. Batman had always been a symbol of hope against adversity, even in his darkest stories, but this comic reimagined him as a grizzled warrior fighting a doomed battle. The world is constantly facing the threat of nuclear war, the President himself declares Batman a criminal and sends Superman to bring him in, and everyone and everything is excessively violent. This dark tone inspired every single edgy and over the top redesign that the 1990s are infamous for. We saw a decade of heroes acting like agents of vengeance and rage, wearing way too much leather, and brooding far too much while being covered in far too much blood.

Now, the excessive edginess was a trend for everything in the ‘90s, but The Dark Knight Returns popularized it in comic books. But at the end of the day, that was just a passing fad. No, the real damage of The Dark Knight Returns was introducing the grimdark genre to superhero comics. Grimdark is defined as a subgenre of speculative fiction that has an excessive tone of violence, nihilism, and dystopian societies. Grimdark stories are hopeless by design, where the very soul of the world is uncaring and the heart of the human soul is selfish and untrustworthy. These types of stories are inherently incompatible with the superhero genre. From the onset, superheroes have been fantastical stories about people standing up to protect people from evil and save the day. They are literally built on a foundation of hope, and yet ever since the release of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, people have been obsessed with making superheroes as dark and gritty as possible, thinking that’s why they were popular. On some level it was, but a lot of people vastly misunderstand that Watchmen is not a fully grimdark story, just one with grimdark elements, but people will always clamor that Batman is meant to be a dark avenger specifically because of The Dark Knight Returns.

And when stories lack hope, how can one expect the wider audience to feel inspired? Tragically, there's a certain segment of the readership that's now running the asylum, and they led to massive damage, resulting in the aforementioned Identity Crisis and Avengers: Disasembled. Why, if memory serves, when Mark Waid was writing Fantastic Four at the time, he came close to telling stories that way, with one about Dr. Doom trying to use magic as a weapon against the FF, and leaving Franklin traumatized at least for the duration of his run. There may have been a leftist anti-war metaphor in his stories too, one more reason I'm glad I don't own his run, which came soon after what I consider the last decent era of FF had ended in 2002. When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby originally created FF, it certainly was meant to be a story with a more optimistic view, the Thing's situation notwithstanding. And then, when Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada took over Marvel, they basically took that all apart.

The revolution of hyper-violent, disgusting comic books that try to recapture the magic of The Dark Knight Returns with its grimdark world has given us some of the worst comics to ever exist. Beyond that, this story broke through the stereotype that comic books were made for kids, but because of how it did that, everyone is convinced that the only way superhero stories can be made for adults is if they are grimdark, which makes no sense. The Boys, The Killing Joke, and every Punisher title released after it are all trying to sell the idea that this is what adult comic books look like. They have to be hyper-violent, overly sexual, and tell the reader to their face that things are bad and can only get worse. This doesn’t make these stories bad, but it does make the people who shout how these are more mature comics by default very annoying. Everyone still says that Batman can’t be a happy character or smile, and that is in no small part because of this comic book.

I don't deny there's valid issues to take even with the Punisher, though I will say in its favor that some stories from the 1987-97 era did have a sense of humor, and I can't say it emphasized hopelessness the way some of its other dark-laden neighbors did. Even the Swamp Thing was never as dismal in most renditions up to the early 90s. I do find it problematic though, how this column complains about "overly sexual", because while it can be an adult subject in its own way, and not always suitable for children, it's still a minor issue compared with all the hyper violence and gore that became more common in the 90s. When the subject of sex becomes offensive is if it's put to use the way it was in Identity Crisis, where sexual violence, as noted before, was minimized, all for the sake of a metaphor sympathetic to villains, and as noted, it was a 9-11 metaphor too. Surprisingly enough, even some leftists were willing to admit as much.

If writers of Batman weren't/aren't allowed to depict him smiling and laughing, any such editorial mandate is obviously wrong. Though I wonder if some of the most overrated leftist writers are allowed to script Bruce Wayne that way, presumably if their politics and any written in-story coincide with their Orwellian beliefs? For now, a vital point was made earlier that there was once a time when Batman was written with respect for the concept of hope and trying to build a better future, and after DKR, much of that was thrown out the window. And Superman was damaged as a symbol of optimism.

I love The Dark Knight Returns, but ever since its release there has been an unyielding community who argue in bad faith that superhero comics should be like it or they’re made for babies. It’s an insane statement, but sometimes it even seems like the comic book industry itself agrees, constantly greenlighting stories that try to become the next The Dark Knight Returns by being as “mature” as possible. This is a great story in a vacuum, but the damage it did to comic books is almost entirely unforgivable. Superhero stories are meant to be hopeful. They don’t always need to have the perfect happy ending and save everyone, but they should inspire hope. Grimdark stories can’t do that, and The Dark Knight Returns unfortunately cursed us with far, far more grimdark comics than there should ever be.

On this, I can certainly agree. To be sure, the "community" spoken of is the same one that upheld the disgraced Neil Gaiman's Sandman for a long time, and look where that's gotten to now. In more than 15 years, Batman has practically been put to the forefront of emphasis in pop culture, while Superman was all but kicked to the curb. Sometimes, I wonder if even characters like Robin/Nightwing were sidelined in the process, if only because the former was meant to represent a more optimistic side as well. Why, even the Outsiders probably underwent a similar marginalization because some of the cast from that notable mid-80s series also represented optimism more than Batman did.

Today, it often seems like Batman is constantly the first and foremost superhero cited, while Superman all but gets 2nd billing. This whole problem even hints at another one - an inability of a certain segment of audience to find science fiction appealing, unless it adheres to certain PC mandates. I say that if only because Batman's not a superpowered character like Superman is, and science fantasy elements weren't heavily emphasized in Batman's stories. When he did appear in stuff with more emphasis, it was in team up series like the Brave and the Bold, and the subsequent, aforementioned Outsiders, though even there, he was phased out halfway through, while the team mostly continued without him for the 2nd half. I'm as much a Batman fan as the next person, but again, this is just way too much, and the PC emphasis that Batman fell victim too has only hurt the Masked Manhunter even more as a creation.

And this, of course, is why mainstream comics have collapsed, and I hope independent creators are trying to take a more optimistic route, because otherwise, how will we fix the damage going forward?

Labels: bad editors, Batman, dc comics, Fantastic Four, history, indie publishers, marvel comics, moonbat writers, Punisher, violence