First and foremost, the book was beset by constant delays, stretching what should have been a bi-monthly publishing schedule into an interminable three years. The comic has gone on to generate its own legacy, though for far more dubious reasons than did The Dark Knight Returns. The results were even better than Miller’s first outing with the Dark Knight Detective Year One is largely considered to be the very best Batman story to this day, nearly 30 years later, and it went on to be the definitive version of the Bat-origin until 2013, when the editorial board reluctantly concluded that references to the Vietnam War and Catwoman’s rendition as a sassy prostitute were no longer in keeping with the current iteration of the Batman mythos. With the phenomenal success of The Dark Knight Returns from just the year before, tasking Frank Miller with such a momentous endeavor was a no-brainer. With a clean slate on hand, it was decided that Batman needed a new origin story to accompany it, particularly since his origins hadn't been (substantially) addressed since his first appearance back in 1939 – a time when the Caped Crusader had no aversion to gunning down his Dick Tracy-esque villains. With some five decades of continuity piling up and making a general mess of timelines – not to mention undermining reader accessibility – DC Comics famously decided to clean house in its 1985 mega-event Crisis on Infinite Earths (which has since gone on to inspire more company-wide crossovers and relaunches in recent years). Fans call this the “Dark Knight Universe,” and DC even managed to formally tip its editorial hat to the writer by adding it for a time as one of the 52 parallel universes that run through the DCU (it was Earth-31, for all those playing along at home).Įager to pick up what may very well prove to be one of the last chapters in this alternate history of the Bat? Just curious for a quick primer before Zack Snyder’s version of the material arrives in movie theaters next spring? Come on along as we delve into The Complete Guide to Frank Miller’s Dark Knight.įormat: Story arc within the main Batman monthly series In this way, Miller has managed to do what no Bat-scribe has ever had the chance to do before: cover Bruce Wayne across the entirety of his life, from his earliest days as a crime-fighting vigilante to his retirement and beyond. As the years have gone on and Miller has had the opportunity to continue his Bat-work beyond the umbrella of The Dark Knight, he has fleshed out a character and a loose narrative that may or may not fit in with DC’s ever-changing continuity but which, in his mind, is all part of the same telling. But the sequels to (and big-screen adaptations of) the original series are only part of the story.

Frank miller the dark knight returns