The Dark Knight Returns #3

[history79]

"My feeling was they’d never be that good of friends anyway. They’d kind of disagree on certain fundamental things. Superman can afford to be as nice about crime as he is, because he can fly, and he can do anything. He can beat up God if he wants to. But Batman has trained to fight a much tougher battle, and to me they were natural antagonists. But also, the main reason for doing anything; It made a good story."

- Frank Miller




17 pages of 52

Comments

[captainbellman]

For the opening pages, the part of Bruce Wayne will be played by Clint Eastwood.

[cyberghostface]

I think Joker looks snazzy in a white suit, wouldn't mind seeing that carry over into the regular comics once in a while.

[lego_joker]

As much as I disagree with Miller on Certain Other Things, I think he's got a point about the world not being big enough for both Superman and Batman - at least, not unless you severely water one or both of them down.

It kind of makes me wish he (or someone else) would write a Superman story shitting on Batman to this extent and... oh wait, Zack Snyder's already taken care of that. Nevermind, then.

[lamashtar]

I have some sympathy for Superman here. The strange thing is, what makes him vulnerable to Batman's decisions is their association. What people feared in people like Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Flash was their godlike power. That is absolutely not the case with Batman and Green Arrow. It is a strange world that sees these two groups as one.

[alschroeder3]

The funny thing is, the early Superman was even more of a rule-breaker than Batman was. He would demolish a slum so the government would rebuild the area with better housing, dodging bombs dropped by the air force helping him complete his work. He declared war on gambling and destroyed casinos, declared war on drunk and bad drivers and demolished questionable cars in a parking lot. He often fought corruption in government in several levels, and despised war. Batman declared war on crime. Superman declared war on everything that was dragging society down, including crime. Grant Morrison's take on the new 52 Superman's early years was very like the early Superman--the unstoppable, invincible idealist, refusing to conform to reality, stronger than the corruption in society.

[martiniphilosph]

I think it's interesting to see the politics of the time leak through into the pages. And the parallels of Superman vs world (that he's making safe for America) and Batman vs Joker (Batman trying to make Gotham safe).

*sigh*

[starwolf_oakley]

When I posted some of this way back when, I said

Via one of Selina's girls, the Joker gets one Congressman to shout for a nuclear strike on Corto Maltese before jumping/falling to his death. It's not like the Joker to get all "political," even if you ignore the whole "mind control lipstick" element.

shadur responded

No, but it /is/ like the Joker to have his victims do or say something ludicrous before jumping to their deaths because it'll horrify the onlookers even more (and because he'd think it funny).

[bradygirl_12]

...whatever it is in him rustles as it leaves

Great line there at the Joker's death.