
1986 was a big year for comic books and graphic novels, with the publication of Art Spiegelman's first volume of
Maus, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons'
Watchmen, and Frank Miller's
The Dark Knight Returns, three works that have gathered much critical acclaim and commercial success. Each has also had a profound influence on a great number of sequential art works since. A 4-issue limited series,
DKR was part of
Dick Giordano's plan to put
DC Comics at the top of the comics world by hiring the best talents to produce the best works.
DKR's status was conveyed by its
Prestige format, with thicker, glossier pages and thicker binding. Also, each of the four books cost $2.95, quite a mark-up from the typical 65 cent comics found on newsstands at the time.
DKR takes up a typical trope of DC Comics stories, the glimpse-into-the-future story, except in a much grimmer manner. When this story begins, Bruce Wayne has long given up his mantle as Batman, because of the death of
Robin, and lives his life as a drunken, reckless playboy. Gotham City has sunk into a cesspool of crime, chiefly because of a gang called the Mutants, and it is only through a random series of events, which include his enemy Two Face being rehabilitated and released from Arkham Asylum, that he resumes his role as a dark avenger of the night.
In many ways, the story is a response to
Ronald Reagan style Republicanism, and it contains a number of references to 1980s popular culture, including
Dr. Ruth and
David Letterman (when he was still on NBC). As part of the narrative, we see what has happened to a number of other characters, including Superman, the Joker, Catwoman, and Green Arrow, and are introduced to
Carrie Kelly, who takes up the role of Robin.
DKR was eventually followed by a sequel, 2001's
The Dark Knight Strikes Again.
At the time of
DKR's publication, Frank Miller was one of the hottest artists working in comics, just having come off popular, landmark, definitive work on Marvel Comics'
Daredevil and
Wolverine.
DKR continued his streak of hits, which he extended soon afterward with his
Batman: Year One story illustrated by
David Mazzucchelli.
Feeling the lure of Hollywood after comic book success, Miller went on to work on the two
Robocop sequels, ventures met with less than success, before returning to comics to create the series
Martha Washington, Sin City, and
300. He returned to Hollywood after a few years, working in conjunction with
Robert Rodriguez to direct
Sin City. Today, Miller is perhaps best known for his successes in converting that series as well as
300 into films. Not everything about his recent film career has been peaches and cream, however, as he was also responsible for the movie version of Will Eisner's
The Spirit, a critically panned box office failure.
Miller continues to create comics with artist
Jim Lee as they collaborate on the sporadically published
All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. Batman is a character with a long history and different iterations over the decades. For interested readers, here are a
wiki archive chronicling a great amount of that history as well as a
fansite for different media versions and upcoming news. For more information about Frank Miller, you can visit his
Lambiek artist's profile or this unofficial
website that archives much, if not all, of his work.
Almost every review I could locate about
DKR was positive, as represented by these three, one from
Bill Ramey, one by
Dave Wallace, and one by
Tom Knapp. One contrary opinion I could find was expressed by
Mordecai Richler who wrote a review for the
New York Times in 1987 that takes issue with Miller's work, citing a lack of imagination and poo-pooing comic books in general.