Review: The Dark Knight Returns

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The Dark Knight Returns is TERRIBLE. I don't understand why people still talk about it to this day. I understand its significance and importance in relation to what Batman is like today, but outside of the context of Batman, why do people STILL like it? I've heard people put it up there with The Watchmen, and let me just say this--It is nowhere NEAR as good as The Watchmen. The Watchmen is actually like literature. It had something to say. But this, well, it has nothing to say. Batman is old and he's in a society that feels they don't need vigilantes anymore, until they do. And then Batman comes back, does some stuff, gets a new Robin, rides a horse, fights Superman, the end. Honestly, that's the whole story, and it meanders all over the place.

Frank Miller, author of Sin City and a whole bunch of other crummy comics, was not and is still not a very good writer. I'm not saying he's not a good comic book writer, because he suits his purpose. But he's no Neil Gaiman. He's no Alan Moore. Hell, he's not even Sam Keith, who penned the brilliant comic, The Maxx, back in the early 90s. What Frank Miller did was change the whole vision of Batman, which is to be commended, sure, but not to be applauded to the extent that The Dark Knight Returns is considered one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. It's not even close. To cite one of the lines of this terribly boring book, The Dark Knight Returns is "balls nasty." And not in a good way, like it's used in this book, but in a bad way, like balls actually being nasty. Especially if they're not cleaned.

I know you've heard a lot about this book, but it's not justified. It sucks. Plain and simple. Read something else instead.

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