Line #57 ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_dark_knight_strikes_again_9568.jpg]]
2
3	''Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again'', also known as ''Dark Knight 2'', was a three issue {{Franchise/Batman}} mini-series written and illustrated by Creator/FrankMiller with Lynn Varley in 2001–2002, the sequel to 1986's ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns''.
4
5	Set three years after the events of ''The Dark Knight Returns'', the world has managed to go downhill since then--the President is a fake, and the police state of a world is run by ComicBook/LexLuthor and ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}, who has many a hero enslaved.
6
7	Of course, Batman won't be having that, so he and his allies--Catgirl, the ComicBook/GreenArrow, and his Batboys--set out to change the world by [[ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption judicious application of violence]]. But first, they need allies--and they need to deal with {{Franchise/Superman}}, who is still in the thrall of the government...
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9	Overall, it goes further off the deep end than ''The Dark Knight Returns'', almost to the point of being a {{Deconstruction}} of the DarkerAndEdgier nature of the first story though, naturally, not everyone thinks that makes it any good. The color palette is much more varied than ''The Dark Knight Returns''' muted colorization, taking it to an almost garish degree, that takes a little getting used to (many reviewers termed it ugly). It was eventually followed starting in 2015 by ''ComicBook/DarkKnightIIITheMasterRace''.
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11	----
12	!!This miniseries contains examples of:
13	* AdaptationalUgliness: Nobody is particularly good-looking in this comic, but Lex Luthor takes the cake: while rather presentable-looking in the main comics continuity, Luthor here is drawn as a [[FatBastard morbidly obese hunchback]] with a [[SinisterSchnoz pointy, crooked nose.]]
14	* AmbiguouslyGay: [[spoiler:Dick Grayson of the DepravedHomosexual variety.]]
15	* ArtificialLimbs: This is how Green Arrow, who in TDKR had lost one of his arms, once again has a pair of them.
16	* ArtShift:
17	** [[spoiler:When searching the ruins of Metropolis, Superman discovers a locket containing [[MediaNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] pictures of him & ComicBook/LoisLane.]]
18	** The art in general is also very different from the first book. The coloring is the most obvious change (from muted and dirty to garishly bright) but everybody has really exaggerated figures either in terms of proportions or angles. Lex in particular looks like a shaved gorilla.
19	* AuthorTract: Apparently Miller doesn't like trends the media are taking.
20	* BestHerToBedHer: Franchise/WonderWoman.
21	* BewareTheSuperman: At the end of the series [[spoiler:Superman rules the world with his daughter, Lara.]]
22	* BigBadDuumvirate: Lex Luthor and Brainiac, with New Joker as TheDragon.
23	* BrotherSisterTeam: Hawkman and Hawkwoman's children.
24	* ButtMonkey: Superman. It really gets to the point where you think Miller has something against the character.
25	* TheCameo:
26	** [[Magazine/{{MAD}} Alfred E. Neuman]] appears as one of the talking heads in issue 2.
27	** In a blink-and-you'll-miss it moment, [[Comicbook/{{Supergirl}} Kara Zor-El]] [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pScx8BN4h3s/TVA45wfm8QI/AAAAAAAALJM/87X-_StCvbM/s1600/dk+2-01.jpg makes an appearance]] leading the Kandorian rebels. In that scene Comicbook/{{Brainiac}} gloats over holding Franchise/{{Superman}}'s cousin hostage.
28	* CatGirl: Carrie Kelly, the former Robin.
29	* CharacterDevelopment:
30	** Of a sort. In ''ComicBook/AllStarBatmanAndRobinTheBoyWonder'', Batman was a gruesome individual. He treated everyone in the story like dirt, insisted that Dick eat a rat for dinner, threatened Alfred for feeding him a proper meal, slapped Dick for crying over the loss of his parents, and gleefully killed (dirty, some willing to murder kids) cops chasing him and was overall a deranged, loathsome maniac who ironically gained some humanity from Grayson. ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'' could be interpreted as Bruce Wayne being older, wiser, and struggling to hold on to his humanity and/or sanity. In this series, Batman has reverted into the same belligerent maniac he was in ''All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder''. In short, what you have here is one seriously messed-up man who is ''not'' as rational and logical as he thinks he is.
31	%%* ComicBookTime
32	* CrazyPrepared: Naturally enough, Batman. To the point of having [[PowerFist glowing green boxing gloves]].
33	%%* CreepyChild: Saturn Girl.
34	* DecoyLeader: The President was a decoy for Luthor.
35	* DefiantToTheEnd: Batman, when captured by Luthor.
36	* DepravedHomosexual: It's implied that [[spoiler:Dick Grayson]] had the hots for [[spoiler:Batman]], but was rejected by him, which led to [[spoiler:Dick]] becoming a villain. At the end of the comic [[spoiler:Batman]] taunts him with all sorts of quasi-homophobic euphemisms relating to his supposed "sissiness". And since [[spoiler:Dick]] is the villain, apparently Miller thinks we're supposed to side with [[spoiler:Batman]] here.
37	* DestructoNookie: Superman and Wonder Woman have sex so over-the-top it ''alters the earth's weather patterns''.
38	* DistractedByTheSexy: More or less the point of "News in the Nude".
39	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:Hawkman and Hawkgirl, ingloriously nuked off-panel. Captain Marvel had a longer sequence where a giant building was dropped on him.]]
40	* {{Expy}}: A weird inversion, or something. This story's ComicBook/TheQuestion is basically Rorschach from ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', and Rorschach himself was a CaptainErsatz of the original Question, so this makes this version of the Question closer to the original Ditko Question and [[Film/AustinPowers oh no, we've gone crosseyed]].
41	* FlatWhat: "[[http://gyazo.com/3dd8fcd8ed0de8cdae1baa6d560e884d.png It's about to blow!]]"
42	%%* GangOfHats: The Batboys.
43	* {{Gonk}}: There are some seriously ugly character designs here, especially Lex Luthor, an iconic DiabolicalMastermind, {{Ubermensch}} and ManOfWealthAndTaste who for some reason is depicted as a cigar-chomping, hulking neanderthal with huge hands and a hunchback, to the point that it looks as though his hands are physically weighing him down, forcing him to walk with a hunch and thereby making him a literal knuckle-dragger, causing one to wonder if he [[DisabledInTheAdaptation is actually meant to be physically deformed]]. The Gonkishness is mostly limited to the elderly males of the cast (which there are a ton of) but even the ostensibly pretty females have weirdly angular faces.
44	* HamsterWheelPower: [[spoiler:This is what the Flash has been up to lately.]]
45	* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: One of the cooler bits of the series is that Miller really woke people up to just how utterly, [[SuperpowerLottery insanely ''powerful'' Plastic Man]] is. A lot of comics released after this seemed to run with Miller's description of Plas as a CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass of epic proportions.
46	* {{Hypocrite}}: Catgirl berates one of the 'Batboys' in issue one about killing some soldiers and even beats him up for it. Yet in issue three she clams to have killed the Joker imposter "without an ounce of remorse" and "without a shred of regret" with an arrow through the head. True he couldn't die from that, but she didn't know that at the time.
47	** The beating itself at least is justified by the fact that the Batboy himself reverted to his more psychopathic attitude and threatened to break her bones first. Now the whole killing but not killing on the other hand...
48	* IntimateHealing: Superman is completely healed of his injuries after having sex with Wonder Woman. According to Miller himself, this was done to highlight the fact that women are "nurturers and life givers".
49	* IntimateMarks: One issue features a woman with the House of El sigil stamped on her ass.
50	* InvincibleHero: Batman. By the time anyone comes up with anything he's already twelve steps ahead of them. Superman heading for the Bat-Cave? No problem! Just use the gigantic Kryptonite gloves over there! Got captured? No biggie! It was part of Batman's plan all along. It gets so bad that Batman can literally storm into Luthor's base of operations, beat him up, cut his face, and just leave with absolutely zero consequences. In the page image, he spells out why--he wanted to inspire terror in Luthor, to let him know that his empire was crumbling. [[spoiler:And he wanted to give Hawkboy the honor of killing Luthor.]]
51	* KillItWithFire: [[spoiler:Dick Grayson has become a NighInvulnerable MonsterClown super-assassin that can survive all attacks, but is finally destroyed once and for all when he falls into the LavaPit that formed in the destruction of the batcave]].
52	* KryptoniteRing: More than a ring--try Kryptonite napalm, Kryptonite [[PowerFist power fists]]...
53	* LosingYourHead: [[spoiler:Dick Grayson. He reattaches it.]]
54	* MonsterClown: [[spoiler:For once, there was a reason to highlight this. It's not the Joker, it's Dick Grayson.]]
55	* MythologyGag:
56	** Hot Gates, the porn star who dresses as Big Barda, is a shout out to the recurring theme of Thermopylae that appears in Frank Miller's work. She was also name dropped in ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'', so it's also a CallBack.
57	** The President has the last name Rickard, as in ''ComicBook/{{Prez\|1973}}''.
58	* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Superman can now absorb energy from the Earth to heal himself and replenish his powers. It was always the PowerOfTheSun before.
59	* NoNameGiven: We never learn the names of Hawkman and Hawkwoman's children. Only that their son is called Hawkboy.
60	* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: Saturn Girl has a vision of Catgirl being murdered by the New Joker. Catgirl isn't too worried, as she shot the New Joker with several explosive arrows, and then went to work on him with a hatchet.
61	* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Happens to pretty much every character, good or bad. Batman is at his sorriest-looking state ever by the end, going well past "beaten up" and into "disfigured."
62	* OldSuperhero: Pretty much the entire cast, with a few exceptions, such as Carrie Kelly, or the new Supergirl (daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, the fan-ship of many an Elseworlds writer).
63	* OurWormholesAreDifferent: A throwaway line during Hal Jordan's journey back to Earth about the wormhole being where he still left it implies he can create or move them.
64	* PhysicalGod: Wonder Woman calls Superman this.
65	* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: It's implied that Carrie doesn't actually know what the ZorroMark is, just that it means something to Batman.
66	* PowerDynamicsKink: Implied if not outright stated to be the case of Franchise/{{Superman}} and Franchise/WonderWoman's relationship. Her response to Superman feeling down about Batman beating him (again) is to punch him in the face and say, "Where is the man who threw me to the ground and made me his prize?".
67	* PresidentEvil: Actually a hologram controlled by Lex Luthor.
68	%%* PunyHumans: What Lara Kent believes.
69	* {{Retcon}}: Of sorts. ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'' treats the absence of superheroes (and Superman having "sold out") as a consequence of a SuperRegistrationAct, with the unnamed president strongly implied to be UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, who's super-aged and losing his sanity. Here, it's revealed that the whole scenario is due to Lex Luthor and Braniac holding the world (and Kandor) hostage via orbiting cannons and a hologram of the president (whose name is stated to be "Rickard", a reference to the comic ''ComicBook/{{Prez\|1973}}'').
70	* {{Retraux}}: Superman looks more like his [[MediaNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] version than the one used in DKR.
71	* SacrificialLion: The Guardian, the Creeper, and the Martian Manhunter all die in horrible ways to prove how dangerous this "New Joker" ([[spoiler:Dick Grayson]]) actually is.
72	* {{Sexposition}}: Part of the arc's {{Bad Future}}ness is "News in the Nude," the only news worth watching. Guess Creator/FrankMiller had never heard of ''Naked News''.
73	* SexStartsStoryStops: Superman and Wonder Woman had several pages dedicated to them having sex for no reason other than to make Superman feel better.
74	* SiblingTeam: The original ComicBook/HawkAndDove are inspired to start fighting injustice again by Batman's speech, but they're a bit out of shape (even if that probably won't affect their powers much), and Don [[HypocriticalHumor argues that they spent most of their time as vigilantes arguing with each other.]]
75	%%* SignatureStyle
76	* StrawmanPolitical: The Question is a radical Libertarian, Green Arrow is a radical Marxist. Miller didn't give us any clue which he agrees with, and which, if either, is meant to be correct. This is also a FalseDichotomy: Both characters are shown to be ridiculously over the top in their antics. [[spoiler:The Question refuses to use anything more technologically advanced than a typewriter (though that could be ProperlyParanoid given the setting), and Green Arrow is a hypocritical billionaire Marxist hippie who presumably spent a fortune to get a cybernetic arm when the world is in the throes of a nuclear winter.]]
77	* SwallowedWhole: Carrie accidentally swallows [[ComicBook/TheAtom Ray Palmer]] early on, leading to a VomitIndiscretionShot.
78	* TakeThat:
79	** [[invoked]]WordOfGod says the book as Frank Miller's reaction to the [[MediaNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Age]] he helped inspire.
80	** Which leads to some [[invoked]]FridgeLogic when combined with ComicBook/AllStarBatmanAndRobinTheBoyWonder. For instance, this comic lauds ComicBook/GreenLantern (Hal Jordan) specifically as a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything noble hero exiled by the petty people of Earth]], but who [[ComicBook/EmeraldTwilight is shown to be absolutely worthy of godlike power.]] In contrast, the Goddamn Batman once lured Hal into an ambush and beat him savagely with little provocation. The beating occurs canonically before he entrusts Bats with a means to summon him, but was written afterward.
81	* TechnicalPacifist: Batman at this point is only one out of keeping his word. He clearly does not care about killing enemies anymore, letting subordinates use lethal force liberally, and actually shows a disturbing amount of glee over [[spoiler:Hawkboy brutally murdering Luthor. Eventually, he opts to break his code altogether when he happily kills Dick Grayson himself.]]
82	* TogetherInDeath: [[spoiler:Hawkman and Hawkwoman were killed in a military strike ordered by Lex Luthor, embracing each other in their final moments.]]
83	* TookALevelInJerkass: Batman's behavior in this series seems to presage his depiction in ''ComicBook/AllStarBatmanAndRobinTheBoyWonder'', which came out three years after this mini-series. He regularly demeans both the villains and his allies, doesn't bat an eye at his fellow heroes killing villains, and shows no hesitation about killing [[spoiler:his former protege Dick Grayson]].
84	* VillainDecay: Brainiac and Lex Luthor aren't nearly as smart in TDKSA as they are in other stories. In fact, some of the decisions they make are downright moronic.
85	* WeAreStrugglingTogether: ComicBook/GreenArrow and ComicBook/TheQuestion, in that one wants Marxist Socialism, and the other Randian Objectivism.
86	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: What happened to Mary Marvel? It was never revealed if she was rescued or not.
87	* WifeHusbandry: [[spoiler:Dick Grayson]] implies that this is what Batman is doing with Carrie, though [[invoked]][[WordOfGod Word of Miller]] denies this vehemently. Also, [[spoiler:Dick Grayson]] was [[{{Pun}} bat]]shit insane at that point, and had just spent a good amount of time [[spoiler:[[ColdBloodedTorture mutilating Carrie]] out of [[AxCrazy psychotic jealousy]].]] [[spoiler:He]] is an unreliable source, to say the least.
88	* WillfullyWeak: This is apparently Batman's (and Miller's) main problem with Superman, as he stops being treated as a ButtMonkey once he starts taking the attitude to match his power as a PhysicalGod.
89	* WingedHumanoid: Hawkman and Hawkwoman gave their children wings while living in Costa Rica.
90	* YouKilledMyFather: Luthor killed Hawkman and Hawkwoman. Their children, Hawkboy and his sister, want revenge.
91	* ZeerustCanon: Published 15 years later, but only takes place two years later.
92	* ZorroMark: Batman carves one onto Lex Luthor's face.
93	-->'''Catgirl:''' "The Boss leaves his mark. ''[we see Batman use a batarang to make the three quick slices]'' It must mean something to him... "

Context ComicBook / TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain