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alt title(s): Dark Knight Returns
There are seven working defenses from this position. Three of them disarm with minimal contact. Three of them kill. The other— [KRAKK] —hurts.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is a four-issue Batman comic book miniseries written and drawn by Frank Miller and published by DC Comics from February to June 1986.
In this storyline, Batman has been retired for ten years, alcoholic and consumed with grief after the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin. Commissioner Gordon is weeks away from retirement, and the Joker has been silently locked away in Arkham for years. In the hero's absence, and in the midst of a killer heat wave, Gotham City is overrun with crime, plagued by a violent, monstrous gang known as The Mutants. After encountering a Mutant gang in the alley where his parents were murdered, Bruce Wayne resurrects Batman, aided in his renewed crusade by Carrie Kelly, a 13-year-old girl who becomes the third Robin. But defeating the Mutants turns out to be child's play compared to what Batman faces next...
A seminal comic book work, with a gritty, unique style, that's draped in the best of film noir techniques. It is often considered as influential as Watchmen in demonstrating the possible "maturity" of the comic book medium. For good or for bad, it ushered in the Dark Age. It was also highly influential in the DCU's recasting of Batman and Superman's relationship: no longer are they perfect friends, The World's Finest, but rather somewhat distant and distrusting (if respectful) of each other.
In 2001 and 2002, Miller produced a sequel, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, and while not everyone acknowledges that, the original is well worth checking out.
Though a movie deal has been kicking around Development Hell for a long time, the only real adaptation as of yet is a ten-minute segment in the DCAU, considered to be among the best adaptations of a Frank Miller work.
This miniseries contains examples of:
- Ax Crazy: The Mutants, especially their leader, and The Sons of the Batman.
- Bad Future: Batman is gone for ten years and EVERYTHING goes to hell.
- Banana Republic: Corto Maltese.
- Batman Gambit: Duh!
- Better To Die Than Be Killed: Happens twice, once when the Joker breaks his own neck(!) to frame Batman.
- Black Helicopter: The Batcopter.
- Bronze Age
- Bulletproof Human Shield: The newly-resurgent Batman chases three bank robbers to an abandoned apartment complex. He pulls one robber beneath the flooboards, then uses him as a Bulletproof Human Shield while the other two open fire.
- Bullet Proof Vest: See Chest Insignia below.
- Calling The Old Man Out: A variant, from Alfred after Bruce waxes on about Carrie's qualities as Robin:
Alfred: Very well, sir, I shall come right out and say it. Have you forgotten what happened to Jason?
- It turns into a subversion, though, as Bruce pretty much blows him off.
- Casa Lane Parenting: Carrie Kelly's parents seem to have trouble remembering that she even exists.
- Chest Insignia: Turns out it's bulletproof.
Batman: Why do you think I wear a target on my chest? I can't armor my head.
- Civillain: Happens twice, when the same psychiatrist declares Two-Face and the Joker legally sane.
- Comic Book Time: Averted hard. Part of the inspiration was Frank Miller wondering "What if Batman actually got older after taking up crimefighting in the '40s?"
- Complete Monster: The Joker and The Mutants to name a few, but Byron Brassballs shows that you don't have to be a twisted criminal or a rowdy teenager to be an incredible jackass by beating a helpless priest and pushing a handicapped man in front of a subway train, and then remorselessly trying to justify his actions when being interviewed by the news.
- Could Have Been Messy: Averted. Sharp Batarangs are sharp no matter what they hit.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: The Joker breaking his own neck to frame Batman. AFTER BECOMING QUADRIPLEGIC!!!
- It WAS the Joker! His final hour HAD to be a Crowning Moment
- What about a Crowning Drawing of Awesome?
- Batman has a ridiculous amount of these, especially in his first night out. Notably, a pimp is in a taxi with a hooker and pays the driver a wad of cash to drive. Batman lands on the roof and the pimp sticks his arm and gun out the half-open window. Batman stomps down on his arm and kicks the pimp's ass. Then he leaps away... before coming back and destroying the money the cabbie got. But most famous of all is his beating of the mutant leader. Having gotten his ass kicked by him earlier for trying to fight him head on, he tricks the leader into fighting in a mud pit. Batman fights dirty, striking nerve clusters, throwing mud in his eyes and doing something to his leg, saying "This isn't a mudhole. It's an operating table - and I'm the surgeon." while thinking "Something tells me to stop with the leg... I don't listen to it."
- We also have Crowning Moments like Superman and Batman's not-so-final showdown, not to mention Batman riding a horse
 .
- "I want you to remember...the one man who beat you."
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: "Good soldier."
- Dark Age
- Darker And Edgier
- Deadpan Snarker: Alfred takes this Up To Eleven.
- Deconstruction: Batman's tactics spur debates on toughness on crime; Superman's idealism makes him an ideal government figurehead.
- Doesn't Like Guns: Unless it's used as a tool: in the first issue, he uses a rifle to shoot a grappling line between the Gotham Towers to confront Two-Face and his henchmen. In issue 4, he invokes the trope in his speech to the Sons of the Batman:
Batman: (breaks a rifle in two in his hands) This loud, clumsy, stupid thing...this is the weapon of the enemy. We do not need it. We will not use it.
- Also averted pretty hard: Three Mutant kidnappers have a toddler as a hostage. The confrontation culminates with Batman pointing one of the Mutant's guns at the last kidnapper, who is holding the hostage at gunpoint.
Mutant: I'll do it man, believe me! Believe me!
Batman: (Shoots him dead and rescues the child) I believe you.
- Defeating The Undefeatable: Batman beats Superman.
- The Eighties: A lot of the action and political commentary stems from real-world politics of the period, in particular the U.S.-Soviet arms race, which comes to a head in part four.
- Electric Boogaloo
- Eye Scream: To reiterate: Sharp batarangs are sharp.
- Flatline Plotline
- Foe Yay: Let's not talk about the Joker/Batman subtext here.
- There's also a bit of subtext to the imagery of Batman analyzing the Mutant leader before their first fight, although he's completlely clinical in his internal dialogue.
Batman: ...except he's got exactly the kind of body I wish he didn't have...powerful, but without enough bulk to slow him down...every muscle a coiled steel spring ready to snap...and he's young, too, in his physical prime...and I honestly don't know that I could beat him.
- Follow The Leader: This miniseries singlehandedly ushered in the new age of Cranky Batman.
- Freudian Excuse: A psychiatrist blames Batman for making the Joker into a raving loon. He might have a point, but the Joker kills him.
- Future Slang: The Mutants are all over this one. "Balls nasty!", "spud" vs. "slicer-dicer", "chicken legs", and many others.
- Gang Of Hats: The Mutants and their various splinter groups.
- Genre Turning Point: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen pretty much ushered in the Dark Age of comics.
- Grandfather Clause: The Bat-signal is discussed here.
- Hall Of Mirrors
- Handicapped Badass: See Improbable Aiming Skills below.
- Heat Wave
- Hype Backlash
- I Fight For The Strongest Side: Once the Mutant leader is defeated, the gang's splinter groups define themselves by whatever figurehead they're following; the only thing that remains consistent is their use of violence.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: The Green Arrow is better than you at archery even with one arm.
- In the dark. In the rain. HANGING UPSIDE DOWN.
- I Was Quite A Looker: Selena Kyle.
- Jekyll And Hyde: Two-Face, as usual, but turned on its head here. Recent breakthroughs in plastic surgery restore his appearance, but at the unforeseen cost of forever destroying the good-natured "Harvey" half of the personality and leaving the criminal "Face" in complete control.
Two-Face: "Got them all to keep their lunches down when they saw my face...saying I was cured...saying I was fixed. I'm fixed all right...at least both sides match now! Go ahead, have your laugh! Take a look...take a look..."
Batman's thoughts: The scars go deep...too deep. Not fooled by sight, I see him...as he is. (the panel shows Dent with his entire head a monstrous ruin)
- What makes this scene even more powerful is that Batman says that he sees a reflection in Harvey; there's a single-panel cut to the monstrous face of a bat. Also, Two-Face is the only one of Batman's enemies in the story that he is sympathetic to, as he funded Harvey's surgery and rehabilitation efforts and knows what it's like to be living a dichotomy (Bruce Wayne/Batman vs. Harvey Dent/Two-Face).
- Kryptonite Ring: Of course Batman has one. Because he's Batman, that's why.
- Made Of Iron: Subverted here.
- Media Watchdogs: The public broadcast of the Mutant Leader's video is cut off after a few sentences...with good reason.
Mutant leader: ...and then I'll find your new cop - your woman cop - and I will-
Newscaster: The rest of the Mutant leader's statement is unfit for broadcast.
- Mistimed Revival
- Neck Snap: Self-inflicted, no less.
- Nightmare Fuel: After Superman is nearly killed by the Soviet nuke, his body deteriorates and rots in midair with his mouth forming a scream of anguish. He Got Better.
- Nixon Mask: Used by a group of convenience-store robbers in a throwaway gag.
- No Rest For The Wicked: The Joker's insomnia is addressed here.
- Older Hero Vs Younger Villain
- Older Than They Think: The Swastika pastie woman who attracted so much disbelief in All Star Batman and Robin
- Old Superhero
- Parental Obliviousness: Carrie Kelly's parents.
- Person Of Mass Destruction: Superman is treated as the best deterrent against nuclear warfare.
- Pocket Protector: See Chest Insignia, above.
- Powered Armor: Used (among other things) to fight Superman.
- Redemption In The Rain: The shot of fifty-five-year-old Bruce Wayne appearing as Batman for the first time in ten years, during a thunderstorm. Booyah.
- Retirony: Subverted, proving that Commissioner Gordon is still a Badass.
- Revenge Of The Sequel
- Ronald Reagan: Better described here as Evil Dead Ronnie.
- Shout Out: A newscaster tells a bizarre news item about a porn star named "Hot Gates" who will star in a live action Snow White. Obviously a reference to another Frank Miller work, 300.
- Except... Dark Knight Returns was published in 1986, and 300 was published in 1998. Did Miller really write in a Shout Out to something he was going to write over a decade later?
- Corto Maltese is a shout out to an Italian comic book by that name. Strangely, the name was used in the 1989 Batman movie as an apparent Shout Out to The Dark Knight Returns without recognizing that it was already a Shout Out.
- Silent Scapegoat
- Split Personality Takeover: Happens to Two-Face after getting reconstructive surgery.
- Squick: Where to begin?...
- A Storm Is Coming
Weatherman: ...like the wrath of God, it's headed for Gotham.
- Strawman Political: Features a notably balanced selection of these throughout.
- Super Registration Act: Superman gets strong-armed into working for the government.
- Technical Pacifist: Batman will beat nine kinds of hell out of you, drop you off a building, and break every bone in your body... but he won't kill you.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Sons of the Batman, and how. At one point, it's mentioned that they used napalm to break up a three card monte game.
- Then there was the poor shop owner who got robbed by the previously mentioned Nixon mask wearers. One of the Sons took a pair of wire-cutters and sliced off the guy's fingers on one hand because, as he put it, "you did nothing to stop them." Did this to a guy who had guns in his face. Yeah, real friendly group...
- Those Two Bad Guys: Rob and Don.
- Totally Radical: See Future Slang, above.
- Twenty Minutes Into The Future
- Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny: Batman vs. Superman. Booyah again.
- Unusual Euphemism: This Troper understands Spud to mean potato. Not sure how it becomes an insult here.
- It's not an insult; "spuds" are basically noob Mutants.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Batman and Superman, again.
- Yuppie Couple: The...ill-tempered (to put it mildly) Byron Brassballs, who both encounters Superman (who saved the handicapped man Byron had knocked onto the train tracks) and later plays a role in the Gotham riots.
- Zeerust Canon: The sequel.
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