Batman - The Dark Knight Universe (Earth-31, Frank Miller's TDK)

Forgot about this....

I refuse to believe that the same man from Year One and DKR was always the pitiful, demented psychopath seen in ASBAR.
See, I don't. Think of it as just a phase in his career. I think of it like this. When he starts out in the game, he's still not the nicest of guys. He's willing to endanger lives. He's on a revenge bent. But it quickly becomes aware this is going to be a huge undertaking. Luckily he gets Gordon and Dent onboard, and it looks like they might be able to lock the situation down. There's still faith that he might be able to hang up the bat years after only doing it for a few years.

Then these lunatics start filling in the vacuum. Casual murderers and obsessive neurotics. Dent becomes Two-Face and suddenly that triumvirate that managed to really allow for progress is gone. So here Batman is, a few years into his career and Wayne's basically become consumed by him. All that's left is Batman, now set on this long march mentality. He's at least nominally responsible for this new breed of criminals, and to stop them, he's been forced to become a total prick. With no leisure time, he needs to find his pleasure in his job. So he works out and follows leads and beats the **** out of criminals and that's all he can afford to. Because he keeps telling himself that this job is the most important thing in the world. And with his mind wrapped only in this mission, all his brainpower is devoted to the mission. He's even mapping legacies. He's dangerously obsessed, but that's what he's been driven to.

Then he sees this kid. When he was just a face in a photograph, it was easy to look at the kid and plan out his future for him. But when he's in person, he's weak and scared and a child. Not only is it so contrary to the life that Batman's been exclusively living all these years, it reminds him of himself, the weak boy who couldn't prevent his parents' murder, his weak father.

Frankly, I think it makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of the time we glorify the character of Batman so much that we forget what he is He's a dangerous, privileged socialite who runs around and beats the living **** out of people. He's spending the defense budget of a smaller nation on his own personal armory, waging an urban war. It's easy for us to call him a hero looking from the outside of the comic book. But let's be honest, if that kind of guy showed up in your town, how ****ing terrified would you be? He's dangerous and obsessed and just filled with psychological uncertainties, and it makes perfect sense that a man like that would snap. Hell, anyone would snap when they're forced into a siege mentality 24/7. It honestly seems like a pretty natural place for this guy early in his career. And presumably this Robin story is going to soften, become a more balanced guy, until the events of TDK.

It's not that I find it impossible to see how ASBAR Batman could turn into DKR Batman. I literally refuse to believe it. I adore DKR and the idea of what I think of as the "real" Batman developing into DKR Batman is very interesting and compelling to me. DKR Batman as a development of the ridiculous ASBAR Batman.... not so much.

The waging of an obsessive war against crime and administering of savage beatings to criminals isn't the pitiful, demented psychopathy or ridiculousness I'm talking about either, at all. I prefer that stuff in Batman(condone it, even), it turns me off when he's written softer and "more human". It's just that it's done so stupidly in ASBAR; the bullying and showboating for Robin in the Batmobile, eating rats, his relationship with "the last candy-pants(???) of Krypton", etc. A guy like Batman could end up that way, but it's not a given, nor does it do anything for me. So I refuse to believe DKR is an extension of ASBAR, especially since Miller probably didn't write DKR that way anyway.

I just finished reading The Dark Knight Strikes Again for the first time and what the I don't even huh?

It sucked.

Despite having read DKR a bunch of times and it meaning a lot to me, I've been able to resist ever reading DKSA. The appeal of a sequel and the snippets I know about it are always just eclipsed by the number of comments like this I see about it. I'm afraid it'll ruin DKR.
 
I feel like a freak because I don't care for The Dark Knight Returns at all.

I love Year One though.
 
Despite having read DKR a bunch of times and it meaning a lot to me, I've been able to resist ever reading DKSA. The appeal of a sequel and the snippets I know about it are always just eclipsed by the number of comments like this I see about it. I'm afraid it'll ruin DKR.

It didn't ruin it for me personally...even though it's a continuation of the story it didn't seem to change anything, and style-wise it is totally different.
 

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