Page Four: Reviewing Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns One-Page-At-A-Time!

[00:00:00]We're taking a look at Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, page four, with inks by Klaus Janson and colors by Lynn Varley. I'll feel better in the morning.

[00:00:09]At least I'll feel it less. It's the night when the city smells call out to him. Though I lie between silk sheets in a million-dollar mansion miles away, when a police siren wakes me and for a moment I forget that it's all over. But Batman was a young man. If it was revenge he was after, he's taken it.

[00:00:25]It's been 40 years since he was born.

[00:00:27]So, Batman's born when he was 10. He talks about Batman as a different person. He talks about how the city smells call out to him, not out to me, this other thing, this demon, like a werewolf. And again, it sounds like addiction, like alcoholism. And werewolf stories can be metaphors for addiction.

[00:00:45]And yeah, we're just getting all these different shots of him. And And even though it's this, you know, horrible heat wave going on in Gotham, you see a lot of wind, a lot of stuff blowing around. So, I I almost imagine this being hot wind, not not like a like a cool breeze or any kind of relief, but just sewer vents and stuff blowing things around. You'll notice in this comic so far there haven't been a lot of backgrounds. I think Miller does sort of, you know, these minimal backgrounds, does does, you know, one background panel per page to sort of set a a sense of where you're at and then zooms in pretty close for the rest of the panels.

[00:01:19]And again, when you have small panels like this, zooming in is a nice use of those panels. This shot with the street light, it's very Eisnery and it I think about the conversations Miller and Eisner would have about decorating your comics panels like a stage where you have minimal indications of where you're at and that are focused around a light source. So, this this little street light panel does remind me a lot of Will Eisner. The original art for this page, that airbrushed skyline in the background, it started as a a line drawing by Miller and then and then those lines were erased and and replaced with Lynn Varley's airbrush work here, which again I I think makes a tremendous depiction of depth. I don't I don't know if a comic book prior to this where you see, you know, kind of the filth of a city, the the the litter and you know, trash cans knocked over and things blown around. I really like that fence. It's kind of an expressionist fence. Born here, once again, he's brought me back to show me how little it has changed. It's older, dirtier, but it could have happened yesterday. It could be happening right now. They could be lying at your feet, twitching, bleeding.

[00:02:27]That's a pretty intense description. I don't imagine the twitching and bleeding of Thomas and Martha Wayne had ever been described like that. Usually, their deaths are kind of depicted in in sort of like an old-fashioned Hollywood way of sort of like, you know, bang bang, you're dead kind of thing. And the man who stole all sense from your life, he could be standing right over there. He sees us. Get around behind him. Come on, honey, slice and dice. I don't know, man, he's awful big. You have the first on-camera appearance of the mutant gang, one completely in silhouette, the other, you know, really really nice application of shadow. The only real color on the page is the red from their visors. Just really really nice have this, you know, monochrome approach and then have, you know, little little hints of color here as you're introducing, you know, sort of the villains of of this a new villain, you know, Batman faces his his old rogues gallery throughout the series, but bring a little something new, a new adversary that that matches this this new context. And so, this kid gang, an update of of the DC Comics Jack Kirby Joe Simon kid gang, except you know, this time it's it's the mutant gang. This story ostensibly takes place in the future, although who knows if it's 30 years into the future of the DC universe back then. It only, you know, takes you up into 2016. This bleak future looks very quaint, but the mutant gang is kind of a reminder that, okay, this is this is this is the future. We got this sort of futuristic uh street gang. Again, you know, Miller talks about the movies that influenced him and I'd say with this street gangs in uh the mutant gang and then its spin-offs in the series, uh he had to be thinking of The Warriors with all their colorful street gangs. You can't discount West Side Story as an influence. It is him.

[00:04:14]It is and we know so many ways to hurt him. So many lovely ways to punish him.

[00:04:19]And then him being Joe Chill, the guy who who killed his parents. Although I don't know that Miller ever makes it a point to name him Joe Chill. For Miller's approach, it's just a completely random guy who kills uh his parents and you never and and and Batman never finds out who it is, never gets any closure, which is part of what spurs him on. So many lovely ways to punish him. No, it's not him. Slice and dice.

[00:04:43]We got a quota. So that quota, this gang isn't isn't just some sort of, you know, loose organization of kids getting into trouble. There's some kind of structure, there's some kind of hierarchy, there's some kind of leadership that wants them to deliver, wants them to cause a certain amount of mayhem, to to kill a certain number of people. That that's that's what the quota is. Um you know, sort of like a head count. So many. I don't know, man. Look at him. He's into it. Batman being into it. Like uh this is this is the most excitement he's had in a while and it is starting to wake up that demon and and and maybe that's what they're seeing. They're seeing that that demon wake up that loves this stuff, that loves finding a murderer and and just taking him apart. Just a little thing I noticed looking at the the original art is that, you know, Miller or Chanson were going for some kind of illumination effect where the side of Bruce Wayne's nose was bleached out.

[00:05:38]There wasn't any detail on that left nostril and it looks a little odd in in this original art. Looks like it's been inked and and out. So I guess it was it was some kind of effect, but when it got to Lynn Varley and maybe Frank himself felt that, you know, it was a nice try, but it looks a little odd without that that nostril. So, she paints the nostril back in.

[00:05:58]>> Tune in tomorrow for a discussion of page five. I'm Tom Scioli, author of Space Opera Zandox across the unknown dimensions of the galaxy from Image Comics.