Page Five of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns Examined

[00:00:00]Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, page five, inked by Klaus Janson and colored by Lynn Varley. I'm doing these one page at a time, but Miller kind of does a thing with these where the last panel of each page hands things off to the next page in a really really nice way. No, it's not him, not the murderer of his parents. So many. I don't know, man. Look at him. He's into it. Not him.

[00:00:22]He flinched when he pulled the trigger.

[00:00:23]He was sick and guilty over what he did.

[00:00:25]Can't do murders when they're into it.

[00:00:27]You know, he's talking about Joe Chill or or possibly the unknown murderer of his parents. Joe Chill was the sort of in-continuity DC explanation of who killed Batman's parents. All he wanted was money. I was naive enough to think him the lowest sort of man. Let's hit the arcade, man.

[00:00:43]These These are his children, a purer breed. Always a good time at the arcade.

[00:00:48]And this world is theirs. In the previous page, they mention slice and dice, but other than that, we're not really seeing the unique language of the mutant gang yet. The The Their Their verbiage is kind of other than that slice and dice line, their verbiage is kind of just, you know, standard English and not that stylized language that that they use later in the comic. He He was naive enough to think, "I'll just call him Joe Chill." even though I don't know that Miller uses the name Joe Chill in any of his work.

[00:01:20]Batman was naive to think him the lowest sort of man, but these are his children, a purer breed. That They're sort of Joe Chill, the next generation. And uh you know, a purer breed. So, this is sort of something that, you know, pops up every generation of uh grownups has this notion that, "Oh, you know, what what's wrong with these kids today? These kids, they're just out of control. They're horrible sociopaths or something." And it can get ugly in the real world in in terms of, you know, that that often that's used as a reason for jailing kids for I'd call it a myth, this myth of these kids now, they're a new breed, to sort of try them as adults in court and and things like that and you know, prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. It feels, you know, sort of tied to the carceral state. This theme in Miller's work kind of I think reaches its ultimate form in his Robocop 2 script where there's a little league team of muggers. The coach kind of takes his little league team out to beat and rob and and possibly murder people.

[00:02:22]Uh you know, so that that's kind of the ultimate form of this look how horrible our society's gotten.

[00:02:27]Look how bleak things are because the children are are murderers. Again, Miller's creating a world and a context for this story. He wants to tell a story where where, you know, Batman has some stuff to do. So so he's paint painting a bleak picture and then the question is always, you know, how much of this are we to take with us into the real world?

[00:02:45]And you know, how much of this is is intended as as sort of a commentary on the on the real world we live in and how much of this is just, you know, pure abstract fantasy. And and and that this might as well be Middle-earth or Narnia or Tatooine. There isn't any application to to real life or to our real world.

[00:03:03]Butchery of every member of the family.

[00:03:05]The mutant organization is believed to have committed this atrocity for money.

[00:03:08]The family had something under $12. This is considered a drug-related crime at present. But surely this heatwave is a factor, right Doc? So again, this this is sort of a like another trope in crime fiction where this family was murdered for $12. So it's it's only the crimes are the painting another bleak picture, but this this idea that the psychotic thrill of it of the murder is the point, not so much getting some score, getting some some amount of money. Absolutely, Bill. Rough month in the big town. Right now, the mercury is climbing to an unseasonable 103 and it looks like it's going to get worse before it gets better. These temperatures were completely outrageous and a bleak apocalyptic kind of stuff. Look how hot it is in this future Gotham, but we're kind of living through it right now, this this summer when I'm recording this video. We're there. This just in, a dead cat has been found stapled to the door of the First Church of Christ the Redeemer. The Mutant Gang is suspected.

[00:03:58]Miller is, you know, painting this picture of this bleak world that is crying out for a Batman. And and yeah, and again, we have another appearance of these these sort of, you know, church and and religious and being, you know, a part of Miller's work. I don't remember it being part of Batman, but old churches and church towers does seem to fit Batman's world pretty nicely. I don't think the religious aspects stick to Batman in the way that the Catholicism stuck to Matt Murdock, to to Daredevil. But Batman's Batman and Daredevil's Daredevil, even though Frank is trying to construct both of them in his own image. There's maybe more resistance from Batman being a more enduring character than Daredevil was when Frank, you know, crosses his path.

[00:04:46]Although, when Frank talks about this work, he does talk about Batman as being a character who needed resuscitation, that Batman's best years were behind him. And it's almost as though there might not be a Batman comic if if things keep going the way they're going. And and uh he certainly turned Batman's fortunes around. Tune in tomorrow for a discussion of page six. I'm Tom Scholey, author of Space Opera Zanadak Across the Unknown Dimensions of the Galaxy from Image Comics.