A Review of "The Dark Knight Returns" - and my own objections!
The article below is repasted in its entirety and so far without permission (without malice and without commercial use either!) from Reviews by Maurice Broaddus, at http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/comments/maurice/2006/01/dark-knight-returns.html
Saturday, January 07, 2006
The Dark Knight Returns
Time and time again I am asked about comic books ( Read more... )
Look what the Mo-man says: "The world of The Dark Knight Returns is indeed a dark one: run by a fascist, when not inept, government (both federal and local)"... Maurice is, about half-way through his review, attempting to make out the case that Miller's Batman is fighting against a "fascist" government. (Well, the President therein IS Ronald Reagan, but I think that most people would agree that he was just a pretty right-wing conservative - not a fascist, nor even a neo-con!!) Miller makes no definite criticism of the Reagan regime ANYWAY. Then, in the same sentence, Maurice goes on to say: "societal values turned topsy-turvy (where the release of a murderous villain, the Joker, is heralded as a good thing)"... yeah, as IF fascist regimes generally tend to have as one of their characteristics the release of prisoners... it GENERALLY tends to be the opposite way around - they try and lock everybody up! Don't they? Eh, Mo and Mark?? Anyway, when I first read this, this was one of the earlier things to raise a flag with me: I thought: and this is meant to be under the Reagan government, and Miller is accusing authorities under REAGAN of being "liberal"?? That's the first I'VE heard of it... are we sure that Mr Miller is not doing drugs, because he seems to have an Alice-in-Wonderland view of politics?! (Of course, in the novel, he does blame "misguided" (Jewish) liberal psychiatrists, so... Maybe it's NOT so much a "go" at Ronald Reagan or his administration, Maurice, as an attempt to criticise the forces who would have acted as a DRAG on him... namely, traditionally liberal professionals - hey?)
Then, a little further on, Maurice says, and I quote: "Lastly, Batman faces the system itself: the “empire” seen as social and governmental impotence and as embodied by Superman."
So, Mo - what do we have here? FIRST you say that the world of DKR is dark because the society therein is run by a fascist local and federal government: then a little further on, you say that the government is "impotent".
Has ANYONE ever heard of an "impotent" fascist regime, people?? (I've never heard of an impotent Superman either - less he has problems he hasn't told the world about, hee hee!)
They have too MUCH power - all dictatorships do, including the current one. That is the trouble - and I feel that Frank Miller and writers like him have pushed things further in that direction by being so eager to get up on their soapbox against the liberals!
(Wait till I get John (commonplacebook) from livejournal on this thread!!)
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(And that is the overwhelming reason I believe "The Dark Knight Returns" to be one of the biggest comic book travesties ever written: purely and simply because it is against the original ideal of the medium, which was LIBERALISM.)
Frank Miller of course pretends otherwise, and actually pretends he is "in tune with" and has common cause with (he says this in his dedication!) in particular, those two young working-class Jewish boys, Siegel and Shuster, who invented the entire men-in-tights genre!!
I DON'T THINK HE IS, VERY MUCH, SOMEHOW....
That's the trouble with most modern reworkings, they're phoney.... They pretend to be "in tune with the original" when they're quite the opposite!! But Frank Miller more than most, I think, because he has what I would describe as some seriously sinister right-wing ideas. It's all apparent from what he thinks of women, gays, Jews and liberals. I find that to be quite plain. He's anti-minority. That's what I'm saying. (Maybe less anti-black then anti-other-things, because he may just find Jews and liberals to be "elitist"... I'm sure he's got a fairly blue-collar family background, actually, and is therefore wont to think in such a manner, like many lower-class conservatives in the USA who now vote for G. W. Bush.)
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