Batman's Noble Beatdowns: The Politics of The Dark Knight Returns

If you try to dissect The Dark Knight Returns, the seminal comic book by Frank Miller that not only imbued Batman with the weight of mortality but rewrote the rules of what many consider to be a good superhero story, through a political lens, you’ll likely find a ton to chew on. The copious and chaotic use of talking heads, representing a media landscape of cultural pundits, politicians and bystanders all eager to deliver their two cents, reveals a wide spectrum of beliefs.

Few of them are good - The socially conscious folk who view Batman’s crusade as the result of overwhelming psychological damage refuse to get their hands dirty in aiding Gotham’s ills. The “rah rah!” cheerleaders of the Dark Knight’s violent war on crime are very quick to turn their weapons against anyone who disagrees. Psychologists drop all pretense of medical dignity as soon as they’re allowed their fifteen minutes of fame. Mayors are reduced to nervous, incapable piles as soon as they’re forced to make a real decision. A tired hitman finds brutal kinship in the Caped Crusader’s renewed efforts, while the President of the United States (bearing the all-too obvious visage of Ronald Reagan) is a winking sociopath. The most coherent opinion in the entire thing is that Frank Miller obviously thinks Batman is very cool sometimes.

Even the fantastical figures that loom, god-like, above humanity aren’t allowed a clean getaway. Superman, bearing a fairly youthful appearance in contrast to Bruce Wayne’s purely hulking age, is now a government puppet. He’s far gone from Truth and Justice, instead serving a sledgehammer of war. He’s able to keep the world in balance (and America on the top of the food chain) solely because no other countries have a Superman of their own. The closest thing we get to a kind of innate human goodness is when fires plague Gotham City in the final chapter, and everyone, nuns. police officials and former gang bangers alike, form a bucket brigade to help put it out. It’s meant to establish an all-too fleeting glance at the fact that, when you’re able to clear past the noise of the talking heads for a second (the fires coincide with a mass power failure, silencing the comments and opinions for a second,) that mankind is able to harness the power of community.

So, what are you left with? On paper, a lot of it seems like a much more detailed vision of South Park ethos: That both sides suck, actually. And it is difficult to parse it out from the beliefs of the always outspoken Miller who, in the aughts and early 2010s, hit headlines again as he brandished his anger against the Occupy Wall Street movement and published things like the relentlessly clumsy All Star Batman & Robin and the Islamophobic Holy Terror (a comic originally meant to star Batman.) Miller has since apologized for much of his work from that period and his comments, referring to it as a dark and deluded moment in his life. However, the association of Miller’s political leanings linger (He’s described himself as not a Conservative, but a Libertarian) even if The Dark Knight Returns remains fairly subtle in comparison to his works to come after.

So that leaves us with the common rule of, well, Batman. Now, Batman as a fictional character has the capability to serve a wide array. He can be moral authoritarian, deranged outsider, and happy do-gooder. His ability to be both fascist and friend is unparalleled in the medium, mostly thanks to the quality that sets him apart from his peers: He has no super powers, so his ultimate association is not with the Justice League, but with man. Thus, if there’s any character that the Libertarian Miller would clearly be associated with or find a pleasure in plumbing the depths of, it’s Batman, right? Without the constrictions of a government, whether it’s formed of righteous politicians or blameless costumed avengers, Batman is able to thrive. With enough muscle and money and motivation, one can do anything.

But again, I don’t think it’s that simple. Because the Batman of The Dark Knight Returns isn’t a clear-headed avatar of wish fulfillment fantasies. Instead, as would become the norm for the character going forward thanks to the comic’s impact, Batman’s not just haunted but wounded. Batman serves as the only method with which to stitch up Bruce Wayne’s scars, a destiny rather than a desire. The first chapter of the comic makes it clear that things are bad in Gotham, perhaps worse than they’ve ever been, with a heat wave that shows no signs of stopping unless someone or something intervenes with mighty fury. But Batman’s re-arrival coincides with Harvey Dent’s uncontrollable descent back into crime and the Joker’s awakening from a seemingly self-induced coma. The Dark Knight returns not because the city needs him to set it straight (well, not just because of that,) but because he was always going to anyway. He just needed that trigger, that moment of being unable to ignore the screaming any longer. He couldn’t fight the addiction any more. Batman is incapable of controlling any aspect of his own psyche - Even after he torches the Joker’s corpse, he begs it to stop laughing at him.

Batman spends just as much time recovering from crime as he does fighting it. Battles leave him bloodied and on the verge of death multiple times and the comic makes it clear (even if Miller’s subsequent follow-ups to the comic don’t,) that Batman is the not the omega of whatever his war entails. Hs new ward, Carrie Kelly, a female Robin, is the star pupil of his teachings. The anarchic gang, the Sons of Batman, quickly fall under his sway, leaving behind their clueless barbarity in order to follow Batman’s strict moral pattern. Batman breaks their guns (a kinda funny scene in retrospect, considering that he rides around in a tank) and calls them weapons of the enemy. And by the end, after walloping Superman around, he fakes his own death to make his point as a martyr. Obviously, legacy is on his mind.

The final scene in The Dark Knight Returns might be its most important in figuring out just what its aims are, if there are any at all. Batman has assembled a team in the ruins of what used to be the iconic Bat Cave, training a group to continue his everlasting fight. “It begins here, an army, to bring sense to a world plagued by worse than thieves and murderers,” his internal monologue spouts. He has turned himself into the symbol of a political revolution, aiming to dismantle structural corruption rather than tackle Jokers and mutants. It’s a far cry from the faux Reagan’s comments from before, framing every individual foreign power as a sore loser and an aberration to the apple pie of the American empire.

It’s also a turbulent ideal to follow, one guided by a cult of personality rather than any coherent aim for a continuation of the open kindness of the aforementioned bucket brigade. Even Batman knows this, but as we’ve come to see, The Dark Knight Returns is about Batman’s law and whatever foibles and contradictions it may have. It embraces Batman, not as a guiding light, but because he has the will to act on his guidelines and angry impulses when others won’t. He is the main character, and thus the only thing worth logically following, because he forces himself to be. Batman cannot reason with himself, but seeks to provide it to the world, the prime display of his frenzied pathology. It’s anything but perfect, the result of a man who had to invent the rules he wanted to place on the world.

“This will be a good life…” Bruce Wayne tells himself to close out the book.

“Good enough.”