Was it a mischaracterization of Superman?
>>153191801Not at all, only people who don’t actually read comics say this shit. The main problem casuals who skim a comic here and there have is that they don’t understand that superman was a victim in this story and Batman saves and frees him in the end.
>>153191801No, SuperBITCH will always be a scraping beaten dog for authority
>>153191801he was superman at his "best" he literally served as americas biggest weapon from what i gathered. superman is always super american.
>>153191801Not really. Clark Kent is superman's critique of the human race.
>>153192395Ok Bill
>>153192395lad, you aint kiddin.
>>153192040This. Usually manchildren like >>153192335 aren't literate enough to understand DKR
Honestly it never made sense to me that the government threatened the Justice League for basically no reason, like how would they even kill Superman or Wonder Woman or Flash?
>>153192567It is Batman story, the JL needs to be heavily nerfed to it to work.
>>153191801It would be if the book painted him as what mainline Superman is supposed to be. Miller is pretty clear about this version of Clark being removed from what Superman is.
>>153191801Yes...but that was the point. It was a dark future storyline about a world where vigilantism was outlawed by big government and superheros were used in military campaigns to kill enemy soldiers. He goes from being a ideal driven hero to a government minion who does what he's told and doesn't question orders. Even if it''s orders to murder a former friend or escalate a nuclear war. Clark being a kind of character assassinated pale imitation of himself wasn't an error in storytelling, it was by design.
>>153192401heh
It's not entirely mischaracterization, but it is very meta in the sense that it's about how Superman has become such a sanitized icon. It's a commentary on Superman becoming such an icon of Americana that he'd be inherently linked with America as an entity, for better or worse. And that includes it's military force and influence on other nations. He's also meant to contrast the direction of the superhero genre as one meant to sell merchandise and be friendly to kids, with it's history as vigilante pulp that Batman represents.Miller was the first, IIRC to push the idea that Bruce watched Zorro with his parents as a kid, and Zorro originates from a real life outlaw in an era where outlaw stories and fiction were popular entertainment to the point of being folk heroes. Within text it's portrayed as Superman taking the fall for other heroes and doing his best to keep the peace. Miller still understands that Superman has an even greater affinity for the Earth as a whole beyond just America, and perhaps original to him, Earth even beyond humanity.
>>153191801nah not really
>>153191801Not really. It's more a critique of Superman's subservient nature to humanity. He learned his lesson by the end of the comic and Batman's action against him, though technically due to Supes just going full nerf or nothin on him, Batman was able to put the idea that what he's doing isn't right and that things should change.
>>153191801>>153192040>>153196141He also made it so that in subsequent Superman stories he wasn't a cuck for the American government.
>>153191801Mischaracterization how?
>>153198796That Superman basically exists as a cucked government stooge.
But then consider the injustice version of superman.
>>153191801If anything, Batman is the one that is utterly OOC
>people forgets that miller hates superman because he isnt edgy and flawed as him
>>153191801Superman can make mistakes, he's not perfect ironically enough this book is proof of that, the whole point is he's misguided but he's still Superman he still cares about people, he still protects others, he still doesn't blindly kill, he's not like Snyder's take. >>153199756How? He doesn't kill people, he speaks direct, he's a straight man like he's sliver age Batman to a tee.
>>153199094>government stoogeMore like working in the government to not create anymore conflicts and protect people between him and the government which could lead to deaths.
>>153199756well within the world of DKR it seems that Batman was always a cruel and creepy bastard
>>153200041Before DKR, Batman wasn't a brutal sadist who enjoyed inflicting pain on criminals. That's entirely an invention of Miller's. Even the original golden age depiction who occasionally used guns and killed people only did what he felt was necessary and didn't take joy in it.
>>153199990>miller hates supermanHe loves Superman.
>>153201595Someone who only ever reads Miller's Superman Year One would get the impression that Miller hates Batman. He's just a guy who thinks that no one should outshine the star of the book.
>>153192395kiddo
>>153200282If we're taking only Year One and DKR (before all the other prequels and sequels were made), I don't think Batman always was, and that him being cruel and creepy happened more in the years leading up to his retirement. Year One hints that he could become brutal but it wouldn't be a sure thing.After Spawn/Batman, DK2, All Star Batman, etc, he definitely was always a cruel and creepy bastard, and arguably if you consider Holy Terror canon then it explains why he changed from Year One Batman to All Star Batman.
>>153192567If we're talking just DKR and Year One, we don't exactly know what happened to other heroes except for Green Arrow (lost his arm), Hal Jordan (left Earth), and Wonder Woman (went back to the Amazons). For all we know maybe some were taken down by the government. It had to be something really bad that Superman was willing to cut a deal with the government to work for them in exchange for the government not going after everyone else. If you take DK2 into account, you find out that the government (under Luthor and Braniac) imprisoned Flash, Plastic Man, and Atom and killed Hawkman and Hawkgirl and has a Dick Grayson-Joker working for them.
>>153202066>If you take DK2 into accountLet's not
>>153202066>a Dick Grayson-JokerI'm sorry, a what now? Context?
>>153200041>he still doesn't blindly kill, he's not like Snyder's take.yawn
In a way the story shows the limits of leaving the definition of justice up to the governments. Superhero comics I think because of their history of being propaganda tools, especially war time propaganda tools, have always had a difficult time drawing the line of what vigilantism is good vigilantism or bad vigilantism. Or what a bad government looks like outside of cartoonishly evil leaders taking over. Batman and Superman don't want to kill and want to leave those decisions to the authorities. I think this story was one of the dividing lines between Superman character being for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and dropping that last part as Americans started viewing America and Patriotism in a different light.
>>153191801yes it unironically was and started the endless batwank and rivalry between two good friends. batman is always wanked as the greatest detective and all that jazz and he would've know the government could only control superman through threatening lois and his kid which would've been a much better plot line than hurr durr superman is a goody boy boyscout
Wasn't Superman flat-out murdering those soldiers in Corto Maltese just tearing them to pieces?
>>153204146>I think this story was one of the dividing lines between Superman character being for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and dropping that last part as Americans started viewing America and Patriotism in a different light.The "American Way" part was a retcon in the 50's, originally it was just "Neverending battle for Truth and Justice", and that was during WWII as well.https://youtu.be/fxPqgRh5UGA?si=Pp6pSqFt7cGQirKF
>>153191801yeah, totally. under no circumstance can I see superman being reagan's bitch. oh your friends, think of them, clark! they'd ban together and run the world if they had to face persecution. luthor would be proven right in a way but so what. undue prosecution of super beings can go wrong. but superman wouldnt be a government stooge hunting bruce because hes back fighting crime lmao
>>153191801No. It's an elseworlds interpretation.
>>153204178That would not have been a particularly exciting finish for the story Dark Knight Returns was telling.
>>153207357bruce and clark together again to take down the government, save lois and inspire the world once again?! YES PLEASE!
>>153208142>bruce and clark together again to take down the governmentAre you fucking retarded?
>>153201620Basically no one read Superman year one. That book came and went with no fanfare.
>>153208142Howard Chaykin's 'Son of Superman' Elseworlds story does something like that. Decent book, even though it's a little rushed.
>>153208298Miller's Superman Year One is more 'Superboy' than Superman, by Miller's own admission he was a bigger fan of the Superboy comics growing up, so the story bits are mostly pulled from those. Very weird to read a Superman origin book that's mostly Silver Age "best of" Superboy stuff.
>>153208142I mean them working together to take down the government is basically DK2, even if begrudgingly. They just didn't save Lois though
>>153203315There isn't any. He just shows up as a plastic-man style shape changer and hates Batman. No explanation for how he got the powers, and the hatred is likely because Batman fired him. Batman ends up dropping him inside the Batcave's volcano.
>>153201096if you think golden age batman didn't get off on what he was doing...don't know what to tell you.The violence wasn't even what Miller was going for. He was going for a bipolar empath, a tortured soul reaching catharsis by preying on those who prey on the innocent
>>153209011Up until Post-Crisis times Batman was always just a guy having fun, even in the Bronze Age where things became somewhat more serious he was still just some flippant guy fucking around.
>>153201096Gun Batman was dropped pretty fast, it lasted 1 or 2 years until Robin appeared.
>>153208564>the Batcave's volcano...the what?
>>153209802The Batcave's volcano. You know, that thing that was never a thing up until now? That volcano.
>>153192395Didn't your fucking heart explode or something?!
>>153209874How many fucking things was Gotham built on top of?>volcano>lazarus pits>evil warlock's burial site>a bat demon>an asylum>Old GothamIt's like one of those gags in a cartoon where we see layers and layers underground of increasingly absurd nonsense.
>>153210308And to think that arkham asylum originally wasn't in Gotham
>>153210308>court of owls tunnels>batcave and other caverns>subway system>spacious sewersThere ain't no room for any fuckin' dirt!
>>153210308Technically, by way of the tribe that worshipped a bat deity Gotham is also on top of an indian burial ground.
>>153210308And a Swamp! It's quite the geographical oddity.
>>153210308Waid recently just said underneath Gotham is one giant series of caves that all conveniently connect to the Batcave
>>153210389Good thing the city's corrupt as hell or they'd never get past the archaelogical surveys to construct anything.>>153210413I'm beginning to get the impression that Gotham was originally just ocean, until layer upon layer of cursed shit stacked up to form an artificial island.
>>153210487Now I want a villain who wants to pour a giant vat of molten metal into the cave system like the way you make a cast of an ant colony. A giant alien kid who combusts people with a huge magnifying glass. Some real silver age shit.
>>153210568>Batman stops him and they use all the molten metal to make a decent sized island off of Gotham called Molten Isle that definitely won't spawn some random new villain
>>153210568The whole "lots of caves that connect to the batcave" has been a thing before, and I remember reading that Bruce and Alfred spent a lot of time closing off ones tunnels they didn't want to use.
>>153210568>>153210632>batman and superman both get abducted when the alien child teleports a slice of Gotham into a glass case like an ant farm>the artificial alien conditions in the room cause Superman to be powerless>vat of molten metal threatens to desreoy the city provides a ticking clock element>using batman's toolset, they escape the farm, but are too limited by their comparative size to do much>they have trick the alien child into try to burn superman with the giant magnifying glass to get him a giant dose of yellow sun energy>superman's attack prompts the child to cry about being "bitten" to his mother, who chastises him and makes him "put that back where you found it!">story ends with bruce contemplating dick's ant farm
>>153208250no you dumb bitch, Im sane! youre the frank miller fanboy retard!
>>153208384I didnt get through that one. the series was a mess in a lot of ways especially compared to the original dk. have to go back to it and all star batman sometime.
>>153209111>recklessly drowns three criminals at oncegrim
>>153201096that's just cope
