Opinion

Dark Knight 2

Writer/Artist: Frank Miller, Colourist: Lynn Varley
Published by DC

Three years after the supposed death of the Batman, the world is a place of dark divisions. Crime is low, but curfews are in force, a Freedom From Information Act allows the government to act with impunity, and the questioning of authority can be a terminal activity. No overt superhuman presence has existed since Batman's demise, and even Superman, aged and past the peak of his powers, is allowed only to operate in the shadows, and at the behest of the mysterious figure pulling the President's strings. In the eyes of the hidden-away Bruce Wayne, it is past time that something is done about things....

Fifteen years in the waiting, and already confirmed as the biggest-selling American comic of this (or most previous) year, Dark Knight 2 has a lot to live up to. Miller's original Dark Knight Returns was a seminal work, as important in re-establishing the US industry as Watchmen, and in many ways, more important in creating the kind of comics and comic characters that the world is now used to. The first version actually redefined superhero comics, and did so at a time when that redefinition was badly needed.

That kind of redefinition is not needed today, and so it's unlikely that DK2 will be seen to have the same impact. Which is good, because that means it can be judged on its merits as a piece of comic storytelling. I bought the first series as it was released, and recognised that I was experiencing something unique. Reading part one of the new series, I feel like I'm reading an evolution. DK1 was a product of the cold war. It concerned itself with relatively small-scale issues; inner city crime, for instance. Even its subplot about the use of nuclear weapons was very much a product of its time. Now, in the wake of September 11th and the erosion of freedoms undertaken in the name of security, a depiction of a world which takes this to its inevitable conclusion is startlingly in its prescience. Take away the surperhuman elements, and I can see the kind of world shown here as the logical progression of one in which internment without trial is presented as an inevitable cost of increased security.

But that's incidental to the comic's intrinsic values. Miller has moved sharply away from the 4x4 grid which characterised the first series, and which leant itself so well to the kind of close-up tale he was telling. This is a story about icons, and as such, is delivered in big, splashy panels, and sometimes astonishingly gaudy colours. It's also a story in which the central character is not apparently Bruce Wayne at all, but his freedom-fighting army, led by the first series' proto-Robin, Carrie, now grown up somewhat and adopting a Catgirl identity. The depiction of her progressive rescue of the previous generation's heroes is the driving plot of the book (and hits the shops, interestingly, in the same week as part 2 of Mark Millar's final Authority arc finally sees the light of day, showing another, equally disturbing vision of what happens to heroes once those in power don't want them around anymore). Seeing the fate of The Atom (and especially The Flash) is bad enough - knowing that Superman, of all people was complicit in those fates adds massively to their impact.

Having said that the central character of the book is not the Batman, I have to qualify that by saying that nevertheless he is its heart. The narration is largely in his voice, and Miller could easily stake a claim as the writer with the best understanding of the character in its history. The perspective offered, the man's absolute relentlessness in his pursuit of justice, the absolute unwillingness to accept compromise, even the willful arrogance, all are presented here more effectively than in any Bat-title since DK1. The final sequence of part one, in which Batman's team repel a Superman incursion by means of strategy over force is nothing short of breathtaking.

On the art front, it remains as true as ever that Miller is not the best inker of his own art (it seems safe to say that no one will ever take that title from Klaus Janson), and the style here veers towards cartoon and characature more than I'd like. That said, dealing as it does with the icons of super-world, it's not entirely out of place. There are stylistic links back to the first series, but again, there's a sense of evolution here. Long-time collaborator and fellow veteran of DK1, Varley's colours lend vibrancy and openness here where in the earlier series they provided depth and shade.

It categorically won't redefine the medium, nor, probably, will it re-energise Batman (though DC could help that process by not publishing almost a dozen Bat-related books a month), but it does look, on the strength of issue one (of three, by the way) that it will be a cracking read.