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I know that, really, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Miller’s Batman, moreso than is really needed for any particular person. But I like Batman. And I like Frank Miller. And this is my website and no one actually makes you read these things. If you have objections, I’m sure you can just as easily read something on here that you do like, or just assume that I have some kind of understanding of what I’m talking about.

What I’m talking about, this time at least, is the whole of Frank Miller’s take on Batman. Well, not even the whole. Whenever people think of Frank Miller’s Batman then think of Year One, Dark Knight Returns, All Star Batman and Robin and, with shame for some, Dark Knight Strikes Again. These four books are pretty much the definitive versions of Miller’s Batman, though he has other books that I’ve not read and may not even be out yet. As such, I’ll be focusing on these four.

Of course, we can’t actually begin to talk about the books without pointing out the obvious discrepancies between the overall tone of Year One and DKR compared to All-Star and DKSA–the main difference is that the Batman, in the latter two, is completely fucking insane. DKR, while having a generally bitter and unstable Batman, hasn’t quite gone nuts, but is certainly teetering on the brink and it wouldn’t be a surprising sight to see him engaged in what could easily be described as “a vicious murder”.

So what happens to this Batman? What makes him become this man? If we follow the loose continuity that Miller has given us we can start at the beginning, at Year One and assume that Batman was then young and optimistic in his goals. He wanted to believe he was going to accomplish what he was doing, and wanted to believe that, in the end, he could save his city.

By the time All-Star takes place, Batman may still, on some level, believe that he can make an attempt to save the city. But he needs help, and has to enlist young people—he’s getting old, he can’t do all of this on his own, and his body will not be in the best shape forever. All-Star develops the insanity, an act, to assist in striking fear when just dressing up like a bat won’t do.

But Batman also had to deal with Dick Grayson, who is insubordinate, and apparently rather unstable. He fires the boy, and the boy goes insane. He brings in Jason Todd. But Jason dies.

Some time after Jason’s death, Batman retires, and Bruce begins to relax and become “himself”–something he’d avoided, or been unable to do at all, because of being The Batman. Many things changed during that time.

Then we have DKR. Bruce sees that The Batman is needed, and he dawns the cape and cowl again. It’s not the same world, and he’s not the same man anymore, but he does what he can, and he tries to bring some modicum of order back to his broken city. But Superman, now nothing but a tool for the government, won’t allow it—inasmuch as a tool can suggest authority—and forces another side of the plan—but Batman always has a plan, so we can assume that he had anticipated these events.

DKSA, in all of it’s psychedelic insanity, for the most part, the same kind of Batman only much more angry and (as I’ve said every paragraph) insane. Perhaps it’s the isolation, or that he’s watching his world crumble around him. Watching as his city and his country all apart and no one does anything about it. Seeing Lex Luthor use a hologram president to control everyone. And he doesn’t like it. Nor does he like that, even after everything, Superman is still the simple tool of the government that he was three years ago.

But, even through all of it, Batman and Superman have some kind of friendship that I’ve never completely understood and have no desire to go into detail about, because I don’t want to read umpteen-million comic books these two being The World’s Finest and whatever else took place in the Silver Age.

So, yeah, Batman.

Miller’s Batman is, on some level, a parody of what things have become and what they could be. Miller inadvertently created the “grim and gritty” of the nineties that was also escalated by Rob Liefeld and his pouches and inability to draw anything remotely resembling something that isn’t a disgrace to art on every form. The concept of a parody is much more obvious in the comics that have come out this decade, these past few years, as Batman is over-the-top and almost a laughable caricature of the entire genre that was created.

All-Star is violent, sociopathic, and vulgar on every level. He’s beyond Batman, he’s practically The Punisher in a cape. The same holds true for DKSA. The official introduction of Batman, as a person, in the book, consists of him beating Superman an obnoxious level of times with GIANT KRYPTONITE BOXING GLOVES. Miller understood—or “understands”, I supposed would be a better word—exactly what he’s doing with his Batman. He’s making him out to show you how ridiculous things can be, on multiple levels.

Miller’s Batman is not O’Neil’s Batman. Nor is it Morrison’s, or Dini’s, or even Moore’s. Miller’s Batman is it’s own character, in it’s own universe, and doesn’t have to subject itself to the same kind of continuity problems that exist because you may not happen to like that he hits Robin, or is a nutjob. But this is who he is.

And I can promise you that the next thing I write will have nothing to do with Batman.