Sunday, December 02, 2012

Review: Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again


Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again
Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A helter-skelter follow up to the seminal Batman revival 'The dark Knight Returns' that places much more accent on colour and spectacle and gives air-time to updated supporting characters, most notably a brilliantly effective Ray Palmer and Barry Allen, not to mention arguably the best portrayal of Plastic Man committed to ink in, well, just about ever. There's a lot of cynical, self-aware fun in this volume, although Miller packs too much in to satisfy three issues-- I would have liked to have seen some of the supporting threads teased out into fuller narratives, particularly the 'Joker hero-killer' subplot that is resolved far too easily after the main action ceases. And, of course, Miller's jail-bait fantasies are never too far away, and surface ickily right at the end, but that's what you get with Miller these days, so it's not unexpected.

It's messy, chaotic, and doesn't, in the end, fulfil its potential, but I still come back to this every now and again just for the sheer, anarchic fun of it all. And Plas.



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