Frank Miller transforms the Batman mythos into thought-provoking literature with a conservative bent. He strikes the right notes with your typical comic book fan by including cameos by other superheroes such as the Green Arrow and Superman and well-known villains such as the Joker and Two-face, while managing to add provocative social commentary on the nature of crime and criminals, the pros and cons of vigilante justice, the difficulty in maintaining law and order without taking drastic measures, the way mass media influences important political and social issues, and believably satirizes liberals progressive types who are too soft on crime.
Miller accomplishes all this by working in an alternative universe where Bruce Wayne (the alter ego of Batman for those unfamiliar with the Batman mythos) has gone into retirement for over ten years due to guilt lingering from the death of Jason Todd, who was Robin, his crime-fighting sidekick. The government has also decided to make superhero activity illegal. The young people of Gotham no longer believe Batman ever existed, thinking it the stuff of legend meant to scare children. Since his retirement crime has skyrocketed in Gotham. Gotham city has practically degenerated into a Dystopia with a gang known as the Mutants pretty much running the streets, and the inadequate police force unable to control then.
Bruce Wayne doesn’t handle retirement very well, often dreaming about the day his parents were murdered and the night he fell into a cave of bats through an alcoholic stupor. His alter-ego continually haunts him, begging him to return to crime-fighting. Finally unable to take the chaos plaguing Gotham anymore and the nagging voices of the past calling for him to resume his work, Batman returns to save the city from the Mutants and other criminals. However, he is not welcomed with loving arms by the public.
Despite his methods significantly dropping the crime rate, the new Commissioner issues a warrant for his arrest, television personalities argue with each other on debate shows about the Pros and Cons of Batman (not afraid to lie and exaggerate to make their points), the mayor refuses to take a position on Batman until he can see the polls, and a hippy psychologist continually addresses the media by insisting that Batman’s presence creates all the criminals and crime in Gotham city, attracting them like a bright beacon does moths.
A new female Robin joins Batman in his quest to fight crime. After defeating the leader of the Mutant gang, the members of the gang disperse into splinter gangs, while others join the crime-fighting gang of vigilantes known as the Sons of Batman. Unfortunately too many of these new vigilantes take their crime-fighting too far, killing not only the perpetrators of crime, but in one case, the graphic novel shows a scene where a Son of Batman kills an owner being robbed because he was too scared to resist, allowing crime to flourish by not resisting it, and therefore is indirectly causing crime to continue flourishing.
Meanwhile, the joker, Batman’s arch-nemesis, convinces the psychiatrist blaming Batman for creating his own criminals, that he is in fact sane. The psychiatrist believes him and takes him on a talk show where the Joker kills everyone. Batman and the new Robin hunt him down to an amusement park after the Joker murders a group of visiting children. Batman loses his cool and almost murders the Joker for his crimes, but ultimately cannot bring himself to cross that line. The joker kills himself by twisting his own neck as a way of framing Batman. This only turns public opinion further against Batman, believing falsely that he now murders criminals.
Eventually the federal government gets involved and sends Superman to defeat Batman. Miller reinvents Superman for his gritty take on the world; often known as a little boy scout that always plays by the rules, Superman now works as pawn for the federal government so he can legally continue to do superhero work under the watchful gaze of the President, unwilling to do it without permission from the authorities. The federal government in turn gets to use Superman as a secret weapon, a deterrent against nuclear war. Batman realizes it will come to blows with superman. He develops a plan for taking out Superman that involves faking his own murder and using enhanced battle armor and Kryptonite to match Superman’s powers. Batman defeats Superman, but dies in the process. However, it turns out Batman faked his own death, using drugs to temporarily stop his heart, and Robin digs him up. Bruce Wayne abandons his direct role as the Batman and begins an underground organization with Robin and loyal members of the Sons of Batman to continue the vigilante effort against criminals.
Although this might seem like a typical comic book story line, you would be sorely mistaken in assuming this is the usual fare. Miller spends less time with battles and intricate traps, and more time focusing on politicians and the media’s reactions to Batman. Many frames of the graphic novel are lent to covering these reactions. Miller depicts politicians as ineffectual, unwilling to challenge public opinion and their own political fortunes for the general good. He pokes fun at left-wing intellectuals and hippies throughout the book. The most obvious case is through the hippy psychologist who always thinks the best of his psychotic criminal patients, unable to see them as the deranged individuals that they happen to be, but thinks the worst of Batman who is risking his life to fight the crime. The psychologist claims that Batman is the cause of all the crimes, following the so-called wisdom of the Left that crime is a product of poor social conditions and is reaction to power and unfair authority, but the reader clearly sees that crime was rampant before Batman made a come-back and after his return the crime levels went down, suggesting the good doctor is full of crap. We also have a wonderful scene with Robin’s parents who are portrayed as aging hippies and neglectful parents. In the scene, one of them mutters, “didn’t we have a kid?” while they are sitting down to dinner and there daughter is out fighting the Mutants. Another great parody of liberals comes when various mutants injured and captured by Batman want to sue Batman and have him arrested for assault, suggesting that they are somehow the victims, even though almost all these criminals would’ve done a thousand times worse to the innocent people that Batman saves by injuring them. Miller’s point is that as a society we are too soft on criminals and too often the Left coddles them by inventing ridiculous excuses and explanations for their behavior (i.e. they’re merely products of their environment and aren’t really to blame for their actions).
However, Miller doesn’t present an entirely one-sided picture either. In the first story line involving Two-Face and Batman’s return from retirement, the two characters are conflated with each other, both unable to transcend their respective psychosis and traumatic past histories; Miller goes so far as to imply that they’re mirror images. Batman is unable to function as a normal human being, driven forever by his trauma, much like Two-Face. The idea of vigilante justice is also critiqued; the Sons of the Batman cross the line that Batman refuses to cross by murdering criminals and sometimes murdering innocent people who didn’t fight against the criminals victimizing them. In a way, part of the psychologist’s theories prove true. The Joker lays dormant in Arkham Asylum for ten years, while Batman is in retirement, no longer caring, and only has a desire to escape and perform crimes again once Batman returns. The Joker’s crimes are the most heinous in the book, far worse than anything in which the Mutants engage. It would seem Batman awakens the true psychotics, the true mass murderers, and keeps the petty criminals at the bay; in this case, it seems that since the book establishes Batman’s vigilante behavior as a mirror of the true psychotics, Miller is in fact questioning the underpinnings of vigilante behavior and mass murder. The philosophical code that underpins vigilante justice and mass murder is the establishment of one’s own moral code and rules of law outside of society’s standards. This conflation demonstrates that vigilant justice is as problematic as mass murder because the same type of thinking underlies both behaviors, even if they produce different results. There seems to even be a critique of fascism, which thrives on this sort of thinking. Fascists are, indeed, good at ridding the streets of petty criminals, but they are just as good at committing mass murder by redefining the rules. However, this doesn’t change my perceived conservative bent of the text. Miller relishes poking fun at Leftists who apologize for criminals. I think the graphic novel also implies that the reason vigilante justice arises in the first place is when justice itself fails to deliver proper judgement to the guilty and punish them sufficiently.
Miller’s text in this way proves to be very sophisticated, leaning right-wing, while avoiding preachiness. His work demonstrates that the often fantastical milieu of comics and heroes in spandex can still provide serious critiques of society.