Welcome to the Active Farming Price Comparison Store. We're very excited to offer to our friends this great resource.
By shopping here you will get the best deals possible on the internet and you will instantly see where you can purchase whatever
you are trying to find at the best price. Not only that, by making your purchases here you are helping to sustain activefarming.org
Amazon.com Details: Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780446385053 ISBN: 0446385050 Label: Warner Books> C/o Little Br Manufacturer: Warner Books> C/o Little Br Number Of Items: 1 Publication Date: 1986-11 Publisher: Warner Books> C/o Little Br Studio: Warner Books> C/o Little Br Sales Rank: 787196
Product Description: If any comic has a claim to have truly reinvigorated the genre, then The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller--known also for his excellent Sin City series and his superb rendering of the blind superhero Daredevil--is probably the top contender. Batman represented all that was wrong in comics and Miller set himself a tough task taking on the camp crusader and turning this laughable, innocuous children's cartoon character into a hero for our times. The great Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, the arguably peerless Watchmen) argued that only someone of Miller's stature could have done this. Batman is a character known well beyond the confines of the comic world (as are his retinue) and so reinventing him, while keeping his limiting core essentials intact, was a huge task.Miller went far beyond the call of duty. The Dark Knight is a success on every level. Firstly it does keep the core elements of the Batman myth intact, with Robin, Alfred the butler, Commissioner Gordon, and the old roster of villains, present yet brilliantly subverted. Secondly the artwork is fantastic--detailed, sometimes claustrophobic, psychotic. Lastly it's a great story: Gotham City is a hell on earth, street gangs roam but there are no heroes. Decay is ubiquitous. Where is a hero to save Gotham? It is 10 years since the last recorded sighting of the Batman. And things have got worse than ever. Bruce Wayne is close to being a broken man but something is keeping him sane: the need to see change and the belief that he can orchestrate some of that change. Batman is back. The Dark Knight has returned. Awesome. --Mark Thwaite
Amazon.com Review: If any comic has a claim to have truly reinvigorated the genre, then The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller--known also for his excellent Sin City series and his superb rendering of the blind superhero Daredevil--is probably the top contender. Batman represented all that was wrong in comics and Miller set himself a tough task taking on the camp crusader and turning this laughable, innocuous children's cartoon character into a hero for our times. The great Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, the arguably peerless Watchmen) argued that only someone of Miller's stature could have done this. Batman is a character known well beyond the confines of the comic world (as are his retinue) and so reinventing him, while keeping his limiting core essentials intact, was a huge task.
Miller went far beyond the call of duty. The Dark Knight is a success on every level. Firstly it does keep the core elements of the Batman myth intact, with Robin, Alfred the butler, Commissioner Gordon, and the old roster of villains, present yet brilliantly subverted. Secondly the artwork is fantastic--detailed, sometimes claustrophobic, psychotic. Lastly it's a great story: Gotham City is a hell on earth, street gangs roam but there are no heroes. Decay is ubiquitous. Where is a hero to save Gotham? It is 10 years since the last recorded sighting of the Batman. And things have got worse than ever. Bruce Wayne is close to being a broken man but something is keeping him sane: the need to see change and the belief that he can orchestrate some of that change. Batman is back. The Dark Knight has returned. Awesome. --Mark Thwaite
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Not Bad
The Dark Knight Returns is basically a story Frank Miller concocted about Bruce Wayne coming out of retirement into a Gotham City that he hardly recognizes any more. The city having fallen to lower crime rates than usual and Police Commissioner Jim Gordon retiring, Bruce Wayne decides to take the chore of cleaning up the city back into his own hands. Being an early nineties story written by Frank Miller, the plot takes the then current Batman universe and fasts forward into a dystopian city. There are also several Frank Miller type of artistic liberties taken, such as several gangs of Neo-nazis and mutants running around the city, bringing a pre-pubescent girl in as the new Robin, making Selina Kyle (Catwoman) start out as a prostitute (revealed in the prequel Batman: Year One) then later ended up hosting her own adult escort service, along with several other political/racial/psychological corkscrews to the universe. I enjoyed the story and the dialogue and I even thought some of the character rebirths were interesting to look at, so overall, I really can't complain about this. Overall, I'd recommend it to anyone looking for an out of the box batman story that is more of a reinterpretation than a continuation of the actual batman universe.
Rating: - Better than "Watchmen"
10 years after going into retirement, Batman returns to crime-fighting when the streets of Gotham City are once again over-run by criminals.
"The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen" are considered by many comic book fans to be two of the greatest graphic novels of all time, and both of them are exceptional stories, but after reading both novels back-to-back, I have to say that, of the two, "The Dark Knight Returns" is, by far, my favourite. Both comics were first published in 1986 and both deal with the possibility of World War 3 breaking out between the Americans and the Soviets. Both also consider the notion of the superhero as an undesirable who terrorizes those whom he is trying to protect as much as he terrorizes criminals and the notion of the aging superhero. However, whereas approximately ¾ of "Watchman" is bogged down by the character histories and personal relationships of the characters, "The Dark Knight Returns" remains more firmly focused on the main story, making it faster moving and better able to hold my interest. Another thing I liked about "The Dark Knight Returns" is although the four comics that comprise this novel form a single story, within each comic there is a self-contained story involving Batman battling a different adversary, these being Harvey Dent/Two Face, a gang leader, the Joker and finally Superman, giving the reader the satisfaction of four major battles throughout the novel. And yes, the battle between Superman and Batman is as cool as you might hope it would be.
Overall, fans of superhero comics should read both "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen", but if you're trying to choose between the two of them, "The Dark Knight Returns" is the way to go.
Rating: - Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
This graphic novel is one that takes a classic character and brings it closer to our reality. Frank Miller does a superb job of aging the ever 29-year-old Bruce Wayne into a darker image of Batman.
Rating: - A flawed classic
The Dark Knight Returns is a classic piece of comic book literature that helped transition Batman from the campy character he had been turned into back to the grim and gritty protector of the streets that he was meant to be. The story depicts a Gotham City that has been without Batman for years, since Bruce Wayne has gotten old and finally put away the cape and cowl. However, a series of crime waves in the city drives Batman to return despite his age, taking on a world that has become more violent and deranged than anything he faced in his younger days.
The Dark Knight Returns deserves some major recognition for the way it renewed the character of Batman. Years later, many writers are still basing their Batman stories on the themes that Frank Miller re-introduced. Unfortunately, the story also suffers from an immense shortcoming in Miller's writing repertoire -- namely, the ability to make characters seem human.
Batman is an antihero who goes against the law if needed to make sure that justice prevails. He is anything but the square-jawed paragon of perfection that Superman is. At the same time, he is supposed to be a thinking, feeling person who has a greater view of the world than his war on crime. That is unfortunately not the case with Miller's Batman. This Batman seems to have no empathy for other human beings, viewing them as nothing more than soldiers in his war on crime. He offhandedly ignores the fact that Robin died in his crusade, referring to him only as a "good soldier." And he seems willing to place anyone in the path of danger if it means winning a victory against the criminals he is fighting. Quite simply, Frank Miller takes the "man" out of Batman -- he takes away the human element of the character, leaving very little reason for the reader to care about what happens to him rather than viewing him as a psychopath who just happens to solve some crimes.
The Dark Knight Returns is a key piece of Batman history, and Frank Miller's art style and narrative tells an innovative and dark tale that helped breathe new life into the character. Unfortunately, as Frank Miller often does, he ignores the human element of the character, assuming that the reader will side with Batman simple because he is Batman. Because of this failing, I can only give The Dark Knight Returns three stars. It is a solid story, but one that lacks a true hero to follow.
Rating: - One of the best Batman stories
Well, the title sums up my opinion on The Dark Knight Returns, though it certainly isn't the best-rounded Batman story of all time, it still leaves a significant impact on readers. The story peaks at many points, and makes large dips at others, but the ending makes up for all its minor flaws.
"One of the best Batman stories", let me explain what exactly I mean by this: This is one of the best stories to flesh out the character of Bruce Wayne and his alter-ego Batman. What keeps me from ranking it higher than a nine is because on the whole most of Frank Miller's revisions of the villains fail to hit the mark (which is why you don't see his versions of Two-Face and Joker in most other comics), but he does provide interesting villains of his own; a gang of misfits referring to themselves as the Mutants, led by a large, unsightly individual who earns the title of Mutant with a capital M.
I think it is important to discuss the villains in this story first. Joker is a carefree killer, who will kill simply for his own amusement, with no morals to restrain him, and Miller shows this aspect of the character very well. The problem that I have is that this Joker never really frightened me, you know, he just never did anything that really made my blood boil (like in Alan Moore's The Killing Joke). This book does have some classic moments for the character, but ultimately this Joker interpretation seems to be a giant symbol for homophobia, and ultimately is quite forgettable when compared to the villain's colorful history. Frank Miller has stated finding the relationship between Batman and Joker being homosexuality gone wrong, but I feel writing off the character as being gay really has missed the actual complexity of the character's relationship to Batman. I feel this hero-villain relationship has a lot more to do with their mentality than their sexuality, and that is where I feel Miller seemed to miss the point of the character. I also do not like the way this Joker is drawn in this comic. There is a difference between revisions and simply changing it entirely, and this Joker does not fit the description, or standard of any of the previous comics, up until his final appearance in this story (his face finally twists into his trademarked smile, mouth growing unnaturally large in one of the book's most haunting images). As previously stated, however, some of the things Miller introduces are important to the future of Joker interpretations, and were in true spirit of the character.
- 
- 
- 