7 Ways Frank Miller Changed Batman

Jesse Schedeen and IGN.com present 7 Ways Frank Miller Changed Batman.  Here are three of my favorites [Alert — some profanity]…

2. He Grounded the DCU in Reality.
With aliens, giant robots, talking animals and people who can fly, the DC Universe is a pretty strange and wonderful place. But before The Dark Knight Returns, it was a place several steps removed from the real world.. Miller grounded his alternate DCU in reality. His dilapidated Gotham City was much more like the New York City of the time – dirty, crime-ridden and harsh. Miller also drew heavily on the politics of the time. The Dark Knight Returns presented a world where Ronald Reagan was US President and Superman was the country’s first line of defense in their ongoing conflict with the Soviet Union. Not every Batman story since has taken the same approach, but DKR renewed the emphasis on Gotham being as much a character as the people who inhabit her streets.

4. He Made Commissioner Gordon Important.
Miller followed up The Dark Knight Returns with Batman: Year One, a story that offered a more grounded and realistic look at Batman’s first year on the job. However, the most revolutionary element of this story didn’t involve Batman at all, but rather Jim Gordon. Year One focused as much attention on Gordon’s troubled first year in Gotham City. It portrayed him as a character with the same burning desire to save his city as Batman, and it made him a more integral player in Batman’s world than ever before. In DC’s current comics, Gordon himself has taken up the mantle of Batman. Would that have been possible without the influence of Year One?

5. He Made Batman and Superman Frenemies.
Before Frank Miller, Batman and Superman were always the best of friends. The comic series World’s Finest chronicled their many team-up adventures, which always seemed to culminate with the two heroes smiling and shaking hands after a job well done. Miller offered a very different view of their relationship in The Dark Knight Returns. In that comic, the two heroes were less friends than former allies turned bitter enemies. The climax of the series featured an armored Batman fighting a bloody battle against the Man of Steel in the streets of Gotham. That rivalry only grew more heated in Miller’s later work like The Dark Knight Strikes Again and All-Star Batman & Robin. Not only has Miller’s depiction of the Batman/Superman relationship influenced countless other comics, it’s pretty much the basis of next year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.