Batman The Dark Knight Returns (Graphic Novel) - 40 Year Anniversary Review | The K.B. Radio Network

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On this episode of Movie Goodness, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Batman: The Dark Knight. The 1986 four-issue comic book miniseries starring Batman, written by Frank Miller, illustrated by Miller and Klaus Janson, with color by Lynn Varley, and published by DC Comics. It tells an alternative story of Bruce Wayne who, at 55 years old, returns from a decade of retirement to fight crime while facing opposition from the Gotham City police force and the United States government. The story also features the return of classic foes Two-Face and the Joker, and culminates in a confrontation with Superman, who is now a pawn of the government.

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Speaker #0
hello everyone and welcome to movie goodness where we examine life through cinema here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and we're gonna go back 40 years from this month from the month of february we're going back to february of 1986 and comics were changed forever in that month with the release of Batman The Dark Knight Returns. This is universally known as one of the greatest graphic novels ever printed. You know, I guess you can put it up there with Watchmen, you know, one or two. Me personally, I would probably go with The Dark Knight Returns. And I'm being honest with you. It's biased. I'm a huge Batman fan. Love Batman. I'm staring at like four posters right now in my office of Batman. I am a huge Batman fan. So it's a little biased there, but I can acknowledge that Watchmen is a great graphic novel. So if you ever say, oh, no, no, no, no. Watchmen is the greatest graphic novel of all time. I'm not going to fight you. I'm not going to debate you on that because I wouldn't. probably agree with you it depends on when you ask me it depends on what day you ask me and i would agree but even if i disagree i would bow down and say yeah you're probably right but this really changed how we looked at the character of batman at this point now i would take you back to seven-year-old kevin that's how old i was in 1986 and By this time, I had started reading some comic books, started getting into it because I've watched Super Friends around this time. I've watched the old reruns of Batman with Adam West and whatnot. So I got familiar with the character and grew a love for this character to the point where I saw Batman as this campy character that I saw Adam West portray. even in super friends and whatnot, you know, Batman meets the, you know, teamed up with Scooby-Doo with all this other foolishness that took place in the eighties. I was, I was in love with Batman. That was my favorite comic book character. So I didn't read it when it first came out. I do recall that much. It was a couple of years. I want to say around the release of Tim Burton's Batman. starring michael keaton i don't know if it was before or after can't can't you know my memory is pretty good but the the older i get uh things get a little fuzzy but i don't remember exactly uh the moment i picked up this graphic novel because by i know by the time i began reading it all four issues was out i know that much so i read all four issues at once And I was just blown away by how dark this character is or had become and how Frank Miller had created this Gotham City that was, how can I put it, 80s. It was just a hyper-violent 80s depiction of Gotham City. And it blew my mind. It really blew my mind because it was realistic, but not, you know, realistic in the sense that it's not your dad's Batman story. This isn't your dad's Gotham City. This was a seasoned, lived in Gotham City that the graphic novel did a great job of depicting. And so that leads us to today, 40 years later, almost to the day. day and i'm like this has it's been 40 years you know i was just doom scrolling on the internet one day and i just happened to see this pop up somewhere and i can't find where i saw it at that this was the 40th year uh anniversary of the dark knight return I'm like, oh my god, I gotta talk about this. I gotta talk about The Dark Knight Returns and its impact on comics and other medias, even in film. We've got two movies that were adapted from this graphic novel, animated films. It was Batman The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 and, of course, Batman The Dark Knight Part 2. Now, we're gonna talk about... those two films and we're going to talk about other films that were plucked from this graphic novel that i want to talk about and i don't know any other time i'm going to talk about this film uh i'm pretty sure you all know but i'm gonna leave you in suspense anyway in any event uh in case you don't know you've been living under a rock for 40 years batman the dark knight returns is 1986 four-issue comic book miniseries that was written by the great frank miller um and it tells an alternate story of bruce wayne who at this point is 55 years old he returns after a decade of retirement of fighting crime in gotham city and he must face this new uprise of crime in gotham city by this new group called the mutants he's fighting them, disposing of them. And his return sparks so much controversy with the U S government, with the people of Gotham city, with his old buddy, Superman as well. So it is a lot that's going on in this comic series. That was just amazing to me. And I'm not going to go through point by point. of the comic book i've reread it in anticipation of this uh talk that we're gonna have today but i'm not gonna go beat by beat because we'll be here till we'll be here till the uh the 80th anniversary of it because there's a lot to talk about in this comic book series and i'll employ all of you if you have not read the comic book if you have not read this graphic novel and maybe you're not into comic books but this is one you need to read because there's so much in it man that there's uh uh joker is in this uh two faces in this and they play pinnacle roles in there that is just like what do you know it's it's it's crazy we have a brand new robin that was introduced a female robin nonetheless the first and only female robin up to this point uh uh carrie kelly is she is the new robin here you have the new mutant streak game of the mutants that pop up in gotham city that is uh brutal to say the least um like i said this was a four-part uh miniseries and all four parts had a type you know before it came together just to become Batman The Dark Knight Returns. It was The Dark Knight Returns. Dark Knight Returns was the first issue. The Dark Knight Triumph was the second issue. Hunt the Dark Knight was the third. And the final one was The Dark Knight Falls. So let's break it down. I decided to break it down in all four issues. And we'll discuss it that way. So let's go part one. Part one, The Dark Knight Returns. And this sets up everything that's going to happen throughout these four issues. in this version we're introduced to a dystopian version of Gotham City in 1986. Now, let me start off by saying, this comic is dated. If you pick it up now, and this is your first time knowing about it, reading it, and consuming it, it will feel dated, because it's 1986. It feels 1986, with a lot of... 1986 references that that are pretty dated you know and you know in comparisons to 40 years later of course but um at the time it was like innovative but it is what it is but i'm just forewarning those who have not read the dark knight returns in any event this is a dystopian version of gotham City and we We are introduced to Bruce Wayne and he's 55 years old. And you know, When I was reading it, what that was, about a month ago? No, it was about two weeks ago. When I was reading it, and then I rewatched the animated movies, I'm like 55, and they kept saying 55, and Bruce Wayne is broken down. He looks about 85. He looks Batman Beyond-ish. But I'm like, my God, I'm only a few years away. from 55 to put it in perspective my brother is 55 years old uh matter of fact just turned 55 and i'm like man my brother is different my brother he moves better than me because he was in the marines and all that stuff so he he has uh stamina unlike myself who did nothing in life but there's neither here nor there but 55 is not that old it's not that it's not that old but when you're fighting crime every night i guess it is so he life has beaten bruce wayne down and the illustrations in this comic series is phenomenal i love the way this uh graphic novel was illustrated and he is just this big hawking looking figure but a lot of them are that's that's frank miller's style but it's it's cool how they just showed him as this grizzled old man but you know in good shape for an old man anyways uh he retired 10 years ago at this point he had retired after the death of jason todd the last robin and this is something that has been consistent i know this is an alternate story but this is something that had become canon throughout dc comics when it comes to batman jason todd's death because a lot of things have sprung off from jason todd's death you know you have uh the red hood you have uh the bat family and so so much stuff has spun off from that so that stayed consistent throughout comics it wasn't just relegated to this graphic novel but in this story Thank you. That's what caused him to retire from being Batman and hang up the cape and the cow. But in doing that, crime had began to run run rampant through Gotham City. Of course, there's no Batman. So you've got this new game called the Mutants that have just taken over the city, basically. And one day after watching the news, the mutant crime, you know. about the mutant crime and whatnot uh bruce decides you know what i still got i still got i still got a little bit left in the take i can still fit the cow the cape still can fit so he becomes batman yet again and he stops multiple assaults including one with two girls and one of those girls was Carrie Kelly and her friend. they were being targeted by the mutants but Batman stopped it but this inspires Carrie to become Robin you know unbeknownst to Batman but does it anyway so with all this going on Batman's return is reported by the news by word of mouth and this reaches the Joker who is in Arkham Asylum at this point being treated. And he's basically been sedated to a sense, but they're playing the news and at the asylum and they're talking about Batman. Now granted, this is a name that he probably haven't heard in 10 years. And in his catatonic state, he wakes up, he hears that name and he wakes up. It's like, head. you know it it something in him clicked because they're the yet he's the yin to his yang and it is the craziest bromance in all of media not just comics in every walk of life but uh meanwhile also at the asylum you have harvey did who we all know as two-face he's there but he has undergone this treatment he underwent this this therapy this plastic surgery to fix his face. And so... he's he's whole on both sides now you know he he's not insane at least so they think it's so batman he he stops the armed robbery and he finds out that the criminals are working for harvey dent after he was released you know because he was quote-unquote cured at the asylum and batman goes on a hunt for two-face now or harvey dent as he's called in this comic because uh after he left the asylum after his treatment he disappeared so uh bad man goes to talk to jim gordon who is the commissioner but he's on the way out uh jim is retiring after all these years and he informs jim that it may uh harvey dent may be planning something bigger he may be planning some scheme uh uh That's going to hurt the city and whatnot. So soon after Harvey Dent, he announced his intentions to hold Gotham City ransom with a bomb. So after Batman defeats Harvey Dent and his goons, he discovers that Harvey Dent's mind had completely warped into his Two-Face persona. See, they fixed his face, but he didn't see it as that. When he looked in the mirror. He thought that they gave him, you know, the messed up side of his face. His whole face was the messed up side instead of vice versa. So he clicked out. That's what he sees when he looks. But he's normal. He looks normal. But his mind isn't. His mind is completely gone. And so that was that was issue one. That's that's what we got introduced in issue one. And you immediately hooked at this point. Because not only is Batman back to his old tricks again, so is his foes. And it's in a believable way that they're still around. And why they're still around and how they're able to be still around was such a genius move by Frank Miller. And I thought that was very, very interesting. So we move on to issue two. or part two of this episode and that is the dark knight triumph and in this issue we uh open up in the white house and we see superman talking to the president and in this version if you know your history in 1986 the president was ronald reagan and that's who is in this book and so Superman is talking to Ronald Reagan and they're discussing Batman's shenanigans that's going on in gotham city you know with uh president reagan suggesting that he might have to arrest batman because at this point all the superheroes had stopped superheroing you know uh batman retired uh uh wonder woman went back to themisteria and so on and so forth If everybody just then gave it up. due to this law that they passed so the only one who was quote unquote active is superman and he works for the government and the reason he's let's be real the reason he's active because who's gonna stop him who who's gonna stop superman from being superman but they worked it out he works for the government instead and so we we go to back to gotham city and uh kerry kelly and being inspired by batman she buys this imitation robin suit and or costume i should say and she goes on a search form you know to try to be recruited as the new robin and so batman attacks the mutants at this dump city dump with the batmobile and the batmobile is more of a tank in this issue and it looks it's beautiful man i love that batmobile but the mutant leader he he He goes hand-in-hand with Batman and pretty much hands Batman his first real butt-whooping in comics. I mean, but it's an excuse because, number one, he's younger. He's more violent. He's willing to take it to that next level, a.k.a. kill. Whereas Batman, at this point, he's old. He's older and he's not willing to go to that next level. So... he lost he was he was physically outdone in that first battle uh he was almost beaten to death to be honest with you he was he was man that dude that dude put the put the molly whop on him i'm telling you it was brutal but uh lo and behold the new robin carrie kelly she comes in causes a diversion right before they were able to kill him and gets him out of there returning him to the bat cave where uh alfred is still around alfred alfred at this point i don't think they mentioned his age in there i don't think they ever mentioned alfred's age i don't recall alfred's age being discussed in any batman cop and i've read a lot of batman but at this point you gotta think he gotta be close to a hundred years old But he's still Alfred Pennyworth, man. I mean, he's there. As long as Bruce is alive, he's going to be alive. He's not going anywhere. But anyways, he tends to Bruce's wounds and nurse him back to health. And in a shocker, Bruce welcomes Carrie Kelly. He's impressed by her bravery at that moment to come in and save him and whatnot. And he feels that's something he can work with. He can work with this new Robin. And I figured that had to be tough because the last Robin he had died on his watch. And so he, you know, but to take Carrie Kelly under his wing without any trials, you know, was was pretty, pretty jarring. It was jarring for me when I first read it back in the day. Because, to be 100% honest with y'all, I wasn't receptive to the new Robin. And it's not because she was a female. I wasn't receptive of Jason Todd. I was always a Dick Grayson guy. I just did not feel we should have changed Robins. I never agreed with that. But as I got older, I accepted it more, you know. And not just recently, I'm talking about, you know, once I got to teens and 20s and stuff like that, I started being more receptive of it because around the time that I wasn't, I wasn't really deep into comics like I was in the past. I really just whenever I had the time to pick it up, I'll randomly pick them up. But once I got back into them and started reading them. you know learning the stories the backstories and whatnot thought it appreciated especially jason todd but i still don't like jason i understand why they voted for him to die that in case y'all don't know that's that's how he died in the comics it was left up to a vote by the readers you know do you save jason todd or let him die basically they let him die everybody voted to kill jason todd that's what they did uh good on uh dc comics for going through with that promise but anyways uh i thought that was a cool moment though it was cool to uh bring her in as the new prodigy so to speak so batman strategically uh after being nursed back to health strategically goes back and defeats the mutant leader in a fight surrounded by the mutants and now this is against alfred's advice of of course, because Alpha's like, man, he almost killed you. He's younger than you. He's stronger than you. He's faster than you. But one thing we all know, we've seen the memes, we've heard the sayings, but it is true. The worst thing you could do is give Batman prep time. Once he figures you out, that's it. There's no beating him. And basically, Batman took that butt whooping. to figure out this mutant leader's style. And that next fight they had, it wasn't even a fight. And this wasn't even 100% Bruce Wayne. This was probably closer to 40% Batman that took on the mutant leader. But he destroyed him. And when he destroyed him, he knew if he could take out the leader, everybody else would just... surrender and that's basically what they did and so after seeing batman defeat their leader uh the mutants disbanded to smaller groups you know one of the groups renamed themselves the son of batman uh or sons of batman and they use excessive violence against criminals which you know also angered people as well you know yeah okay you're stopping criminals but What? You're using excessive violence to do so, which is kind of what Batman is doing at this point, but not to the extreme that they are. So that was issue two. We move on to issue three, The Hunt, or Hunt the Dark Knight. And in this issue, this is when Superman comes into the fold. We have Clark Kent. coming to talk to bruce wayne under the advice of the president and is trying to convince him to pack it in you know you had your fun you know you did you came back you did what you did now go back go back into hiding and and of course bruce ain't having that but before they can really go back and forth uh superman had to go to this uh latin american country uh coto martiz which we have seen and heard of in other comics as well you know this is another thing that was taken from the comics uh i think we saw it in live action in the suicide squad coto martiz and it was mentioned in batman 1989 the tim burton batman by uh vicky vale and so this is a prominent country fictional country in DC Comics and He got involved with that conflict to try to evade World War III at this point. So we go back to Gotham City. Gotham City is prepping for this new commissioner, police commissioner, when Jim Gordon steps down. And this new commissioner, Ellen Yendale, she's coming in to replace Jim Gordon. And she declares that Batman is a wanted criminal because he, cause he's a vigilante, you know? So we can't have that. We can't have, we got enough problems, let alone a vigilante running around, causing havoc. So you have that, going on. Meanwhile, you have the Joker. He found a way to manipulate the caretakers at, the Arkham Asylum to allow him to, talk on this talk show this tv talk show where he murders everyone with his trademark toxin and then he escapes and now this is also an element that we saw in joker uh not fully a but the the good one the first joker with joaquin phoenix uh not a direct adaptation of that but that element going on a talk show and killing the host but in this in this graphic novel he killed everybody in the studio but uh he escaped so batman and robin they track him down at this uh county fair where um he's also trying to evade the police who are on his back you know because the new commissioner has declared him public enemy number one and so batman fights the joker he's uh he pretty much vowed to uh stop him permanently you so he was he was prepared to kill joker finally he was finally prepared i know he has that rule but if it was one individual to break that rule on all these years it's the joker because him leaving leaving the joker alive has caused more death than anything so it is like all those deaths are on batman's hands basically and that's part of the reason i'm a you divert for a second here that's part of the reason as i got older i've i grew up a hardcore batman fan which i still am but i identify more with the joker not the homicidal side i'm not i'm not advocating that but i identify with the joker because joker in joker's mind the world is crazy he's the only one that is sane So sometimes I feel like that. I feel like that more often than not. So I, I, I do identify here with him more now that I'm older, but I didn't want to throw that out there, but. real point i wanted to make here is is the fact that all the death and destruction that the joker has caused throughout these years on batman especially you know more recently in this in this comic where all the people in that studio, all the people at that talk show died because of Batman. He was fine-ish, you know? He was chilling until he heard Batman had returned. And so with Batman returning, he returned and indirectly caused the deaths of all these people. So they go fist to cuffs. I mean, brutal, brutal. uh batman he paralyzed the joker but he he stopped short of killing him he broke his neck but didn't snap his neck now this was i mean in all my 47 years on this earth i have never in comics television movies in real life seen anything like this and it's still blows my mind with him halfway breaking the joker's neck paralyzing him the joker was so mad not that he paralyzed him the fact that batman refused to kill him that that just out of all the things through all these years that's the one thing that disappointed the joker so Him feeling Batman was so much of a coward to do it. He did it himself. If nobody else is going to do it, I'm going to do it myself. The Joker literally broke his own neck and killed himself. I've never seen anything like that in my life. And it still is seared in my head. And it was in the comic panel. But I can just... feel it and hear the crack when he did it because he didn't use his hands he just turned his head to the point where he cracked unbelievable unbelievable still top top five deaths in all of media for me the joker is a beast even in death he's a beast so that leads us to the final issue of this graphic novel part four the dark night falls uh there's a citywide manhunt now there's a manhunt for batman uh elsewhere superman he's fighting with the soviet union uh with these nuclear warheads he takes the nuclear warheads one of the nuclear warheads and detonates it in a desert which almost killed him um i was confused by that when i first read it but you know as i got deeper into comics i realized oh well this can't happen you know you can almost incapacitate superman but it'll literally take a nuclear weapon to do it but even with that it didn't kill him it just nearly cured him uh but uh he survived by crawling to these uh sunflowers oddly enough and he absorbed the sun energy from those plants that was in the jungle nearby and once again cool innovative way something i hadn't seen up to that point i like man this is genius uh also the united states is hit with this uh emp this electromagnetic pulse and the result it it uh pretty much caused chaos during the blackout so in gotham batman and robin a uh they take the remaining mutants and the sons of batman into this non-lethal gang that i don't i don't think they had a name for them all but they combined them all to help gotham uh become the safest city in the country and it worked they they actually got them to uh maintain or contain i should say the chaos that was about to erupt in gotham city and so this embarrassed the united states government they were embarrassed by this because they are on a hunt for this vigilante this public enemy and now you have him being a hero and so now they look like fools at this point and so uh they order or Or I should say President Reagan Ordered Superman to take Batman into custody But Superman, he knew Batman, he wasn't going in to custody. He wasn't going to allow him to take him into custody. You have to kill him. But he's under order. So he demands to meet him. And Batman, he chooses Crime Alley, which is so poetic. You know, Crime Alley. Once again, if you're living under a rock, that is the alley where his parents were murdered. so superman he tries the first reason with batman but batman wasn't having it he uses his technological uh inventions to fight him uh uh to get even ground on him during the battle superman uh well first let me say batman had this echo suit or this this this what could i call this suit this uh uh superman fighting suit and so he has this suit that can withstand or at least attempt to restrain the power of superman but we all know when that fight first started superman was holding back he didn't want to kill bruce you know that that wasn't that wasn't his that wasn't his intent but he has this suit but superman manages to uh breach it to compromise it however um out of the blue we get green arrow oliver queen he shoots uh superman with this kryptonite tipped arrow that weakens him and now a little backstory on that we find out that superman took green arrows arm he severed his arm and that was because of this you know this superhero uh uh i don't know act that you know that that read the world of superheroes and oliver queen wasn't having it oliver queen got the same temperament as batman so you know he wasn't going to go down without a fight and uh superman uh took took his arm i mean how can you shoot an arrow with one arm it's so he took his arm but anyways he finds a way to shoot Dead Arrow. and weakens uh superman in in an act of revenge and so he beats him bro he he beats i'll be batman beat superman to almost to death and we have one of the most iconic lines in all of comic book lore i want you to remember clark and all your days to come in all your most private moments i want you to remember my hands at your throat i want you to remember the one man that beat you and at that moment uh bruce caught a heart attack he had a sudden heart attack and he died and i thought bruh this is this is this is this is poetry this was this was poetry just spilled out on a comic book it's it's comic books like this when i hear people say that comic books are kitty it ain't for me oh you read comic books you're a nerd all that foolishness read this read read the dark knight returns and then come with that same energy there's no such thing it this is phenomenal man phenomenal so after the quote-unquote death of bruce wayne alfred he destroys the the bat cave uh he catches a fatal stroke and die you know exposing batman as bruce wayne um uh uh the fortune his fortune disappears you know all that money the the billionaire the billions of dollars. They disappear after his funeral. It is revealed that his death was staged. It was staged. He was in a suspended viral life thing. It was something. He took some type of chemical agent that slowed his heart rate down to the point that you would thought he was dead. Even fooled Clark Kent, who can hear his heart. And that's how he got exposed because Clark, he was at the funeral and he winked. He winked at Carrie, Carrie Kelly, who was there because he heard Bruce Wayne's heartbeat in the grave. And he just looked at the grave and smiled. And he knew that he got over. He got him. So after that, we we find that Bruce Wayne, he's leading Robin. He got Oliver Queen, the other followers, the sons of Batman. They're in this cave and it's beyond the Batcave. But he's preparing to continue the war on crime. And that was the end of this saga, this graphic novel. But like I said, I'm not going to argue with you if you feel that this isn't. number one on the list but it's definitely top three gotta be top three graphic novels of all time this was so entertaining all four issues were great all four and they all ended like on these epic little endings it wasn't really a cliffhanger per se it was just great endings that could stand alone but it kept going It's... Even with this, even with the final one, I always expected more to come out. And they did have sequels. They did have sequel comics or graphic novels to this. In a sense, they had a prequel, Batman Year One, that Frank Miller did. Spawn in Batman, this little crossover event that you had with Batman and Spawn. But the direct sequel, The Dark Knight Strikes Again. That was basically three years after The Dark Knight Returns, I believe. I think he's training all of his followers. I think Lex Luthor was involved in this. There's a lot in here. Catwoman and Superman, Wonder Woman. The Flash is in it. It was a whole bunch in that one. The Dark Knight 3, The Master Race, that came out a few years ago. I know it was in the 2000s. I can't remember exactly what year, but I didn't read that one. That one I didn't read because I heard it got some bad reviews and I never went back. I always said I would, but I've yet to go back to read it. But yeah, they had, I think, another one after that too. But I didn't read those two either. But that's that's it for those. But going into going into other media, the movies, the animated films, Dark Knight Returns, part one and two. I loved it. It was a pretty much a beat by beat. I didn't realize how close of an adaptation it was, you know, because I'm used to seeing such a departure when it translates from medias. But this didn't. You know, you had a couple of changes, like a couple of lines of dialogue here and there, which is expected. But as far as the story is concerned, the story beats in the main plot points. It's all there. It was basically just a motion comic. That's what it felt like watching it. Peter Reller provides the voice of Bruce Wayne, Batman in this in these two films. And man, look, it took me a minute to actually receive that because we were still deep into Kevin Conroy. This before his untimely passing. And I was like, man, Kevin Conroy could still do an older version of Bruce Wayne. Why are they getting Peter Weller? And I like Peter Weller, you know, in case you don't know, he played Robocop. I like his voice and all, but as Batman? It worked. It took me a minute to warm up to it, but it worked. I loved his voice, that old, grizzled, beaten voice, but with power behind it. It was a perfect choice as far as casting is concerned for the telling of this particular story. I highly recommend watching those two films. If you're not a reader. and you just want to watch it, watch a film, watch the films, watch those two movies. They are... a direct adaptation of this graphic novel live action wise i always wanted a live action adaptation of the dark knight returns and we never got a true adaptation we got pieces of it throughout films involving batman but never a straight up adaptation there was an attempt they almost did it and it was i want to say after after batman forever that they were going to do a adaptation but they decided to go with batman and robin instead i don't know what they were drinking smoking or shooting up their arms but whatever but they decided to go that route but they were gonna attempt to do an adaptation a live action adaptation Clint Eastwood was considered for Batman in this version. David Bowie was considered for the Joker in the live-action version. And that would have been perfect. I think that's perfect. Think about the time this was going to come out. This was late 90s. That is perfect. David Bowie would have been great as Joker. This particular Joker? Oh, he would have fit in like a... glove it this would have been great clint eastwood i think he was i think he still would have been too old at that time but i think they could have made it work i think he would have worked out pretty well at that point because this was around the time unforgiving came out and so yeah i could have saw that i could have saw that uh but uh no they decided against it now but like I see it. they picked the bones of this graphic novel and just threw little nuggets throughout the films uh uh throughout the batman film series you know you had uh the tumbler the tumbler that was in you know all of christopher nolan's batman's that batmobile version that was a version of the design from the dark knight returns a smaller version the one that was in the comics was bigger than the tumblr but uh that was basically a grounded version of the tumblr that's or of the uh batmobile from the dark knight returns now the one that is most i guess you could say the closest that we ever got to a live action adaptation of the Dark Knight Returns was of course batman v superman dark uh donna justice which came out in 2016 they borrowed so much from that comic it is it makes me mad because that's the one film i never got a chance to talk about this film it and and on this show i should say because i talk about it a lot but i never got a chance to talk about on this show. this this is a first but i wanted this movie to work so bad i have never in my life wanted a movie to be good so bad in my life and haven't since i've never felt that way since this movie i don't feel the way other people feel they like oh man that movie was horrible i don't think the movie is horrible could it be better absolutely but was it horrible no i don't think it's horrible um it's rewatchable shockingly enough i've re-watched that movie a couple of times and so it's not like offensive to my senses but what makes that movie so disjointed there was way too much going on way too much going on and if they would have stuck to one little thing you know like adapting the dark knight returns would have been perfect would have been perfect before this particular story you know for what zack snyder was trying to do you was but they got so caught up in trying to create this cinematic universe and introduce flash introduce aquaman introduce wonder woman and uh put doomsday in it and Set up the justice lead and do a- Oh my god, it was just too- much and still trying to make it a sequel to man of steel at the same time it made absolutely no sense but it doesn't that's a whole nother show i it i'll have to dedicate an entire show to batman v superman it's all in a justice and being as dope this is the 10 year anniversary of that movie i'm probably gonna do it this year i'm probably gonna have a show dedicated It actually is no probably to it. I will have that coming up in a couple of months. Stay tuned for that. But as far as it's element, the elements of the Dark Knight Returns in this film, I would say 60 to 75 percent of this movie is the Dark Knight Returns. Every scene that involves Batman is basically from the Dark Knight Returns, even dialogue. there is dialogue that is taken straight from the comic book and it is it is mind-boggling you have let's start with the similar you have the robin you had you had jason todd's death we see jason todd's suit or costume in the bat cave on display because he was murdered that that was that's in there you have bruce wayne being older and hardened uh mid 50s probably i don't think they ever stated what ben affleck's age was in the film because i he didn't look 55 but i will say he's 55 but he definitely wasn't grizzled and you know clint eastwood looking you know i think ben affleck could still play batman you know i really enjoyed ben affleck's performance as batman I think he's one of the best Batman live action adaptations that we've got. I know at me. I don't care. That's my opinion. But he was older. He had retired after 10 years. He fought Superman. He had the Echo suit. He used the kryptonite arrow. Didn't have green arrow to shoot it, but it was in there. The fight they had. the uh the bomb going off the the the nuclear bomb that almost killed superman that was in here uh he had to float up to the sun to get his power back um you had all of those elements everything that was basically in the comic was in here mind-boggling it was like my god uh Like I stated before, the Joker, the 2019 film with the talk show, that came straight from the comics here. The Justice League, Zack Snyder's version, the good one. The Batmobile that's at the very end, that was the actual Batmobile, the exact same design. That huge tank that Batman is standing on top of at the end of that movie, that is what's in the comics. in an interview recently, um, I say recently, but it was the last couple of years. Zack Snyder did an interview with Hollywood reporter or somebody, and they asked him, you know, if he ever would come back to DC and do a film. And he said, it's only one thing. It's only one thing I will come back to do. And that is to do a live action adaptation of the dark night returns a true representation. I would love that. I'm not mad at that because what he did in Batman v Superman was actually good. You know, outside of that, that's what it started. The movie was falling apart, but those elements were good. I could tell that he is a Batman fan. He respects that material. He respects this comic book, and I would love to see his adaptation. But like I said. I don't think we'll ever see it in my, at least in my lifetime, a live action adaptation. But I've been wrong before. But as far as the graphic novel is concerned, it is one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. It changed comics. It changed how you viewed comics. The bubblegum kitty version of comic books, it all went to the wayside after this comic book. came out now they had darker stories in comics before this don't get me wrong it wasn't like everything was was bubble gum and rainbows and then the dark knight returns came out and it was like oh my god no it was it was a lot of murder and foolishness that went on in comics before this but this was such a game changer because you're taking a beloved character one of the most popular characters in comics and making him so adult to the point kids couldn't read this they couldn't read this graphic novel man this was so rated r and it changed how you looked at this character We didn't get Adam West's version, campy version of Batman after this. The next film, live action adaptation that you got was Tim Burton's version, which he has come out and said that he was deeply influenced by The Dark Knight Returns. Yeah, it had a little camp to the 1989 Batman, but it was so dark and moody. Because of this graphic novel, the stories... that were adapted from this i listed a whole bunch of you know christopher nolan's version and uh zach snyder's version and so on and so forth the joker film it's so much came out of this novel and not only the batman but other comic characters and that spanned not only in dc but also in marvel they decided to take some more chances with grounded darker material as well because of this comics if the influence runs deep and i appreciate it for that it is such a joy to have read this when it came out i i'm telling you bro i tell my kids all the time they don't know what they missed not being around when i grew up you know it's fun it's all good and i appreciate the fact that all information is at a click of a finger now you know good that's good because i definitely need it but it was a joy growing up and you had to find discover things you know picking up a comic book taking a chance on reading a comic you know and things of that nature and yet it was just a fun time and discovering these new things that that was a phenomenon around that time You know, it was talked about in school. Like, man, did you read this? Did you did you watch this and all this? I mean, that was fun. That was great, man. And if you didn't see it and you wanted to be a part of the conversation, you would hurry up and go find it. You go watch that movie or you go pick up that comic because it sounded the way these kids are describing it. When I was going to school, man, this sounds like the greatest thing on grass, green earth. I need to see this. or I need to read this. And around this time, a lot of the people that I was growing up with, they read this comic, they read this graphic novel, and I knew I had to read it. And I read it and I felt so much joy reading. Yeah, it was a lot of confusion that was going on. But, but I accepted it for what it was. And eventually I got it eventually. I realized that, okay, this is a different Batman and I love it. So yeah, man, 40 years, it deserves his rightful place as one of the best, but that's just my opinion. I would love to know yours. Did you read the four issue graphic novel Batman? The dark night returns. I would love to know what were your feelings? Are you a Batman fan? Did this make. you become a Batman fan or vice versa. I would love to know your thoughts. Where were you in 1986? What was your age? I was a little tight. I had no business reading The Dark Knight Returns. But I snuck that on in anyway. But I want to know your thoughts. Email the show kbradiopodcast at gmail.com. You can also search for the show on all social media platforms. Just search for the KB Radio network also don't forget about youtube subscribe to the kb radio network channel and like this video if you don't mind don't forget about the five stars the reviews and sharing this show if you're listening on apple podcast spotify iheart radio wherever you are currently listening to movie goodness here on the kb radio network everybody thank you for joining me for this little chit chat about the 40th year anniversary of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. I want you all to know that I love you. Continue to love everyone. And until we speak again. You all be blessed.

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hello everyone and welcome to movie goodness where we examine life through cinema here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and we're gonna go back 40 years from this month from the month of february we're going back to february of 1986 and comics were changed forever in that month with the release of Batman The Dark Knight Returns. This is universally known as one of the greatest graphic novels ever printed. You know, I guess you can put it up there with Watchmen, you know, one or two. Me personally, I would probably go with The Dark Knight Returns. And I'm being honest with you. It's biased. I'm a huge Batman fan. Love Batman. I'm staring at like four posters right now in my office of Batman. I am a huge Batman fan. So it's a little biased there, but I can acknowledge that Watchmen is a great graphic novel. So if you ever say, oh, no, no, no, no. Watchmen is the greatest graphic novel of all time. I'm not going to fight you. I'm not going to debate you on that because I wouldn't. probably agree with you it depends on when you ask me it depends on what day you ask me and i would agree but even if i disagree i would bow down and say yeah you're probably right but this really changed how we looked at the character of batman at this point now i would take you back to seven-year-old kevin that's how old i was in 1986 and By this time, I had started reading some comic books, started getting into it because I've watched Super Friends around this time. I've watched the old reruns of Batman with Adam West and whatnot. So I got familiar with the character and grew a love for this character to the point where I saw Batman as this campy character that I saw Adam West portray. even in super friends and whatnot, you know, Batman meets the, you know, teamed up with Scooby-Doo with all this other foolishness that took place in the eighties. I was, I was in love with Batman. That was my favorite comic book character. So I didn't read it when it first came out. I do recall that much. It was a couple of years. I want to say around the release of Tim Burton's Batman. starring michael keaton i don't know if it was before or after can't can't you know my memory is pretty good but the the older i get uh things get a little fuzzy but i don't remember exactly uh the moment i picked up this graphic novel because by i know by the time i began reading it all four issues was out i know that much so i read all four issues at once And I was just blown away by how dark this character is or had become and how Frank Miller had created this Gotham City that was, how can I put it, 80s. It was just a hyper-violent 80s depiction of Gotham City. And it blew my mind. It really blew my mind because it was realistic, but not, you know, realistic in the sense that it's not your dad's Batman story. This isn't your dad's Gotham City. This was a seasoned, lived in Gotham City that the graphic novel did a great job of depicting. And so that leads us to today, 40 years later, almost to the day. day and i'm like this has it's been 40 years you know i was just doom scrolling on the internet one day and i just happened to see this pop up somewhere and i can't find where i saw it at that this was the 40th year uh anniversary of the dark knight return I'm like, oh my god, I gotta talk about this. I gotta talk about The Dark Knight Returns and its impact on comics and other medias, even in film. We've got two movies that were adapted from this graphic novel, animated films. It was Batman The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 and, of course, Batman The Dark Knight Part 2. Now, we're gonna talk about... those two films and we're going to talk about other films that were plucked from this graphic novel that i want to talk about and i don't know any other time i'm going to talk about this film uh i'm pretty sure you all know but i'm gonna leave you in suspense anyway in any event uh in case you don't know you've been living under a rock for 40 years batman the dark knight returns is 1986 four-issue comic book miniseries that was written by the great frank miller um and it tells an alternate story of bruce wayne who at this point is 55 years old he returns after a decade of retirement of fighting crime in gotham city and he must face this new uprise of crime in gotham city by this new group called the mutants he's fighting them, disposing of them. And his return sparks so much controversy with the U S government, with the people of Gotham city, with his old buddy, Superman as well. So it is a lot that's going on in this comic series. That was just amazing to me. And I'm not going to go through point by point. of the comic book i've reread it in anticipation of this uh talk that we're gonna have today but i'm not gonna go beat by beat because we'll be here till we'll be here till the uh the 80th anniversary of it because there's a lot to talk about in this comic book series and i'll employ all of you if you have not read the comic book if you have not read this graphic novel and maybe you're not into comic books but this is one you need to read because there's so much in it man that there's uh uh joker is in this uh two faces in this and they play pinnacle roles in there that is just like what do you know it's it's it's crazy we have a brand new robin that was introduced a female robin nonetheless the first and only female robin up to this point uh uh carrie kelly is she is the new robin here you have the new mutant streak game of the mutants that pop up in gotham city that is uh brutal to say the least um like i said this was a four-part uh miniseries and all four parts had a type you know before it came together just to become Batman The Dark Knight Returns. It was The Dark Knight Returns. Dark Knight Returns was the first issue. The Dark Knight Triumph was the second issue. Hunt the Dark Knight was the third. And the final one was The Dark Knight Falls. So let's break it down. I decided to break it down in all four issues. And we'll discuss it that way. So let's go part one. Part one, The Dark Knight Returns. And this sets up everything that's going to happen throughout these four issues. in this version we're introduced to a dystopian version of Gotham City in 1986. Now, let me start off by saying, this comic is dated. If you pick it up now, and this is your first time knowing about it, reading it, and consuming it, it will feel dated, because it's 1986. It feels 1986, with a lot of... 1986 references that that are pretty dated you know and you know in comparisons to 40 years later of course but um at the time it was like innovative but it is what it is but i'm just forewarning those who have not read the dark knight returns in any event this is a dystopian version of gotham City and we We are introduced to Bruce Wayne and he's 55 years old. And you know, When I was reading it, what that was, about a month ago? No, it was about two weeks ago. When I was reading it, and then I rewatched the animated movies, I'm like 55, and they kept saying 55, and Bruce Wayne is broken down. He looks about 85. He looks Batman Beyond-ish. But I'm like, my God, I'm only a few years away. from 55 to put it in perspective my brother is 55 years old uh matter of fact just turned 55 and i'm like man my brother is different my brother he moves better than me because he was in the marines and all that stuff so he he has uh stamina unlike myself who did nothing in life but there's neither here nor there but 55 is not that old it's not that it's not that old but when you're fighting crime every night i guess it is so he life has beaten bruce wayne down and the illustrations in this comic series is phenomenal i love the way this uh graphic novel was illustrated and he is just this big hawking looking figure but a lot of them are that's that's frank miller's style but it's it's cool how they just showed him as this grizzled old man but you know in good shape for an old man anyways uh he retired 10 years ago at this point he had retired after the death of jason todd the last robin and this is something that has been consistent i know this is an alternate story but this is something that had become canon throughout dc comics when it comes to batman jason todd's death because a lot of things have sprung off from jason todd's death you know you have uh the red hood you have uh the bat family and so so much stuff has spun off from that so that stayed consistent throughout comics it wasn't just relegated to this graphic novel but in this story Thank you. That's what caused him to retire from being Batman and hang up the cape and the cow. But in doing that, crime had began to run run rampant through Gotham City. Of course, there's no Batman. So you've got this new game called the Mutants that have just taken over the city, basically. And one day after watching the news, the mutant crime, you know. about the mutant crime and whatnot uh bruce decides you know what i still got i still got i still got a little bit left in the take i can still fit the cow the cape still can fit so he becomes batman yet again and he stops multiple assaults including one with two girls and one of those girls was Carrie Kelly and her friend. they were being targeted by the mutants but Batman stopped it but this inspires Carrie to become Robin you know unbeknownst to Batman but does it anyway so with all this going on Batman's return is reported by the news by word of mouth and this reaches the Joker who is in Arkham Asylum at this point being treated. And he's basically been sedated to a sense, but they're playing the news and at the asylum and they're talking about Batman. Now granted, this is a name that he probably haven't heard in 10 years. And in his catatonic state, he wakes up, he hears that name and he wakes up. It's like, head. you know it it something in him clicked because they're the yet he's the yin to his yang and it is the craziest bromance in all of media not just comics in every walk of life but uh meanwhile also at the asylum you have harvey did who we all know as two-face he's there but he has undergone this treatment he underwent this this therapy this plastic surgery to fix his face. And so... he's he's whole on both sides now you know he he's not insane at least so they think it's so batman he he stops the armed robbery and he finds out that the criminals are working for harvey dent after he was released you know because he was quote-unquote cured at the asylum and batman goes on a hunt for two-face now or harvey dent as he's called in this comic because uh after he left the asylum after his treatment he disappeared so uh bad man goes to talk to jim gordon who is the commissioner but he's on the way out uh jim is retiring after all these years and he informs jim that it may uh harvey dent may be planning something bigger he may be planning some scheme uh uh That's going to hurt the city and whatnot. So soon after Harvey Dent, he announced his intentions to hold Gotham City ransom with a bomb. So after Batman defeats Harvey Dent and his goons, he discovers that Harvey Dent's mind had completely warped into his Two-Face persona. See, they fixed his face, but he didn't see it as that. When he looked in the mirror. He thought that they gave him, you know, the messed up side of his face. His whole face was the messed up side instead of vice versa. So he clicked out. That's what he sees when he looks. But he's normal. He looks normal. But his mind isn't. His mind is completely gone. And so that was that was issue one. That's that's what we got introduced in issue one. And you immediately hooked at this point. Because not only is Batman back to his old tricks again, so is his foes. And it's in a believable way that they're still around. And why they're still around and how they're able to be still around was such a genius move by Frank Miller. And I thought that was very, very interesting. So we move on to issue two. or part two of this episode and that is the dark knight triumph and in this issue we uh open up in the white house and we see superman talking to the president and in this version if you know your history in 1986 the president was ronald reagan and that's who is in this book and so Superman is talking to Ronald Reagan and they're discussing Batman's shenanigans that's going on in gotham city you know with uh president reagan suggesting that he might have to arrest batman because at this point all the superheroes had stopped superheroing you know uh batman retired uh uh wonder woman went back to themisteria and so on and so forth If everybody just then gave it up. due to this law that they passed so the only one who was quote unquote active is superman and he works for the government and the reason he's let's be real the reason he's active because who's gonna stop him who who's gonna stop superman from being superman but they worked it out he works for the government instead and so we we go to back to gotham city and uh kerry kelly and being inspired by batman she buys this imitation robin suit and or costume i should say and she goes on a search form you know to try to be recruited as the new robin and so batman attacks the mutants at this dump city dump with the batmobile and the batmobile is more of a tank in this issue and it looks it's beautiful man i love that batmobile but the mutant leader he he He goes hand-in-hand with Batman and pretty much hands Batman his first real butt-whooping in comics. I mean, but it's an excuse because, number one, he's younger. He's more violent. He's willing to take it to that next level, a.k.a. kill. Whereas Batman, at this point, he's old. He's older and he's not willing to go to that next level. So... he lost he was he was physically outdone in that first battle uh he was almost beaten to death to be honest with you he was he was man that dude that dude put the put the molly whop on him i'm telling you it was brutal but uh lo and behold the new robin carrie kelly she comes in causes a diversion right before they were able to kill him and gets him out of there returning him to the bat cave where uh alfred is still around alfred alfred at this point i don't think they mentioned his age in there i don't think they ever mentioned alfred's age i don't recall alfred's age being discussed in any batman cop and i've read a lot of batman but at this point you gotta think he gotta be close to a hundred years old But he's still Alfred Pennyworth, man. I mean, he's there. As long as Bruce is alive, he's going to be alive. He's not going anywhere. But anyways, he tends to Bruce's wounds and nurse him back to health. And in a shocker, Bruce welcomes Carrie Kelly. He's impressed by her bravery at that moment to come in and save him and whatnot. And he feels that's something he can work with. He can work with this new Robin. And I figured that had to be tough because the last Robin he had died on his watch. And so he, you know, but to take Carrie Kelly under his wing without any trials, you know, was was pretty, pretty jarring. It was jarring for me when I first read it back in the day. Because, to be 100% honest with y'all, I wasn't receptive to the new Robin. And it's not because she was a female. I wasn't receptive of Jason Todd. I was always a Dick Grayson guy. I just did not feel we should have changed Robins. I never agreed with that. But as I got older, I accepted it more, you know. And not just recently, I'm talking about, you know, once I got to teens and 20s and stuff like that, I started being more receptive of it because around the time that I wasn't, I wasn't really deep into comics like I was in the past. I really just whenever I had the time to pick it up, I'll randomly pick them up. But once I got back into them and started reading them. you know learning the stories the backstories and whatnot thought it appreciated especially jason todd but i still don't like jason i understand why they voted for him to die that in case y'all don't know that's that's how he died in the comics it was left up to a vote by the readers you know do you save jason todd or let him die basically they let him die everybody voted to kill jason todd that's what they did uh good on uh dc comics for going through with that promise but anyways uh i thought that was a cool moment though it was cool to uh bring her in as the new prodigy so to speak so batman strategically uh after being nursed back to health strategically goes back and defeats the mutant leader in a fight surrounded by the mutants and now this is against alfred's advice of of course, because Alpha's like, man, he almost killed you. He's younger than you. He's stronger than you. He's faster than you. But one thing we all know, we've seen the memes, we've heard the sayings, but it is true. The worst thing you could do is give Batman prep time. Once he figures you out, that's it. There's no beating him. And basically, Batman took that butt whooping. to figure out this mutant leader's style. And that next fight they had, it wasn't even a fight. And this wasn't even 100% Bruce Wayne. This was probably closer to 40% Batman that took on the mutant leader. But he destroyed him. And when he destroyed him, he knew if he could take out the leader, everybody else would just... surrender and that's basically what they did and so after seeing batman defeat their leader uh the mutants disbanded to smaller groups you know one of the groups renamed themselves the son of batman uh or sons of batman and they use excessive violence against criminals which you know also angered people as well you know yeah okay you're stopping criminals but What? You're using excessive violence to do so, which is kind of what Batman is doing at this point, but not to the extreme that they are. So that was issue two. We move on to issue three, The Hunt, or Hunt the Dark Knight. And in this issue, this is when Superman comes into the fold. We have Clark Kent. coming to talk to bruce wayne under the advice of the president and is trying to convince him to pack it in you know you had your fun you know you did you came back you did what you did now go back go back into hiding and and of course bruce ain't having that but before they can really go back and forth uh superman had to go to this uh latin american country uh coto martiz which we have seen and heard of in other comics as well you know this is another thing that was taken from the comics uh i think we saw it in live action in the suicide squad coto martiz and it was mentioned in batman 1989 the tim burton batman by uh vicky vale and so this is a prominent country fictional country in DC Comics and He got involved with that conflict to try to evade World War III at this point. So we go back to Gotham City. Gotham City is prepping for this new commissioner, police commissioner, when Jim Gordon steps down. And this new commissioner, Ellen Yendale, she's coming in to replace Jim Gordon. And she declares that Batman is a wanted criminal because he, cause he's a vigilante, you know? So we can't have that. We can't have, we got enough problems, let alone a vigilante running around, causing havoc. So you have that, going on. Meanwhile, you have the Joker. He found a way to manipulate the caretakers at, the Arkham Asylum to allow him to, talk on this talk show this tv talk show where he murders everyone with his trademark toxin and then he escapes and now this is also an element that we saw in joker uh not fully a but the the good one the first joker with joaquin phoenix uh not a direct adaptation of that but that element going on a talk show and killing the host but in this in this graphic novel he killed everybody in the studio but uh he escaped so batman and robin they track him down at this uh county fair where um he's also trying to evade the police who are on his back you know because the new commissioner has declared him public enemy number one and so batman fights the joker he's uh he pretty much vowed to uh stop him permanently you so he was he was prepared to kill joker finally he was finally prepared i know he has that rule but if it was one individual to break that rule on all these years it's the joker because him leaving leaving the joker alive has caused more death than anything so it is like all those deaths are on batman's hands basically and that's part of the reason i'm a you divert for a second here that's part of the reason as i got older i've i grew up a hardcore batman fan which i still am but i identify more with the joker not the homicidal side i'm not i'm not advocating that but i identify with the joker because joker in joker's mind the world is crazy he's the only one that is sane So sometimes I feel like that. I feel like that more often than not. So I, I, I do identify here with him more now that I'm older, but I didn't want to throw that out there, but. real point i wanted to make here is is the fact that all the death and destruction that the joker has caused throughout these years on batman especially you know more recently in this in this comic where all the people in that studio, all the people at that talk show died because of Batman. He was fine-ish, you know? He was chilling until he heard Batman had returned. And so with Batman returning, he returned and indirectly caused the deaths of all these people. So they go fist to cuffs. I mean, brutal, brutal. uh batman he paralyzed the joker but he he stopped short of killing him he broke his neck but didn't snap his neck now this was i mean in all my 47 years on this earth i have never in comics television movies in real life seen anything like this and it's still blows my mind with him halfway breaking the joker's neck paralyzing him the joker was so mad not that he paralyzed him the fact that batman refused to kill him that that just out of all the things through all these years that's the one thing that disappointed the joker so Him feeling Batman was so much of a coward to do it. He did it himself. If nobody else is going to do it, I'm going to do it myself. The Joker literally broke his own neck and killed himself. I've never seen anything like that in my life. And it still is seared in my head. And it was in the comic panel. But I can just... feel it and hear the crack when he did it because he didn't use his hands he just turned his head to the point where he cracked unbelievable unbelievable still top top five deaths in all of media for me the joker is a beast even in death he's a beast so that leads us to the final issue of this graphic novel part four the dark night falls uh there's a citywide manhunt now there's a manhunt for batman uh elsewhere superman he's fighting with the soviet union uh with these nuclear warheads he takes the nuclear warheads one of the nuclear warheads and detonates it in a desert which almost killed him um i was confused by that when i first read it but you know as i got deeper into comics i realized oh well this can't happen you know you can almost incapacitate superman but it'll literally take a nuclear weapon to do it but even with that it didn't kill him it just nearly cured him uh but uh he survived by crawling to these uh sunflowers oddly enough and he absorbed the sun energy from those plants that was in the jungle nearby and once again cool innovative way something i hadn't seen up to that point i like man this is genius uh also the united states is hit with this uh emp this electromagnetic pulse and the result it it uh pretty much caused chaos during the blackout so in gotham batman and robin a uh they take the remaining mutants and the sons of batman into this non-lethal gang that i don't i don't think they had a name for them all but they combined them all to help gotham uh become the safest city in the country and it worked they they actually got them to uh maintain or contain i should say the chaos that was about to erupt in gotham city and so this embarrassed the united states government they were embarrassed by this because they are on a hunt for this vigilante this public enemy and now you have him being a hero and so now they look like fools at this point and so uh they order or Or I should say President Reagan Ordered Superman to take Batman into custody But Superman, he knew Batman, he wasn't going in to custody. He wasn't going to allow him to take him into custody. You have to kill him. But he's under order. So he demands to meet him. And Batman, he chooses Crime Alley, which is so poetic. You know, Crime Alley. Once again, if you're living under a rock, that is the alley where his parents were murdered. so superman he tries the first reason with batman but batman wasn't having it he uses his technological uh inventions to fight him uh uh to get even ground on him during the battle superman uh well first let me say batman had this echo suit or this this this what could i call this suit this uh uh superman fighting suit and so he has this suit that can withstand or at least attempt to restrain the power of superman but we all know when that fight first started superman was holding back he didn't want to kill bruce you know that that wasn't that wasn't his that wasn't his intent but he has this suit but superman manages to uh breach it to compromise it however um out of the blue we get green arrow oliver queen he shoots uh superman with this kryptonite tipped arrow that weakens him and now a little backstory on that we find out that superman took green arrows arm he severed his arm and that was because of this you know this superhero uh uh i don't know act that you know that that read the world of superheroes and oliver queen wasn't having it oliver queen got the same temperament as batman so you know he wasn't going to go down without a fight and uh superman uh took took his arm i mean how can you shoot an arrow with one arm it's so he took his arm but anyways he finds a way to shoot Dead Arrow. and weakens uh superman in in an act of revenge and so he beats him bro he he beats i'll be batman beat superman to almost to death and we have one of the most iconic lines in all of comic book lore i want you to remember clark and all your days to come in all your most private moments i want you to remember my hands at your throat i want you to remember the one man that beat you and at that moment uh bruce caught a heart attack he had a sudden heart attack and he died and i thought bruh this is this is this is this is poetry this was this was poetry just spilled out on a comic book it's it's comic books like this when i hear people say that comic books are kitty it ain't for me oh you read comic books you're a nerd all that foolishness read this read read the dark knight returns and then come with that same energy there's no such thing it this is phenomenal man phenomenal so after the quote-unquote death of bruce wayne alfred he destroys the the bat cave uh he catches a fatal stroke and die you know exposing batman as bruce wayne um uh uh the fortune his fortune disappears you know all that money the the billionaire the billions of dollars. They disappear after his funeral. It is revealed that his death was staged. It was staged. He was in a suspended viral life thing. It was something. He took some type of chemical agent that slowed his heart rate down to the point that you would thought he was dead. Even fooled Clark Kent, who can hear his heart. And that's how he got exposed because Clark, he was at the funeral and he winked. He winked at Carrie, Carrie Kelly, who was there because he heard Bruce Wayne's heartbeat in the grave. And he just looked at the grave and smiled. And he knew that he got over. He got him. So after that, we we find that Bruce Wayne, he's leading Robin. He got Oliver Queen, the other followers, the sons of Batman. They're in this cave and it's beyond the Batcave. But he's preparing to continue the war on crime. And that was the end of this saga, this graphic novel. But like I said, I'm not going to argue with you if you feel that this isn't. number one on the list but it's definitely top three gotta be top three graphic novels of all time this was so entertaining all four issues were great all four and they all ended like on these epic little endings it wasn't really a cliffhanger per se it was just great endings that could stand alone but it kept going It's... Even with this, even with the final one, I always expected more to come out. And they did have sequels. They did have sequel comics or graphic novels to this. In a sense, they had a prequel, Batman Year One, that Frank Miller did. Spawn in Batman, this little crossover event that you had with Batman and Spawn. But the direct sequel, The Dark Knight Strikes Again. That was basically three years after The Dark Knight Returns, I believe. I think he's training all of his followers. I think Lex Luthor was involved in this. There's a lot in here. Catwoman and Superman, Wonder Woman. The Flash is in it. It was a whole bunch in that one. The Dark Knight 3, The Master Race, that came out a few years ago. I know it was in the 2000s. I can't remember exactly what year, but I didn't read that one. That one I didn't read because I heard it got some bad reviews and I never went back. I always said I would, but I've yet to go back to read it. But yeah, they had, I think, another one after that too. But I didn't read those two either. But that's that's it for those. But going into going into other media, the movies, the animated films, Dark Knight Returns, part one and two. I loved it. It was a pretty much a beat by beat. I didn't realize how close of an adaptation it was, you know, because I'm used to seeing such a departure when it translates from medias. But this didn't. You know, you had a couple of changes, like a couple of lines of dialogue here and there, which is expected. But as far as the story is concerned, the story beats in the main plot points. It's all there. It was basically just a motion comic. That's what it felt like watching it. Peter Reller provides the voice of Bruce Wayne, Batman in this in these two films. And man, look, it took me a minute to actually receive that because we were still deep into Kevin Conroy. This before his untimely passing. And I was like, man, Kevin Conroy could still do an older version of Bruce Wayne. Why are they getting Peter Weller? And I like Peter Weller, you know, in case you don't know, he played Robocop. I like his voice and all, but as Batman? It worked. It took me a minute to warm up to it, but it worked. I loved his voice, that old, grizzled, beaten voice, but with power behind it. It was a perfect choice as far as casting is concerned for the telling of this particular story. I highly recommend watching those two films. If you're not a reader. and you just want to watch it, watch a film, watch the films, watch those two movies. They are... a direct adaptation of this graphic novel live action wise i always wanted a live action adaptation of the dark knight returns and we never got a true adaptation we got pieces of it throughout films involving batman but never a straight up adaptation there was an attempt they almost did it and it was i want to say after after batman forever that they were going to do a adaptation but they decided to go with batman and robin instead i don't know what they were drinking smoking or shooting up their arms but whatever but they decided to go that route but they were gonna attempt to do an adaptation a live action adaptation Clint Eastwood was considered for Batman in this version. David Bowie was considered for the Joker in the live-action version. And that would have been perfect. I think that's perfect. Think about the time this was going to come out. This was late 90s. That is perfect. David Bowie would have been great as Joker. This particular Joker? Oh, he would have fit in like a... glove it this would have been great clint eastwood i think he was i think he still would have been too old at that time but i think they could have made it work i think he would have worked out pretty well at that point because this was around the time unforgiving came out and so yeah i could have saw that i could have saw that uh but uh no they decided against it now but like I see it. they picked the bones of this graphic novel and just threw little nuggets throughout the films uh uh throughout the batman film series you know you had uh the tumbler the tumbler that was in you know all of christopher nolan's batman's that batmobile version that was a version of the design from the dark knight returns a smaller version the one that was in the comics was bigger than the tumblr but uh that was basically a grounded version of the tumblr that's or of the uh batmobile from the dark knight returns now the one that is most i guess you could say the closest that we ever got to a live action adaptation of the Dark Knight Returns was of course batman v superman dark uh donna justice which came out in 2016 they borrowed so much from that comic it is it makes me mad because that's the one film i never got a chance to talk about this film it and and on this show i should say because i talk about it a lot but i never got a chance to talk about on this show. this this is a first but i wanted this movie to work so bad i have never in my life wanted a movie to be good so bad in my life and haven't since i've never felt that way since this movie i don't feel the way other people feel they like oh man that movie was horrible i don't think the movie is horrible could it be better absolutely but was it horrible no i don't think it's horrible um it's rewatchable shockingly enough i've re-watched that movie a couple of times and so it's not like offensive to my senses but what makes that movie so disjointed there was way too much going on way too much going on and if they would have stuck to one little thing you know like adapting the dark knight returns would have been perfect would have been perfect before this particular story you know for what zack snyder was trying to do you was but they got so caught up in trying to create this cinematic universe and introduce flash introduce aquaman introduce wonder woman and uh put doomsday in it and Set up the justice lead and do a- Oh my god, it was just too- much and still trying to make it a sequel to man of steel at the same time it made absolutely no sense but it doesn't that's a whole nother show i it i'll have to dedicate an entire show to batman v superman it's all in a justice and being as dope this is the 10 year anniversary of that movie i'm probably gonna do it this year i'm probably gonna have a show dedicated It actually is no probably to it. I will have that coming up in a couple of months. Stay tuned for that. But as far as it's element, the elements of the Dark Knight Returns in this film, I would say 60 to 75 percent of this movie is the Dark Knight Returns. Every scene that involves Batman is basically from the Dark Knight Returns, even dialogue. there is dialogue that is taken straight from the comic book and it is it is mind-boggling you have let's start with the similar you have the robin you had you had jason todd's death we see jason todd's suit or costume in the bat cave on display because he was murdered that that was that's in there you have bruce wayne being older and hardened uh mid 50s probably i don't think they ever stated what ben affleck's age was in the film because i he didn't look 55 but i will say he's 55 but he definitely wasn't grizzled and you know clint eastwood looking you know i think ben affleck could still play batman you know i really enjoyed ben affleck's performance as batman I think he's one of the best Batman live action adaptations that we've got. I know at me. I don't care. That's my opinion. But he was older. He had retired after 10 years. He fought Superman. He had the Echo suit. He used the kryptonite arrow. Didn't have green arrow to shoot it, but it was in there. The fight they had. the uh the bomb going off the the the nuclear bomb that almost killed superman that was in here uh he had to float up to the sun to get his power back um you had all of those elements everything that was basically in the comic was in here mind-boggling it was like my god uh Like I stated before, the Joker, the 2019 film with the talk show, that came straight from the comics here. The Justice League, Zack Snyder's version, the good one. The Batmobile that's at the very end, that was the actual Batmobile, the exact same design. That huge tank that Batman is standing on top of at the end of that movie, that is what's in the comics. in an interview recently, um, I say recently, but it was the last couple of years. Zack Snyder did an interview with Hollywood reporter or somebody, and they asked him, you know, if he ever would come back to DC and do a film. And he said, it's only one thing. It's only one thing I will come back to do. And that is to do a live action adaptation of the dark night returns a true representation. I would love that. I'm not mad at that because what he did in Batman v Superman was actually good. You know, outside of that, that's what it started. The movie was falling apart, but those elements were good. I could tell that he is a Batman fan. He respects that material. He respects this comic book, and I would love to see his adaptation. But like I said. I don't think we'll ever see it in my, at least in my lifetime, a live action adaptation. But I've been wrong before. But as far as the graphic novel is concerned, it is one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. It changed comics. It changed how you viewed comics. The bubblegum kitty version of comic books, it all went to the wayside after this comic book. came out now they had darker stories in comics before this don't get me wrong it wasn't like everything was was bubble gum and rainbows and then the dark knight returns came out and it was like oh my god no it was it was a lot of murder and foolishness that went on in comics before this but this was such a game changer because you're taking a beloved character one of the most popular characters in comics and making him so adult to the point kids couldn't read this they couldn't read this graphic novel man this was so rated r and it changed how you looked at this character We didn't get Adam West's version, campy version of Batman after this. The next film, live action adaptation that you got was Tim Burton's version, which he has come out and said that he was deeply influenced by The Dark Knight Returns. Yeah, it had a little camp to the 1989 Batman, but it was so dark and moody. Because of this graphic novel, the stories... that were adapted from this i listed a whole bunch of you know christopher nolan's version and uh zach snyder's version and so on and so forth the joker film it's so much came out of this novel and not only the batman but other comic characters and that spanned not only in dc but also in marvel they decided to take some more chances with grounded darker material as well because of this comics if the influence runs deep and i appreciate it for that it is such a joy to have read this when it came out i i'm telling you bro i tell my kids all the time they don't know what they missed not being around when i grew up you know it's fun it's all good and i appreciate the fact that all information is at a click of a finger now you know good that's good because i definitely need it but it was a joy growing up and you had to find discover things you know picking up a comic book taking a chance on reading a comic you know and things of that nature and yet it was just a fun time and discovering these new things that that was a phenomenon around that time You know, it was talked about in school. Like, man, did you read this? Did you did you watch this and all this? I mean, that was fun. That was great, man. And if you didn't see it and you wanted to be a part of the conversation, you would hurry up and go find it. You go watch that movie or you go pick up that comic because it sounded the way these kids are describing it. When I was going to school, man, this sounds like the greatest thing on grass, green earth. I need to see this. or I need to read this. And around this time, a lot of the people that I was growing up with, they read this comic, they read this graphic novel, and I knew I had to read it. And I read it and I felt so much joy reading. Yeah, it was a lot of confusion that was going on. But, but I accepted it for what it was. And eventually I got it eventually. I realized that, okay, this is a different Batman and I love it. So yeah, man, 40 years, it deserves his rightful place as one of the best, but that's just my opinion. I would love to know yours. Did you read the four issue graphic novel Batman? The dark night returns. I would love to know what were your feelings? Are you a Batman fan? Did this make. you become a Batman fan or vice versa. I would love to know your thoughts. Where were you in 1986? What was your age? I was a little tight. I had no business reading The Dark Knight Returns. But I snuck that on in anyway. But I want to know your thoughts. Email the show kbradiopodcast at gmail.com. You can also search for the show on all social media platforms. Just search for the KB Radio network also don't forget about youtube subscribe to the kb radio network channel and like this video if you don't mind don't forget about the five stars the reviews and sharing this show if you're listening on apple podcast spotify iheart radio wherever you are currently listening to movie goodness here on the kb radio network everybody thank you for joining me for this little chit chat about the 40th year anniversary of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. I want you all to know that I love you. Continue to love everyone. And until we speak again. You all be blessed.

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