Completely Self-absorbed Top 100 Comic Runs You Need to Read

[Funt Solo]

Great review of Year One, Colin. Thanks.

[Trooper McFad]

At last Colin one I've actually read 😂 loved the review- I'll have to do a reread for myself as I've not read it in years see if it holds up on a full read.

[Le Fink]

Another Olympian review Colin, and this time one I've read - thanks!

When I read it at the time I was a little disappointed with the art - quite gloomy and not flashy enough for younger me. Maybe too realistic, and too down to earth. I didn't appreciate at the time how the drawing was (seemingly) effortlessly telling the story. And what a story.

I think I would now probably prefer to read this one than Dark Knight Returns so I think they have swapped places in my affections. Or perhaps I've just read DKR too many times. Looking forward to your DKR review, on the list or not.

[Colin YNWA]

Looking forward to your DKR review, on the list or not.

I'll not keep you waiting then...



Not on the list - Dark Knight Returns

Of the 1986 Trinity of comics, Watchmen, Maus and Dark Knight Returns, Miller's DKR is the one that hasn't stood the test of time, it also doesn't make my list. For me this one is not even close to Batman Year One. which is a far better Frank Miller Batman story. How does



stand up in my mind's eye. It's important to say I don't think DKR is a bad comic, far from it. It's just to be honest I'm not convinced it holds up as a truly great comic either, though I know many, MANY disagree with that assessment.

Now fair to say I've not read it for sometime and fully expect to do so again at some point and who knows how that will change my reflections. Last time I did re-read it, maybe a little over 10 years ago now I enjoyed it nowhere near as much as I did Maus or Watchmen which I read at a similar time. Frankly it felt too nasty and mean spirited. Now that alone shouldn't impact on my enjoyment of a tale. I mean there are a lot of comics I really enjoy that could be described as such. Its misanthropic tone certainly didn't help though, but there are other issues as well.

I've mentioned in a number of my write ups to this point that certain comics have the ability to balance different aspects of their story, different tones, themes and ideas really well. It's something I feel DKR doesn't do that well. For me it has two key things it tries to balance and fails. It seems to be trying to make Batman feel realistic, grounded and open to analysis as a serious superhero portrayal. At the same time it's examining Batman as an icon, an almost God like figure needed to set straight a world collapsing into chaos. To pull society out of a downward spiral with clenched fists and gritted teeth alone.

The two ideas seem to jar against each other in my reading, far from being balanced and thus able to enhance each other by their contrast, the impact of each lessens the impact of the other. It works best as an examination of superheroes as God-like figures, or figureheads. Pillars of society to be impressed by, even if not admired. Icons of such strength, force of will and purpose as to be able to drag society back from the brink. Frank Miller's art, at least when inked by Klaus Janson - a point I will return to - really supports that.

This however sits against closer examination of Bruce Wayne as a man. As a real person we can understand getting back in the rubber suit to once again fight the good fight. That closer examination, all the words used to scaffold it, detract from the iconic aspect. The close examination pulls you too close to successfully see the scale of the icon. The iconic portrayal undermines the attempts to mine the potential for a closer examination. One done so much more successfully and succinctly in Batman Year One only a year or so later.

This unsuccessful balance is probably most obvious in the story's use of Superman. I really don't like it at all. Now fair to say Superman has a specific purpose in a story set outside continuity and so this shouldn't bother me and to one degree it doesn't. Take this alternative Superman and use him as you will make him work how the story needs him too. After all we still have all the Superman stories with Clark as the finest, most righteous of us all. So here he can have another function. And to be honest I'm not even too fussed about Supes anyway, he's not a character I'm overly fond of just because of those portrayals of the square jaws, cleaner than clean  'boy scout'. However for Superman to work in this story, as a contrast with Bruce / Batman, he kind of needs to be that. Yet for him to work successfully in his role in this story he also can't be that. He needs to be something Bruce can rally against, he needs to represent the government. It just doesn't work. He needs to be the iconic good guy, the God-like figure, the contrast to Batman. Yet he needs to also be the puppet of an extreme Government otherwise he doesn't fulfil the story's needs.

The needs of the story trump the work on the character. So it is with Batman. He needs to be the iconic demi-God, yet he needs to feel entirely vulnerable and human. He ends up just feeling like a nasty piece of work.

I've mentioned the art already and while it's good, it's far from great and not as successful as Frank Miller and Klaus Janson collaboration on their Daredevil run.  To my eye Klaus Janson is a better inker of Frank Miller than Frank Miller is. His inks contribute so much to making Batman iconic, monolithic as opposed to the more fragile and broken inks Miller uses. I'm not sure who does what on DKR but it seems to be acknowledged that Frank Miller increasingly played with the inks as the series went on. In some ways that works as it emphasises the broken and fragile state of mind that Bruce Wayne has, but for me it also detracts from the hyper-real elements of the story. This story isn't realistic. It's so much more, but the shift in the art almost undermines that.

All that said the art is pretty damned great. It's just not as good as it could be. There lies another issue I have, one I've raised before. I worry I judge this not so much on how good it is in and of itself, but how good I'm meant to find it based on outside expectations. I know that Miller / Janson art is astonishing as I've seen it, so when it doesn't meet that expectation quite as well this time I judge it far more harshly than I otherwise would taking the art on its own merits. DKR is regularly heralded as one of the all time greats and as it doesn't meet those expectations for me I judge it all the harsher than I would without those expectations. Again I'm not sure I do, but I worry that I might. After all this is a very good comic story, it's one I look forward to reading again, if for no other reason than to completely re-evaluate everything I've just said! I might retract all this on re-read, it might escalate the points I have made, who knows?

Either way my current reflections, this work is a very good, but flawed story that was significant back in the day - though not as much as all three of those hailed titles should be, they became figureheads for 'Comics growing up.' but were part of a larger change, not the change in and of itself. It had massive influence but how positive that was is open to discussion. Frank Miller's Batman Year One is a much more successful Batman story examining many of the same themes and is an absolute artistic triumph where DKR is not.

One final thing when considering DKR, look at that image at the top of the page. That's Batman leaping into the future, away from the reader, heading towards the lightning and thunder. Always has been, is now... right, right... Well by complete coincidence just before writing this I saw a video that explained that Frank Miller has been quite clear the Batman figure is leaping forward towards the reader, it's his crotch you're seeing, not his bum. Can't unsee that now and so to me he's neither jumping away, nor jumping towards, he's not doing either properly anymore... fitting huh!

[Funt Solo]

Not on the list - Dark Knight Returns

Yeah - it's not aged well. Or - I've aged away from it. I have a lot of fondness for what a lot of what DKR does (more in a minute), but ultimately it's presented the argument that a Strong Man is needed to lead us, brutally, into the future. He will use a violent youth army to achieve his goal. It's all a little bit fascistic at that point.

The stuff I still love is the "what if Batman retired?" angle. Having The Joker incapacitated until Bruce tumbles out of retirement is masterful. Providing an answer to the question of "how will the battle between these two opposing forces end" was brave. That idea - of Batman (and Spidey, and Supes et al) being eternally ageless - was something that Dredd (at the time) seemed to be an antidote for. So, a story in which Batman has aged was so fresh.

Of course, DK2 and on gives the lie to that sense of the story being finite. Our own experience with Dredd is that he's stupidly old now but *magic hands*, and then somehow Anderson manages to get younger all the time (or, as I have it, has had an off-page daughter).

I'm veering wildly off-topic now, but The Small House bugged me because it used meta-comic-logic as Smiley's rationale. When he's explaining why he felt that allowing (for example) The Apocalypse War to happen was okay, because the statistics showed they'd probably win the war - he says to Dredd "and we had you". But Dredd is as destructible as anyone - there are loads of moments where he survives by the skin of his teeth - including during the War. You wouldn't logically hedge your bets on a guy that tends to like to run into bullets, unless you knew he was the main bread-winner for a successful British sci-fi comic and therefore had plot-armor. Smiley doesn't just exist between the walls - he exists between the pages.

Anyway, yeah - DKR - it really isn't as good as Year One.

[IndigoPrime]

There is another magic in Dredd, which I don't see in Batman or the Marvel stuff I'm slowly ploughing through: it's not a revolving door. There are few recurring villains. You don't every few issues see Villain 7 from a selection of 20 wheeled out, or yet another scrap between superheroes. So even given the hand-wave getting older thing (which seems slightly absurd given that Dredd started having doubts in, what the 300s or 400s and actually quit in the 600s), I think Dredd holds up as an ongoing well compared to many other strips.

[Jim_Campbell]

it's not a revolving door. There are few recurring villains.

This was one of things I remember causing a stir about Alan Grant's extended run across multiple Batman titles — he expanded the Rogue's Gallery enormously, because he just kept coming up with new villains.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

I've really enjoyed reading the differing views about The Dark Knight Returns, I've read it a couple of times but not for about twenty years, but I'm considering doing so again soon, and then checking out the sequels. I gather they're not as good, and that Miller's views became even more right wing as the years pass, though I read an interview in The Guardian from 2018 recently where he talks about regretting having said certain things (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/27/frank-miller-xerxes-cursed-sin-city-the-dark-knight-returns).

I also read for the first time Elektra: Assassin last year which I thought was superb, it's not without certain problems but I really found it to be gripping reading, and I've just started his Daredevil run. Again, it's not perfect, some of the writing is a little cliched, but I do really find it fascinating to see a far more adult take on the character, even if aspects of the story have dated.

[Vector14]

I got my hands on a UK reprint of Year One back when I only owned a few comics. I read it over and over.

I think the reprint only had the first two parts of the story in it. Years later,I picked up the graphic novel and it was still great.
In fact your post made me want to read it again now but I don't know where I've left the book.


Dark Knight Returns didnt make much of an impression on me either. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more without the hype.

[13school]

I always felt there was an extremely small Dredd influence on DKR, just on the "grim future city where gangs rule the streets and only one man dealing out instant justice can beat back the wave of crime" level. Which is much more just something going around pop culture at the time, but hey, they're both comics.

I read DKR when it first came out so I always wonder how much new readers (if it even has any) get the sense that it's meant to be taking place in the future, and not just a grim present day. There's been so many elseworlds and what if superhero stories since then that are set in the present but have had superheroes retire or change in the past that I assume these days DKR is seen in that light - the story is set now and Batman retired ten years ago, rather than Batman will retire in the near future and this is happening ten years beyond that.

Or I could stop worrying and just read Batman Year 100, which is more than decent in its own right.

[Colin YNWA]

it's not a revolving door. There are few recurring villains.

This was one of things I remember causing a stir about Alan Grant's extended run across multiple Batman titles — he expanded the Rogue's Gallery enormously, because he just kept coming up with new villains.

Yeah this is definately true and something we might be getting to down the road here. Grant's Batman run certainly drews a lot form what he learnt from Dredd, while expanding that in different way. Also Norm Breyfogle greatest Batman artist ever (discuss!).

I also read for the first time Elektra: Assassin last year which I thought was superb, it's not without certain problems but I really found it to be gripping reading, and I've just started his Daredevil run. Again, it's not perfect, some of the writing is a little cliched, but I do really find it fascinating to see a far more adult take on the character, even if aspects of the story have dated.

Things that we will be getting to and also relates to the point above. Miller does a great job of restoring what already existed in DD's universe to something that will define the series from that point on. There's a later run that we'll all have to be very patient for me to get to that takes that and does it better. Part of what makes that run better is the creative team expand upon what Miller did and introduce characters and villians in a way that's similar to Grant on Batman. Rather than restore the past that run, like Grant on Batman, builds it forward and one part of that is adding villians at a great rate, rather than going back to the well once again.

This is something it appears I really appreciate in my superhero comic runs and I do wonder if that stems from years of reading Dredd.

[Colin YNWA]

Dark Knight Returns didnt make much of an impression on me either. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more without the hype.

Yeah this is something I'm increasingly beginning to think about and maybe understand. My love of a comic is in part based on the expectation I have going in. Id its built as the best and I don't get that my institive reaction is is measure not against how much I enjoy it, rather how much I expect to enjoy it.

Great comics get past that as I enjoy them as much as I expect anyway, but others I judge with a harsher light. That's unfair but defo there I suspect.

Or I could stop worrying and just read Batman Year 100, which is more than decent in its own right.

Which is agreat series, one I really must return to at some point. Its not on the list but Batman Year 100 is great.

[IndigoPrime]

I don't recall when I read DKR. I do remember thinking it was quite an impactful story and an interesting concept, although to that point I'd read relatively little Batman. Its slightly fascistic leanings didn't irk too much, primarily because it was set in a dystopia and I'd read a lot of Dredd, although I suspect in the modern-day context I might have issues with it. The sequel, though, I recall being bloody awful in every conceivable way.

I only read Year One relatively recently. I thought that was solid, to the point I ended up tracking down an Eaglemoss take so I had it in HC. That said, even then I didn't have much to compare it to, not really being big on DC. Since then, I did end up buying a big box of Eaglemoss partwork titles from someone locally. I've read most of them now and, well, I dunno. Maybe I'm just not a Batman kinda guy.

(I didn't find the books bad. But the basic premise rubs me up the wrong way, and the revolving door doesn't help. "Villain X has escaped for the 47th time, and now Batman must stop him from killing more than a handful of people!" So I've only kept a smallish number of books. Marvel has similar issues, natch, although I find that more broadly readable, albeit in a 'throwaway' fashion. With that, I had the first 60 of the partwork, sold the collection and re-bought just two.)

[BadlyDrawnKano]

I only read Year One relatively recently. I thought that was solid, to the point I ended up tracking down an Eaglemoss take so I had it in HC. That said, even then I didn't have much to compare it to, not really being big on DC. Since then, I did end up buying a big box of Eaglemoss partwork titles from someone locally. I've read most of them now and, well, I dunno. Maybe I'm just not a Batman kinda guy.

I dip in and out with Batman, preferring mostly the 70's and 80's take on the character when he was supposed to be the world's greatest detective, and as with any long running series there's a hell of a lot of rubbish out there. I did just finish the Grant Morrison run though and in general I enjoyed it a lot, there are parts I have major problems with, but I thought Damian was handled very effectively, especially when he teamed up with Dick Grayson. It also only briefly uses the Joker, and when it spins off in to Batman Incorporated I thought Morrison took it in a fascinating direction. Again, not everything was to my taste (some of the Professor Pyg aspects felt too horrible) but I'd highly recommend picking up the first volume Batman and Son to see if it's too your taste.

[IndigoPrime]

I had those in the Eaglemoss run. They looked great and I enjoyed them enough, but they didn't stick in my keepers pile. Looking at that, it currently comprises (bar Year One/Killing Joke*+Man Who Laughs/DKR) Doom that Came to Gotham, Court of Owls/City of Owls, and three or four books all written by Paul Dini. I've no idea if this is Batman sacrilege, akin to being very excited about Sonny Steelgrave Dredd.

* Which I'm half keeping because of its importance in comics. I can't say I like it at all.