Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is a seminal work, arriving on the scene around the same time as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen. It made such a big splash that, like Watchmen, it was one of those rare funny books that was picked up by people who never usually read comics. As such, when Miller announced he was going to be returning to his gritty future version of Batman, expectations were high for both geek and non-geek alike. And then it came out. There's a reason that nobody speaks about the Dark Knight Strikes Again in the same hallowed tones as the original, and that's because it's total rubbish. Whatever political point Miller was trying to make with the elderly, rebellious Batman in the first series was totally lost amidst ill-defined pot shots at reality television and a preoccupation with Photoshop gradients everywhere. A lot of awkward conversations with those non-geeks who loved The Dark Knight Returns asking how the sequel was...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
