10 Unique Visions Of Batman

1. Frank Miller

Frank Miller€™s best-remembered time as a Batman artist boils down to his impossibly great turn drawing The Dark Knight Returns, which is easily one of the greatest pieces of superhero fiction ever produced. In this majestic 1986 epic, Miller rendered Batman as a much older figure than usual. Instead of the sleek, muscular figure of the Neal Adams 70€™s, which was to be the template for 80€™s Batman artists like Alan Davis, Denys Cowan and Gene Colan to follow, Miller€™s older Batman was tough, bullish and BIG. His frame became burlier, his chest became much broader and his muscles became more forcibly defined. His mask showed signs of the wrinkles beneath it and his perfectly sculpted six-pack began to resemble a keg. This Batman strode around on tree trunk legs, with a thick, sagging neckline that often vanished into his faded cowl. If Batman HAS to get old, then this would definitely be the way to do it. The aura of violence that permeated this incarnation of our hero was pliable, tangible and, at times, even threatened to leap off the page. This gigantic tank of a senior citizen towered over those he would strike fear into, even more so when his massive frame was contrasted with the bright, zippy figure of Carrie Kelly€™s future Robin, who was rendered so small and agile in some panels that she truly began to resemble her namesake. This solid, rough-hewn depiction of The Bat reinforces, once and for all, that he is a creature of pure willpower and hints at the Nietzschean overtones that Grant Morrison and others would later make overt in the 2010s. He might have been craggy faced, contorted beyond belief and more demonic than ever before, but this was our Batman, neatly growing to encompass and incorporate all past and future incarnations of the character, from the scrappy nocturnal terror of the 40€™s, to the leaping, Technicolor joy of the €™50 & 60€™s, to the gritty, urban realism of the 70€™s and into the rapidly evolving 80€™s and 90€™s, even looking forward to the cocky cyber warrior of today€™s New 52. He was all of them and none of them at the same time. With this grizzled, veteran Batman haunting Gotham€™s futuristic skyline, readers could project all that and more under the character€™s weathered cape and cowl. That, more than anything else, was the triumph of Frank Miller as a Batman artist. Of course, there have been a lot more incarnations of Batman than that. Frankly, this article could easily have become a book unto itself, with spotlights placed on Kelly Jones€™ demonic Batman of the 1990€™s, or the wonderfully uncomplicated Batman of the €™66 books currently being published by DC. We could have looked at Greg Capullo€™s razor sharp, battle suited, tech savvy Batman, or Alex Ross€™ classic, photorealist take on the character - and maybe we will one day... For now though, feel free to sit back and peruse this list again and maybe even treat yourself to some of the stories mentioned here (if you haven€™t read them already). Whatever you do, remember that, no matter what else this life may throw at you, Batman is always out there saving people and making the world a better place, regardless of the decade...