Bookish Thoughts

The Dark Knight Returns  is another of Frank Miller's Batman mini-arcs. This one is four issues long and takes place a decade after Batman has retired. But he decides to jump back into the action because, well... Look, reading comics is a skill. One I don't entirely have. You don't just read them. You look at the art. You take it all in. You think about it. And I probably read this one too fast. I might read it again some day and then I'll have a better understanding of what happened. But here's what I think happened. Harvey Dent has been rehabilitated, according to his psychiatrist. And his plastic surgeon has managed to fix his face. So they're releasing him from Arkham Asylum. Even though Bruce Wayne publicly supports this, it seems to trigger Batman into making a reappearance. In the meantime Police Commissioner Gordon is nearing retirement and a gang of mutants are trying to kill him. Oh, and the Cold War with Russia is still going on....

Comic book super heroes are everywhere. I never read comic books growing up, but I definitely knew who Batman and Superman were. I knew the origin stories, the costumes, the main villains. And I learned most of it by osmosis. There was always some sort of Batman cartoon on TV, along with those wonderfully cheesy movies from the 90s. And I loved Smallville in high school, though I didn't make it through all ten seasons. The heroes were larger than life. The details ultimately didn't matter that much. All that really mattered was that Bruce Wayne dressed up as a bat with high tech gadgets and saved Gotham City from the likes of The Riddler and Two-Face. Or Clark Kent took off his glasses and put his underwear on the outside and saved Metropolis from Lex Luthor while seducing Lois Lane. Or Peter Parker got bit by a radioactive spider and, um, liked redheads? I know less about Spiderman. Of the classic superheroes, Batman is my favorite. It may be because I was exp...

Yesterday morning twitter informed me that it was Free Comic Book day.  I immediately followed the link to find a participating comic book store nearby and went off to collect my free comic book.  Well, I didn't end up getting a free comic book; most of the selection was aimed at kids.  But I did get my hands on Frank Miller's Batman: Year One  and I rounded out my Sandman  collection with Death: The High Cost of Living . Batman: Year One  was published in 1986 as part of DC's effort to reimagine some of its superheros and introduce them to a new generation.  I don't think this book does much to alter Batman's origin story, but it adds some detail. Honestly, it's interesting to start thinking about the major superheroes.  They're all familiar, but the details of the stories differ over the years.  Bruce Wayne became Batman in 1939, in 1986, and in 2005.  I'm sure there were variations on his origin story told multiple...