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May 28, 2008

Terrence Wandtke, Frank Miller Strikes Again and Batman Becomes a Postmodern Anti-Hero: The Tragi(Comic) Reformulation of the Dark Knight

(In The Amazing Transforming Superhero)

Ye gods, Wandtke loves his long titles. I think I'm just going to call my thesis "Reintroduction," and be done with it. No overlong subtitles, no contrived academic puns, just one word.

Anyway.

I don't actually have much to say about this chapter. It was an interesting comparison between the original Dark Knight Returns and the more recent Dark Knight Strikes Again from a Žižek-Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective, but didn't really offer much for my purposes unfortunately, and seemed strangely out of line with the theme of the book, especially considering Wandtke is the editor.

There was a handful of dubious statements such as the suggestion that most superheroes other than the Miller's version of Batman never consider life without an alter-ego. Really? I'm having a hard time thinking of any superhero who never considered dropping the tights (figuratively speaking) and leading a normal life. That's practically Spider-Man's defining feature!

The best point made in the article was that DKR is best viewed as a modernist text, while DKSA is post-modern to the core, which is a very accurate assessment that could have used more development.