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Notes -
I haven't read this one, but I have read The Dark Knight Returns and a few Sin City comics.
There's a stock narrative in comic books, that Alan Moore's Watchmen and Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (gritty, confrontational deconstructions of American superhero comics) ushered in the dark age of superhero comics in the 90s and early 2000s, in which creators like Todd MacFarlane and Rob Liefeld were constantly pushing the boundaries of acceptability as far as sex, violence etc. go, but missing the subtlety and nuance that made Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns so effective.
I think this critique has merit when it comes to Watchmen, even though I no longer hold it in as high esteem as I once did (not because of its edgy content – in point of fact I think Moore's later From Hell is superior, in spite of being even more violent and raunchy – but because of its "look how clever I am" qualities). But to be quite honest, I don't think it's applicable to Miller. All of his works that I've read have seemed exactly as crass, one-dimensional and grimdark-for-the-sake-of-grimdark as MacFarlane and co.'s are made out to be. I will concede that Miller is a better artist than Liefeld (but then, who isn't?), but that's not the form the critique generally takes: it specifically holds that Miller is superior because of his greater sophistication and nuance in storytelling than his imitators. And nothing in his oeuvre that I've read has come close to justifying that claim.
Anyone who's tried to tell you that Miller knows anything about nuance is full of shit. Comic books aren't generally known for nuance period and Miller was considered a brick through the window even then. The problem is trying to isolate the work from the effect it had in the comics space. And Miller isn't just a writer, he's not a very good writer. As a comics artist he's actually more interesting despite his work getting arguably worse over time.
TDKR is seminal. Not because of how good it is - it's okay, if some scenes and sequences are purely edgy twists on existing Batman lore - but it's essentially become so influential that large chunks of it ended up incorporated back into Batman canon. And the artwork and presentation fits it perfectly. I maintain that the animated adaption Part 2 probably drives home how well/not well it's aged, especially when compared to commonly accepted "modern" Batman, but the sequence of him confronting the Joker is probably the best we've ever gotten including the live action adaptions. Year One I consider basically bland cardboard in comparison, although the fetish Batman readers seem to have for grittier origin stories is well served.
His Daredevil stuff is generally good to excellent, but the Netflix TV adaption that steals liberally from Man Without Fear is arguably as good in its first couple seasons.
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