The Superhero Reader

by Worcester, Kent, Hatfield, Charles, Heer, Jeet

  One key historical intertext for Miller’s work is Dr. Fredric Wertham’s notorious book, Seduction of the Innocent. Published in 1954, the 397-page opus condemned the comic book industry for degrading American values, and for spreading social and moral perversion. His words on superhero comic books still echo in the genre today:

  What is the social meaning of these supermen, superwomen, superlovers, superboys, supergirls, super-ducks, super-mice, super-magicians, supersafe crackers? How did Nietzsche get into the nursery? … Superheroes undermine respect for the law and hardworking decent citizens.10

  He had this illuminating passage specifically devoted to Batman:

  Only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychology and the psychopathology of sex can fail to realize a subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism which pervades the adventures of the mature “Batman” and his young friend “Robin” … Robin is a handsome ephebic boy, usually shown in his uniform with bare legs … he often stands with his legs spread, the genital region discreetly evident.11

  Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson’s life in Wayne Manor is described as “the wish dream of two homosexuals living together.” The shine on this observation was only made to sparkle more brightly in light of the Adam West Batman show that graced the airwaves in the 1960s. Since that time, these terms have colored the impression of Batman for the non-comic book reading public and have forced on the defensive those fans reading the more “serious” Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams Batman of the 1970s, readers who viewed this perspective as insulting, but had no terms in which to reply.12

  Miller responds to the instincts of mainstream fandom and “refutes” these passé charges without denying Wertham his observation that homoeroticism plays a role in the superhero story. He synthesizes both perspectives, both aspects of the comic book tradition, while remaining inside the framework of the Batman folklore. His conciliatory (and revisionary) move is to cast a girl in the role of the new Robin. The original Robin, Dick Grayson, makes no appearance in The Dark Knight Returns; Bruce cryptically informs Commissioner Gordon that they have not spoken for seven years. The second Robin, Jason Todd (whose uniform is seen in a glass case at the center of the Batcave), died, and because Batman feels responsible for Todd’s death, he retired ten years ago. Carrie Kelly, the new Robin, is picked up in the course of The Dark Knight Returns, and through her gender provides interesting commentary on the role of her young male predecessors.

  Several scenes are particularly germane to this discussion. The first occurs after Carrie Kelly is initially brought to the Batcave with an almost mortally wounded Batman. She has saved his life (albeit barely) and tagged along in the Batmobile with conscious plans of becoming the next Robin (she has already crafted a uniform by hand). A young girl waiting with anxiety to discover if her hero will live, she is placed in the role of a concerned wife or lover. Two small panels at the bottom right of the right-hand page show a large hand being placed on her shoulder as she turns her head: the page turn reveals a full-page spread (the comic book equivalent of “music swells”), which is not a reunion kiss, suggested by the lead-in drama, but a completely non-sexual embrace, almost a parody of the lover’s embrace.13 In another scene, Robin nearly falls to her doom but is rescued by Batman. Safe from death but still hovering over the water, she straddles Batman’s crotch and clutches to him tightly. Here, the female Robin is cast in the role of the damsel in distress (cf. Superman’s characteristic swoop downward to catch the recurrently falling Lois Lane), but again the result, which, like the earlier embrace, could be read as sexual (and in the damsel in distress role would be), simply defies the reader to interpret it in this manner.14 It is difficult to find sexual tension in Batman’s “Good soldier. Good soldier.”15

  In both these scenes, the setup hints at the possibility of a sexual reading, then frustrates the fulfillment of this desire. Rather than provide more sexual tension (as a similar situation might in early Hollywood films, which often coded sexual moments in such a way as to be suggestive while avoiding the censors), the dissonance between the erotic frame with which the reader is provided and the ostensible content short circuits the sexual reading altogether. Those who are familiar with Wertham’s book or its echoes—ubiquitous in popular culture parodies of Batman—will be on the lookout for these kinds of homoerotic signifiers and discover Miller toying with them. Casting Robin as a girl places the sexual relation of Batman and Robin in a more socially acceptable light, as if the sexuality can and thus will be brought out into the open, then still denies that the sexuality is there. The reader is invited to conclude that it never was, that age is the obvious barrier to this reading of the Batman-Robin relationship, not homosexuality. The one moment that does suggest sexuality in Robin comes when she sees the corpses left behind by the Joker. Batman narrates, “A tiny hand tightens its grip on my arm … A girl of thirteen breathes in sharply, suddenly, her innocence lost,”16 but this must be read in the context of Batman’s relationship to the Joker, and the Joker’s relation to sexuality within the narrative.

  Having evaded Wertham’s claims for Batman and Robin, Miller is not so naive as to insist that homoeroticism is entirely absent from the Batman narrative, and in fact provides for it a consequential role in The Dark Knight Returns. The final joke on Wertham is Miller’s ability to avoid homoeroticism in the Batman-Robin relationship while at the same time raising the question, transferring it to the antagonistic relationship between Batman and the Joker. Miller caters to instincts that Batman and Robin’s relationship is not a thinly disguised homoerotic fantasy, but also gives Wertham his due by not invoking a reactionary position (as C. S. Lewis did in regard to Shakespeare’s sonnets), that the homoerotic has no place at all.

  The Joker’s role in The Dark Knight Returns brings homoeroticism out into the open for one of the first times in mainstream superhero comic books. Like Batman, the Joker has been the subject of various disparate portrayals in the Batman titles and has gone through an equal amount of instability regarding his history and character. A disturbed murderer in the 1940s and early 1950s, he becomes silly rather than evil after the crackdown on violence in comics in 1954 (led by Wertham’s book), then slowly returns to his earlier viciousness as comics begin to recover. Miller’s Joker has the personality of an aging, degenerate rock star, as murderous as he is effete. The Dark Knight Returns portrays the Joker in a role that synthesizes these dual and opposing personae. The dialogue between hero and villain unearths Wertham’s general charges of homoeroticism in Batman, and the shift from Batman/Robin to Batman/Joker makes the claim significantly more interesting and complex. The effect is not, as some have claimed, simply a homophobic attempt to align homosexuality with evil, but rather provides a subterranean connection between two characters who seem, on the surface, to be diametrically opposed.

  Sketching out a specific level of connection between antagonists in this work, however, cannot be appreciated without at least mentioning the more general part Batman’s villains play in the series. Every major member of the villain’s gallery operates as a kind of reflection of some aspect of Batman’s personality or role so that an understanding of one of the villains always sheds light on Batman himself. Some examples, expanding Reynolds’s observations on the Penguin and Two-Face,17 will make this clear. Two-Face is always given at least some part in every major Batman story because of his parallel relation to Batman: a successful upper-class socialite, the district attorney of Gotham City had half his face scarred by acid thrown when he was prosecuting the mob. This trauma resulted in a split personality and an obsession with duality and the number two. Bruce Wayne, upon seeing his parents murdered, suffered a similar personality split: the creation of the Batman alter ego. The Penguin reflects the dark side of Bruce Wayne’s millionaire capitalist playboy routine. Mr. Freeze points out the dark side of Bruce Wayne’s utter lack of emotion as Batman. The shape-shifter, Clayface, suggests the anti-essential nature of the Batman/Bruce Wayne relationship, both of which are seen as personae
(Batman to scare criminals, Wayne to cover up Batman under the role of a disaffected rich fop). Poison Ivy uses criminal activity (and Batman’s vigilante status is, of course, illegal) for a good cause, ecology. The Scarecrow, whose entire existence is devoted to fear, recalls that the intention of the Batman persona is the edge provided by terror. The Mad Hatter’s mind control reflects the extremities of Batman’s methods of coercion. The Riddler parodies Batman’s role as the great detective. Man-Bat provides another example of a Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation that, like Batman, only emerges at night. The Ventriloquist questions, in terms of split personality, who is the puppet and who is the puppeteer. Even a ludicrously silly villain like the Calendar Man, who commits theme crimes once a month, reflects Batman’s monthly publishing schedule. Miller actually conceives of Ronald Reagan, who wants Batman brought down, in terms of his reflective relation to the Dark Knight: a spokesman for the president informs the news that “it’s noisy, all right. That big cape and pointy ears—it’s great show biz. And you know the president knows his show biz.”18 The political similarity between the two is a major theme of The Dark Knight Returns. Miller is very aware of this function of Batman’s villains and draws the reader’s attention to it early. Confronting Batman face-to-face (as it were), Two-Face asks him what he sees: “I see a reflection, Harvey. A reflection.”19 Under this schema, any understanding of the Joker—violent, insane, or sexually deviant—will reflect an aspect of Batman.

  The Joker is clearly in some kind of dormant state at Arkham Asylum, watching television in a common room without his trademark smile—until he hears news reports of Batman’s return to the streets. As the smile slowly grows, his only reaction is to say, “Darling”20 (by which the Joker will refer to Batman throughout The Dark Knight Returns). Claiming rehabilitation, he appears on a kind of David Letterman show (along with Dr. Ruth Westheimer). Dr. Wolper, the Joker’s psychotherapist, claims, “My patient is a victim of Batman’s psychosis,” and that the nature of this psychosis is “sexual repression, of course.”21 “We must not restrain ourselves,” says the Joker, as he begins his killing spree by kissing the sex therapist, poisoning her.22

  In a later apostrophe to Batman, remarking to himself that he no longer keeps track of how many people he has killed, the Joker coyly notes, “But you do. And I love you for it.”23 Were this sexuality only found in the Joker it would suggest a simple connection between sex (“deviant” sexuality) and evil, but Batman’s dealings reveal a complex dynamic at work. Earlier in the narrative, Batman and Two-Face crash through a window together: Batman narrates: “We tumble like lovers,”24 and the Joker’s intriguing combination of feminine and masculine signifiers—the delicate application of makeup, a “tough guy” build, speech affectations, aggressive physical violence—must be seen in light of the fact that the issue devoted to him opens with Batman dressed as a woman.25 As Batman descends on his most hated villain, the reader is privy to this piece of Batman’s interior monologue, ostensibly about finally killing the Joker but suggestive of something else:

  Can you see it, Joker? Feels to me … like it’s written all over my face. I’ve lain awake nights … planning it … picturing it … endless nights … considering every possible method … treasuring each imaginary moment … from the beginning, I knew … that there’s nothing wrong with you … that I can’t fix … with my hands. …26

  The final battle between the two occurs in the Joker’s most often-used site, the carnival. A skirmish in the House of Mirrors suggests that the two are dark reflections of each other, and the Joker’s death, the consummation of the Batman-Joker relationship referred to in the passage above, occurs, appropriately, in the Tunnel of Love. All this serves to address Wertham’s earlier claims about the subtext of superhero literature; in addressing nearly fifty years of comic book history, in trying to make sense of a chaotic tradition, Miller cannot avoid it. He is able to write a Batman without the camp and silliness of the Adam West series (the Dick Sprang years of the comic book) but while still understanding the character as operating over a background informed by a homoerotic subtext. By moving the focus from Robin to the Joker, he swerves from understanding this subtext as specifically linked to superhero narratives (through the sidekick, an archetypal role in superhero stories), suggesting, rather, that it operates in all antagonistic narratives: a relatively pedestrian illustration of the widely accepted Freudian thesis on the link between sexuality and violence (regardless of sexual preference). Miller brings together hero and villain, and hints at the collapse between them. This thesis is reinforced by the observation that, moments before his death, the Joker’s word bubbles take on the color and shape used to distinguish Batman’s speech. […]

  The collapse between antagonists, however, only points to a larger, more dangerous, pattern of collapse between Batman and his more shadowy reflective antagonist: the political. The Dark Knight Returns is also known for overtly engaging political issues, but this observation misses the point that Miller makes in bringing political realities to Batman: comic books have always had a political dimension, usually supporting whatever hegemonic discourse (most often conservative) the decade at hand had to offer. (It is interesting to note in this context that the father of all superhero stories—Action Comics #1 (1938), the first appearance of Superman—involved Superman stopping fifth columnists trying to get America “embroiled” in the war in Europe.)27 Like the issues of homoeroticism and violence, Miller wants to foreground a submerged aspect of comic book tradition. He chooses, along with cold war Reagan-era politics, a more structural aspect of superhero politics: its fascistic tendencies.

  Three aspects of superhero comic books are at work here. First, superheroes, and Batman especially, always rely on physical violence and intimidation to fight crime. Batman himself is not unwilling to be physically brutal to acquire information, for example, and often relies on the threat or implied threat of violence to keep criminals in line. Second, it is often the case that the superhero is a kind of criminal—a vigilante. In these two respects, many masked crime fighters differ from the Ku Klux Klan only in that they are usually afforded socially acceptable status on a large scale.28 As masked men who take the law into their own hands, superheroes come dangerously close to some of the great evils in American history. Third, superheroes most often occupy a reactionary role, traditionally emerging only to meet a threat to the status quo. Large-scale social changes are a supervillain signature, manifesting when one wishes to take over the world or, alternatively, to destroy all human life, allowing nature to grow without humanity’s ecological poisoning, for example. However well intentioned, these kinds of moves almost always mark someone whom the superhero must stop, even in the case of a fellow superhero. Miller takes into account each of these aspects of the comic book tradition, especially the first two (Alan Moore’s Watchman focuses on the third). Where in most superhero stories these issues are usually accepted as assumptions, The Dark Knight Returns foregrounds their role as determiners of the text, and complicates them.

  Violence in Miller’s work has already been discussed in the context of his revisionary realism, but it should be kept in mind when understanding Batman’s status as a vigilante, also highlighted in The Dark Knight Returns. The work is interspersed with debates about the level of danger this kind of activity entails, and the degree to which Batman himself is a hero or villain. In the context of Batman’s overdetermination by his multivectored history, and Miller’s organization of that history, the question of Batman’s signification is raised in a television debate. An anti-Batman spokesperson debates publicly with Lana Lang, once a love interest for Clark Kent, and thus debating the more idealistic view of superheroes:

  Lana: One almost expects to see the Bat-Signal striking the side of one of Gotham’s Twin Towers. Yes, he gave us quite a night.

  Morrie: Sure kept the hospitals busy.

  Lana: Yes, Morrie, but I think it is a mistake to think of this in purely political terms. Rather, I regard it as a
symbolic resurgence of the common man’s will to resist. A rebirth of the American fighting spirit.

  Morrie: Ease up, Lana. The only thing he signifies is an aberrant psychotic force, morally bankrupt, politically hazardous, reactionary, paranoid. …29

  The difficulty is, of course, that Batman has at times signified all of these things. Here, Miller allows Batman’s interpretations to engage in dialectic rather than choosing a single perspective. Once again, Miller complicates a key assumption of the Batman tradition: his vigilante, and thus illegal, status. Unlike readers of the comic books that came before, Miller’s reader cannot wholeheartedly agree with Batman’s methods, but is instead invited to question his extremity.

  Batman’s disregard for civil rights arises only three pages after the debate quoted above. As Batman questions a suspect whom he has already left in a neck brace and crutches, the following Clint Eastwoodesque exchange takes place:

  Batman: You’re going to tell me everything you know, sooner or later. If it’s later—I won’t mind.

  Man: No!—Stay back—I got rights. [Batman throws him through a closed window onto a fire escape]