This year is the 40th anniversary of The Dark Knight Returns, and to celebrate the momentous event, legends Frank Miller and Klaus Janson hit the stage at ComicsPRO to talk about some stories you might not know about the iconic DC Comics series.
Things kicked off with a video of everyone from James Tynion IV and Mark Waid talking about the impact of the series, before Jim Lee hit the stage to introduce Miller and Janson. Lee noted that when he first read Dark Knight Returns, he said, “I must become a comic book artist. Not a terribly fast one. Not the most reliable one… But this is what I have to do… I would not be standing here as President of DC Comics without it.”
Then it was time for Miller and Janson to come on stage, to sustained applause and a standing ovation from the crowed of comic book retailers. Asked what he had in mind when he first decided to write DKR, Miller said, “What I had in mind was, I wanted to do a Batman story that introduced the concept of superheroes… With time. The audience was no longer a bunch of kids. I wanted to see what would happen to Batman if the hero became as old as his legend… At the time, I thought what would old age be? Oh, 50. I was 29 at the time.”
Continuing, Miller explained that in the ’80s he lived in New York, which was not great. “From that point i began reconstructing Batman and getting rid of the junk… And keeping the cool stuff. I ended up keeping a lot more stuff than I expected.”
So, what about Carrie Kelly? “I never thought there would be a Robin.” It was John Byrne’s idea to make “Robin a girl… I set about creating Carrie Kelly… All of a sudden there was a bright spot in Batman’s dark world. All of a sudden this middle age superhero became a father.”
As for Janson, he came on board when he was dropping off material at DC, and Dick Giordano walked towards him. “He was his usual jovial self… He looked at me with a grin and said, ‘Frank is making a Batman project.'” Janson said yes almost immediately.
Once Miller got into it, “I started tearing the pages up, and taking things out… The first pages that Klaus received had all the structural integrity of–“
“It was like inking an accordion,” interrupted Janson. But would he have taken the project if he had known he’d be inking 60 panel pages? “I did not… Honestly, it would not have made a difference.”
Moving on to talk about his thoughts on what works about this as a Batman story, Miller said, “At the beginning of Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne is honoring the end… Honestly, he stopped being Bruce Wayne when he was a little boy… Now he’s an older rich guy who’s taking bigger and bigger risks.”
One little Easter egg? I may have missed the exact phrasing, but they pointed out the first page of the first issue says “this would be a good death” and the last page of the last issue says “This was a good life.”
Continuing with Easter eggs, what about the cab driver in the first half of the story? “Okay, here’s the thing about comics,” Miller said. “They are a collaborative medium. And one of the nice things about a collaborative medium is you can always blame the person next to you.” Miller had drawn a non-descript cab driver, and when Janson inked it he thought it looked like Walt Simonson, who shared a studio with Miller at the time. So that’s how he inked it, even though that wasn’t Miller’s intention. “And now it’s Walter Simonson forever,” said Janson to applause from the crowd.
After some talk about Carrie Kelly — “I love Carrie Kelly, she won my heart over,” said Miller — they discussed the enduring quality of the book. Janson chalked it up to, basically… It’s good. “The story was perfect,” Janson said. “I had the opportunity when we started working on Master Race… I was really taken aback by how good this story. I think it is as close to perfection as Frank and I can come. It’s really, really good. And Frank did an amazing job.”
Added Miller, “Right back at ya pal.”
One last Easter egg, what about the seeming cameo from none other than Matt Murdock that went unnoticed for decades. Whose fault is it? Jansons. “I plead the fifth… What do you want me to say?” said Janson to laughter about putting the Marvel character in the book.
“There’s nothing they can do about it,” added Miller. “DC Comics now owns Daredevil.”
The panel ended talking about the image of Batman and Carrie Kelly leaping through the Gotham, with Miller recalling his inspiration. “Often used and frequently used sense of wonder… To bring up a sense of magic. You might remember the Christopher Reeve Superman movie had the best slogan of all time: ‘You will believe a man can fly.’ … I wanted to to make you feel like you happened to look out a window and you saw this, and the world became magical.”
And then there was a brief digression to talk about the Carrie Kelly solo graphic novel, with Miller noting, “The Carrie Kelly book was a magical opportunity, for once to just do a book about her… To see her operating solo… I’m not exactly known for doing graphic novels with children characters… It’s an all-ages book, and it features just some of the characters you wouldn’t expect. I mean I don’t think you’d expect me to use Killer Croc as a lovable character.”
Finally, the panel wrapped up, with Janson stating, “Thank you for the last 40 years,” followed by another standing ovation from the appreciative crowd.
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