Clark in DKIII: worth it?

[daBronzeBomma]

Once upon a time, I naively bought THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Then, I heard Frank Miller say how he actually liked Superman and wouldn't treat him the same way if he were to write him again.

So, later I bought THE DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Now, I'm hearing that Miller teamed up with Brian Azzarello to write another story set in the DKR universe. And Superman is again prominently featured. In a "good" way, I'm told.

Fool me three times, .... won't get fooled again.

31 years ago, he took the most famous crap in history on Superman. Can he be trusted at last?

Should I buy DARK KNIGHT III: THE MASTER RACE this holiday season or pass on it, from a Superman-first fan perspective?

Twice bitten, 10 times shy here. Has anyone read it yet?

[superduperman]

He does get better treatment here. It's still clearly a Batman book and Superman doesn't have a very good start but he does get the final battle. I'm hoping that Year One will be better.

[sakuyamons]

Nothing written by Frank Miller is worth it (to me, imo)

[daBronzeBomma]

He does get better treatment here. It's still clearly a Batman book and Superman doesn't have a very good start but he does get the final battle. I'm hoping that Year One will be better.

Hmmmm .... that's just enough hope to get me to consider buying it, but also just enough doubt to make me reconsider.

Tricky.

Ok, even if Clark did get a good ending, is he in the bulk of the whole story much? Aren't the bad guys a bunch of rogue Kryptonians in DKIII?

[Steven Ely]

If one wants a Superman story, I say read a Superman book.

Frank Miller's Dark Knight series are Batman books. I don't love his drawing style but Miller's Dark Knight and the reactions to it are fascinating to me. That's a Batman story from a grim grumpy old Batman's point of view, a Batman that's not exactly a role model. In '86 Frank Miller described him as "Sort of like Zorro meets Clint Eastwood. Comics need to get more of an adult readership. They've been stuck in kiddieland for a long time. Those old characters are real American myths, even though they were allowed to fall into disrepair. When they were created in the 1930s, Batman was a very frightening figure, and Superman was a symbol of the common man rising over the Depression. But they lost much of that power, because they've been published every month for 50 years, usually with interchangeable writers and artists. Comics had agreed to be Saturday-morning kid stuff and it's only recently that there's been a revolt against that."
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-03-...9_1_comic-book

What did Adam West think of it? "I was appalled by the Dark Knight books. It's so-o-o-o violent. Graphic! It's guys with knives, sticking the blade out and cutting skin off of cheeks in close-up. It's just really awful. It panders to violence. It's like Guns N' Roses and all that stuff. I mean, I'm very open to things. But that's not liberty, that licentiousness.''
http://www.1989batman.com/2014/08/vi...ing-stone.html

What did Michael Keaton think of it? "You can't ever go too dark for me. There is a way into that guy [Batman], a trick to it. [Being dark] was the one way to get into him; that is the only way I could get into him, and that's the way I went."
http://www.mtv.com/news/1503862/list...ichael-keaton/
"This was gutsy on his part, Tim said 'I'm doing Batman. Would you read the script?' I wasn't familiar with the comic, but here's what he did, he said, 'read this one', which was the Frank Miller thing, which was Dark Knight Returns. And I went, 'Whoa, this is interesting.' The look of it and the colors. So I went and read it and I though, 'This ain't gonna work.' But everything I said Tim kept nodding. 'He's ridiculously depressed. He's a vigilante. He's got this issue.' It was just so obvious what it is. I thought this is interesting as an actor but nobody is gonna make that. And then he goes, 'Yup, that's what I wanna do. That's exactly what I wanna do.' And I thought, 'Oh, really? Oh, dude.' And I said 'Okay.' He had such a clear take on it."
https://beta.prx.org/stories/97517
"Conversations with Tim. We saw it exactly the same way. Some of it was baked in already because he was doing the Frank Miller Batman. We both understood it was the Frank Miller version of Batman, I told him how I saw it. He just kept nodding and nodding and said, 'that's it. That's what I see.'"
http://deadline.com/2016/12/michael-...ew-1201866996/

Miller had been trying to break the perception that the superhero icons and the comics were just like Saturday-morning Super Friends for the kids and the perception that Batman IS Adam West. Looking at it from an historical context, in the Dark Knight Returns, Superman is back to like the old school Golden Age version that promised his aid to government officials and patriotic service for military servicemen in World War II, but brought forth into an '80s cold war context in the Reagan era where it's interesting that he's seen in that context as "government stooge", while Batman is back to like the early original 1939 and 1940 mysterious brutal outlaw, closer to Zorro and the Shadow than to Roy Rogers and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood type Adam West light hearted duly deputized agent of the law Batman (West's was like the '40s (duly deputized Batman era), '50s (Bat-Mite era) and '60s (Aunt Harriet era) Batman comics under DC's strict editorial and Code, but which I have sentimental nostalgia for, West's my childhood Batman).

I find it fun to pair up an upbeat Superman with Frank Miller's and Michael Keaton's grumpy frowning Batman because the personality clash creates more possibilities for humor, suspense, drama, action. If Superman and Batman are the world's finest best of friends with the same opinions and perspectives, it isn't interesting. Character conflict is entertaining.

[raidensix]

Superman is treated better at the end of of DK III. Batman actually states Superman has been holding back "all these years" in terms of fighting skill. Upon seeing Superman not hold back fighting the Kandorians, Batman actually thinks he (Batman) is still a student.

[DragonPiece]

Like others said, Clark gets better treatment in DK3. Personally won't ever re-read it again, but it seemed like a ok enough conclusion for a story that did not need to continue beyond the first book.

[jason white reborn]

superman was better written in this than the previous installments.....but it is still frank miller.