Frank Miller previews his next epic Batman comic, The Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child

The Dark Knight isn’t done yet. Three years after The Dark Knight III: The Master Race continued Frank Miller’s epic Batman saga that began in 1986 with The Dark Knight Returns, EW can exclusively announce that another installment is on the way. This December comes a new one-shot comic titled The Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child, written by Miller and illustrated by artist Rafael Grampá.

The “golden child” in question is young Jonathan Kent, the son of Superman and Wonder Woman. His older sister, Lara, was a major player in The Master Race, where readers saw she had inherited her mother’s Amazonian discipline as well as her father’s Kryptonian superpowers and signature S-shield costume. Jonathan was only a baby then, though he was important enough to be the focal point of a battle between the Amazons and the Kryptonians from Kandor. The Golden Child takes place three years after the conclusion of The Master Race, and though Jonathan is still a child, he’s now grown into a powerful presence, as you can see in Grampá’s exclusive preview art below.

“The possibilities for what he could be just started coming to mind like crazy. I thought the contrast between him and Lara could be really exciting,” Miller tells EW. “Lara has so much power and passion, so for the little boy to embody all of the wisdom and intelligence of the Kryptonian race would be an exciting new dimension. He really sort of developed as a little floating Buddha, someone who when he wasn’t even a toddler yet was speaking in full sentences and had an understanding of events that surpassed anybody else’s. He’s the most magical member of the family.”



"The Dark Knight Returns started as a Batman story, but as it has gone on, Superman and his family have come to play a bigger role. There are surely still countless comic fans out there, this EW writer included, who still have memorized Batman’s brutal monologue to Superman during their epic fight at the climax of The Dark Knight Returns (“I want you to remember the one man who beat you”), Miller’s been a little nicer to the Man of Steel in the years since.

“Even though in Dark Knight Returns I gave Superman a very hard time, in his own title I’ve wanted to really celebrate the character,” Miller says. Though he notes, “He doesn’t need my sympathy!”



THE DARK KNIGHT: THE GOLDEN CHILD #1
Release date: December 11th, 2019
Written by FRANK MILLER
Art and cover by RAFAEL GRAMPA
Colour by JORDIE BELLAIRE
48-page one-shot

The story takes place three years after the events of Master Race, where Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Carrie Kelley, and Lara Kent overcame the renegade priest Quar and his cult of Kandorian fanatics in their bid to convert humanity into worshipping them as gods. During this interim, Lara has spent time learning about what it means to be human, while Carrie has grown into her role as Gotham City’s new protector, Batwoman. When a terrifying evil returns to Gotham City, Lara and Carrie team up to take on this new threat, but this time with a secret weapon – Jonathan Kent. Known as the ‘Golden Child,’ Jonathan possesses power unlike anything the world has ever seen and could be all that stands in the way of the destruction of Gotham City, as well as the whole planet.



Full article: https://ew.com/books/2019/09/13/fran...-golden-child/