(Not since Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan havean actor's pectorals been so alarming.) It is to conventional cinema what graphic novels are to prose: mannered, trenchant and chesty. Prepare for a film that decapitates with conviction, splatters with glee, poses like a fitness mag, emotes like an opera, intones like a sportscaster and plays out like Homer in the age of comic books. The pièce de résistance of Miller's truly pioneering scripts, illustrations, and format of the series resides in the climactic destruction of a megalithic industrial compound: a breathtaking, explosive piece of art rendered in a massive fold-out composition spanning four standard-size comics pages placed end over end–a publishing stunt of sublime execution that has very rarely, if ever, been replicated in a DC or Marvel production.But brace yourselves for something else, too. In response, he stipulated that the series would be printed on higher quality paper stock akin to that used by many French publishers at the time (such as Humanoids, the publisher of Jodorowsky and Moebius' The Incal, which had a significant influence on Miller's own art style in Ronin), and demanded it be published in 48-page installments with no advertisements. Originally slated to be published by Marvel, Miller was convinced to partner with DC for the book after he was offered near-complete creative liberty with regards to both the content and the publication format of the book. Ronin ranks among the most intriguing and unusual mainstream Western graphic novels produced in the early '80s its wildly inventive and genre-bending techno-samurai thriller remains an astonishing example of how comics creators can make the system work for them and deliver the freedom to push the limits of the form to the bleeding edge. The trend of psychologically sophisticated heroes existing in dark worlds of tragedy and existential conflict established by The Dark Knight Returns influenced not only the trajectory of Batman comics for the next four decades but also the cultural conception of the superhero itself–with all of the major publishers re-casting their mainstay creations in the light of Miller's tortured, "mature" vision. More so than the character's introduction in Detective Comics #27, Adam West's 1960s TV tenure, or the JLA's debut in The Brave and the Bold #28, Miller's Batman provides the archetypal template over which subsequent creators would lay the particulars of their stories–variations on the brooding, violent theme first played by Miller. Commonly cited not only as one of, if not the greatest Batman story ever put to the page, but also as one of the most significant achievements in comics literature period (written during the most prolifically revolutionary period in comics history), The Dark Knight Returns can, in many ways, be considered the defining Batman ur-text.
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