Didn't Frank Miller also claim that some famous writer came to him and told him that "he had ruined Batman"? I would love to know who that was!

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Now I'm curious too .

Of course, this was a "future" Superman who worked for a Ronald Reagan
who was still president long past his two terms -- as is Nixon in
WATCHMEN. Like Moore, Frank casually rewrites the Constitution -- tho I
would have expected Frank to know better.

There was no way I could draw a line between "my"
Superman (or any other) and the government stooge who would deliberately
maim Oliver Queen. This was no Superman I knew.

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It's been a while since I last looked at DKR, but I always took from it that Green Arrow had not been deliberately maimed. He sort of makes a reference to getting even or something whilst holding his stump, as I recall. The backstory playing in my head, rightly or wrongly, is of him losing the limb as the accidental consequence of a fracas with Superman, for which he naturally bears a grudge.

••

Plausible -- if, in the key scene, Queen is speaking in non-sequiturs.

I felt like DARK KNIGHT RETURNS did for Batman what Geoff Johns and his ilk are doing for Green Lantern currently: lionizing them within their own fictional universes.

Johns and Miller take/took the tact of deciding Batman/Green Lantern is the swinging d*ck of their universe. The result is Batman beating Superman in a manner/method which an experienced Superman should have seen coming (and frankly, Miller single-handedly ruined the Superman character for the fanboys...making Superman the kind of stupid Government tool everyone hates on sight)...I saw the end of DKR and felt like it was a giant wankery. Green Lantern is getting his share right now, as Johns ladles on the hero worship from Hal Jordan's contemporaries. It's pretty embarrassing, and worse obvious in every way.

For me, that's really the shame of "grim/gritty"...it wasn't the story content being altered, or even the characters being changed for "realism" purposes...no, I think the real failure is in maintaining character integrity.

This has a two-fold meaning for "character", when speaking of superheroes, as "character" is what the superhero is as a construct, and the "character" is the persona of the construct.

Integrity is a simple directive of the moral/ethical choices a character must make. All characters have choices to make. And the superhero, above all other characters, must do the right thing at all times. And in fact, and even moreso, the superhero must do the right thing even if no one is watching. I'd say this obviously extends to doing the right thing to the superhero's own detriment, but that's, well, obvious. Or should be.

You ever notice how aware most comic book writers are of the media now? How every comic book superhero battle is being recorded, commented on, observed by technology? How often, today, do we see vast conflicts and severe life-threatening choices being made without someone being aware of it? Some media, or witnesses, or someone to see.

I think the desire of the writer to be famous has been transposed to the superhero story. Their grown desire to be more than they are, to be a celebrity, has crept into the superhero story and made it a public farce. These aren't kids with dreams who want to dream with the heroes...they (in general) require someone to accept their level of writing talent as more important than it is.

You'll note the classic writers/artists in comics, in the 1960s/1970s, had a much more critical view of society and media. J. Jonah Jameson was the sensationalist whose dangerous fanaticism reflected a closed, ignorant mass public. Most of the Silver Age happens without public commentary...the world looks on while these grand superheroic beings battle, but they do so as spectators trusting the superhuman to have character integrity. Even if the fictional civilian is suspicious of the superhero, in the end the superhero was proven trustworthy to the individual.

Today's writers hardly criticise their society's modus operendi, but exalt in the vicious atomic changes technology and media cause just by existing. Leaving the superhero with little to do but change in order to exist as well.

Really, really depressing times.