Book-A-Day 2018 #78: Batman: The Dark Knight: Master Race by Frank Miller, Brian Azzarello, Andy Kubert and Klaus Janson

I was hoping for crazy old man Frank Miller yelling at clouds (or people browner than himself), but DC Comics had wised up between 2001's The Dark Knight Strikes Again and this series in 2016, and so saddled Miller with Brian Azzarello for a co-writer and Andy Kubert as a replacement penciller. (They did bring back Klaus Janson, who inked Miller for the original Dark Knight Returns back in 1986.)

So what we got, instead of another run at the craziness of DKII, was a rehash of Grant Morrison's first couple of JLA stories, with an older, grumpier Batman and more Miller-ian annoying teen slang in tiny little boxes all over the pages. It's more coherent and professional than what I was expected, but that's not precisely an improvement. Crazy and genuine trumps professional and dull every day of the week.

In case that was confusing, let me explain: Miller wrote and drew (inked by Klaus Janson, colored by Lynn Varley) Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in 1986 -- I can't believe you haven't heard of it -- with a grumpy retired fiftyish Batman brought back to deal with an even more crapsack than usual Gotham City and a showdown with the Joker. It was dense, stylish, "adult" -- one of the major examples for the "comics are growing up!" stories of the late-80s, along with Watchmen. Fifteen years later, Miller and Varley came back to Dark Knight for an ugly (artistically, morally, and story-wise) sequel that showed mostly that Miller had discovered a Spinal Tap-style dial on his art, and had cranked that sucker up to about twenty.

Fifteen more years passed, and someone had the idea to make Dark Knight a trilogy - because every artistic work constantly aspires to the condition of trilogy. The result was Batman: The Dark Knight: Master Race. (See above; start over if you have to.)

Those of us who enjoy trainwrecks delighted in the title. Miller has been unnervingly sympathetic to fascism in his works for the last two decades or so, and this looked like he was finally going all-in. But, sadly, it turned out to be a bait-and-switch. The Master Race here are Kryptonians, some random crazy religious sect from the bottled city of Kandor, who vaguely trick the Atom into growing them large and setting them free. (As with so much late Miller, the plot does not make as much sense as one would hope.)

The DC Universe has been attacked by armies with Superman's powers many times -- I think "The Great Darkness Saga" in Legion of Super-Heroes was the first, but I could have missed one -- so this was not exactly a shocking new idea. And Batman doesn't fight these villains alone, which at least would have been thematically appropriate for the series. No, our man Bats (who still don't shiv) has to bring back Superman, of course, and Wonder Woman gets involved, and The Flash, and Aquaman, and Green Lantern...and, yes, it does feel like that Grant Morrison White Martians story all over again, only with a Batman who swears more and prepares less.

Frankly, Master Race feels less like the third Dark Knight book and more like a random pointless Elseworlds story. What if Batman was an old man when Kryptonians attacked? Well, he'd still win!

Kubert and Janson make serviceable pictures for this story, and those pictures look a little bit like old-school Miller, sometimes, if you squint. There are interstitial stories by other artists, including Miller himself, which feel like they're almost unnecessary, but not quite. One assumes Azzarello is primarily responsible for the story -- since Miller would have done something more exciting, even if it was offensive or stupid -- and so one gives him a golf clap as well. But, all in all, this is a thing that didn't need to exist at all, and only just barely does exist. It's an echo of so many other more distinctive things that it's a wonder you can look directly at it.