page_title: The Dark Knight Returns
section_title: Influence
hierarchical_section_title: The Dark Knight Returns / Influence
caption_attribution_description: English: Comics writer/artist Frank Miller signing a copy of The Dark Knight Returns during an appearance at Midtown Comics Downtown September 17, 2016, the third annual Batman Day, when DC Comics celebrates the creation of the character Batman. This photo was created by Luigi Novi. It is not in the public domain, and use of this file outside of the licensing terms is a copyright violation. If you would like to use this image outside of the Wikimedia projects, you may do so, only if I am properly credited, either by linking the photograph to this page, or with an easily visible credit placed near the photo in each instance in which it is used. Please credit authorship as follows: &#160;© Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. Please maintain the original file name in all uses. You can see a gallery of some of my other photos here. If you have any questions, you can contact me by sending me an email or leaving a note at the bottom of my Wikipedia talk page.
context_page_description: The Dark Knight Returns is a 1986 four-issue comic book miniseries starring Batman, written by Frank Miller, illustrated by Miller and Klaus Janson, and published by DC Comics. When originally published, the series was simply titled Batman: The Dark Knight, with a different subtitle for each issue, but when the series was collected into a single volume later that year, the title of the first issue was applied to the entire series, and has remained so ever since. The Dark Knight Returns tells an alternative story of Bruce Wayne, who at 55 years old returns from retirement to fight crime and faces opposition from the Gotham City police force and the United States government. The story introduces Carrie Kelley as the new Robin and the hyper-violent street gang known as the Mutants. The story also features the return of classic foes such as Two-Face and the Joker, and culminates with a confrontation against Superman, who works on behalf of the government.
  In the pre-Flashpoint DC Multiverse, the events of The Dark Knight Returns and its associated titles were designated to occur on Earth-31.
context_section_description: The immense popularity of The Dark Knight Returns served both to return the character of Batman to a central role in pop culture, but also (along with Watchmen) started the era known as the Dark Age of Comic Books (also known as the Modern Age and the Iron Age). The grim, seedy versions of Gotham and Batman successfully updated the character's identity from the campy Adam West version remembered from the 1960s Batman TV series, and proved critically and commercially successful enough that a new wave of "dark" superheroes were either created, repopularized, or revamped altogether to fit this new trend.
  The Dark Knight Returns was one of the two comic books, alongside Watchmen, that inspired designer Vincent Connare when he created the Comic Sans font.
caption: Miller signing a copy of the book during a 2016 appearance at Midtown Comics
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