Frank Miller Returns to DC For ‘Dark Knight Returns III: The Master Race’

Batman is rich. Even though he owns all the major consoles, he has a murdered-out PC because he is PC Master Race.

That’s what I’m assuming Dark Knight Returns III: The Master Race will be about. I’d totally read a graphic novel about Batman playing Telltale Games’s Game of Thrones and trolling console subreddits.

The legendary Frank Miller will return to DC Comics to grit-up modern comics once again when he concludes his seminal work with its final installment, Dark Knight Returns III: The Master Race. Get your quality, colorful Batgirl out of here! Comics are dark!

Details are scarce, but the news was announced, amongst other platforms, on Frank Miller’s previously inactive Twitter account. Because that’s what you announce the final installment to the landmark series that have influenced the maturation of the graphic novel medium: on a platform with a baby blue bird as its logo.

I hope that by now my silence is deafening pic.twitter.com/4E0xi4LHju

— Frank Miller (@FrankMillerInk) April 24, 2015

From Comic Book Resources:

The series will run for eight issues, with installments scheduled to be released twice a month starting in late fall 2015.

 

“For the past six months, I’ve been working with Frank Miller to bring the next chapter in the ‘Dark Knight’ to light,” he said. It’s been humbling. I’ve learned a lot, and I call him sensei. It’s a really, really big project.”

 

Miller confirmed the news himself via Twitter … releasing promotional art from the story and stating, “I hope that by now my silence is deafening.” In the official press release, DC Comics billed the story as “the epic conclusion of the celebrated ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ saga.”

 

“Batman remains my favorite comic book hero and a sequel to Dark Knight is going to be daunting,” Miller said in a statement. “But we’ll do our best.”

I’m not going to bother filling you in on how much The Dark Knight Returns meant to comic book fans, but I can tell you that this can go really well or really, really terribly. Frank Miller is/was a phenomenal artist and storyteller, but there’s something about his attitudes that are distinctly late ’80s/early ’90s that hasn’t — ironic to say, matured — well.

While The Dark Knight Returns is frequently cited amongst the best comics have had to offer, The Dark Knight Strikes Again was universally reviled. This was roughly the same era of Frank Miller’s career where he became something of a self-parody of himself, where he penned the greatest and most awful lines written in the English language that spawned endless jokes and memes everywhere.

Let’s not trash art before it’s even finished, but I simply can’t bring myself to be enthused about this. Frank Miller hasn’t demonstrated growth past his prime, relying on an aesthetic that hasn’t aged well. Although The Dark Knight Strikes Again was well almost fifteen years ago, it still seems Frank Miller hasn’t gotten past 1991.

But what about you? Are you excited? Let us know.