Batman. The Dark Knight: Master Race. Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Timing is everything, even when seen benefit of what may seem like distance between events, what you read, listen too, witness, can resonate through time and feel as if it is talking to you personally in the here and now.

That timing is paramount in the preserve of recognition, we understand the connection because the warning signs, the heartbeat of joy or the trepidation of our own fickle echo are calling out to be heeded, and regardless of whether we see the link as a song from the 60s, a paragraph from a book written in 1949 or even as a piece of graphic art that has been drawn and coloured for maximum effect, the resonating belief is one of stimulation and inspiration.

It is in this stimulating link that Frank Miller, arguably one of the finest minds behind the graphic novel in the last 50 years brings together many of the heroes from the D.C. Universe and places them in a story line that matches the sincerity and belief found in the Crisis on Infinite Earths series, Flashpoint or even the Death In The Family storyline. Batman The Dark Knight: Master Race neatly fits into such required reading, not only because it satisfies the legendary combination of Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman with intricate depth and pull, it also speaks volumes of the way we are immersed in a world that is happy to lurch blindly to that of dogma and dictatorship, and the dangers we face by selling ourselves short in search of Gods and fanatics.

Superheroes may last forever, but the ordinary person can only withstand so much before they start to fade away, it is the same with civilisation. We are on the verge of disaster, and yet we seem to be putting all our faith in the superego rather than the hands of the common man and woman. In this arena the writing of Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello takes in greater significance, witnessing Bruce Wayne as he declines and suffers is too lose hope, to understand the artist’s fear as they connect the dots between human outrage at the thought of oppressive tyranny and subjective authoritarianism and the wider implications of how current politics is splintering and dividing people to the point of despair.

Batman The Dark Knight: Master Race is drawn arguably from warnings from history, and from our own frightening failure to withstand the urge to be controlled, to give in to the lure of regressive autocratic grandness which hides its true face till it is too late to replace the mask.

A graphic novel of enlightening brutality and hope, Batman The Dark Knight: Master Race has found the perfect sequel to The Dark Knight Returns and is again one of Frank Miller’s most endearing and enduring of novels.

Ian D. Hall