Dark Knight Returns

Almost since his debut in 1939, the character of Batman has alternately been condemned and celebrated as an image of male homosexuality, and the various subsequent iterations of the character have frequently alluded to this characterization, whether implicitly or explicitly. In his seminal 1986 book The Dark Knight Returns, author and illustrator Frank Miller takes uses the potentially homosexual signification of Batman's character as a means of exploring his psychological motivations by presenting Batman's anger, drive, and physicality as indicative of repressed homosexual tendencies. These tendencies reemerge in his interactions with the new (female) Robin, a highly feminized Joker, as well as Batman's relationship both female and male characters, such as the former Catwoman Selina Kyle, retiring police commissioner James Gordon, and the leader of a violent gang called the Mutants. By examining these interactions in light previous scholarship concerning Batman's potential for homosexual signification, one is...
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