Popular Culture and the Ecological Gothic: Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Critical Essay‪)‬

The traditional Gothic was fascinated by empty moors, steeples and labyrinths, all peopled by dangerous creatures. Twentieth century versions of the Gothic have relocated many of these atmospheric conditions of emptiness, threatening settings and dangerous creatures to the city, as exemplified in numerous filmic and literary urban Gothic works (from thrillers like Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho to the cyberpunk fiction of William Gibson and films such as Blade Runner or Terminator). This paper examines popular Gothic literature for its conscious or unconscious ecological themes. I take as a case study what is arguably one of the most famous (definitely one of the most successful) graphic novels of all time: Frank Miller's cult work, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986, hereafter TDKR), which consists of 'The Dark Knight Returns', 'The Dark Knight Triumphant', 'Hunt the Dark Knight' and 'The Dark Knight Falls'. (1) TDKR, this essay argues, presents a particular version of the Gothic: what I call the ecological Gothic. (2)