Background information on The Dark Knight Returns (TDKR is set in a near future crime ridden America on the verge of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Superheroes do not exist anymore (with the notable exception of Superman serving as government lackey), and an aging Batman/Bruce Wayne decides to “return” from his retirement to wage a personal war against crime and chaos). “In order for the character to work, he has to be a force that in certain ways is beyond good and evil. It is very clear to me that our society is committing suicide by lack of a force like that.” It is here argued that two powerful and recognizable narratives, terrorism and the hardboiled novel, provide the ground for this subversive, Nietzschean refashioning. The Dark Knight Return’s representation of terrorism is achieved through a process of (what we could define) ‘centrifugal repurposing’. It means that Batman villains are reconfigured to display traits normally associated with culturally defined notions of terrorism and terrorists. Each of the three main antagonists of the graphic novel (excluding Superman) display at least one different ‘terrorist’ trait. The first villain we encounter is a new character (not belonging to the Batman canon), the anonymous leader of the Mutants, the criminal gang which oppresses the city. The Mutant Leader is a Lombrosian aberration represented as a monstrous figure with razorblade teeth. He makes his first, televised appearance soon after Batman’s comeback, which endangers the gang’s control on the city: [the mutant] leader delivers a brutal videotaped warning, directed at the city fathers”. Here, we might add, the association of a terrorist technique with street gangsters – normally extraneous to these procedures – triggers an unsettling association. The words of the leader are rough and intimidating: We will kill the old man Gordon. His women will weep for him. We will chop him. We will grind him. We will bathe in his blood. I myself will kill the fool Batman. I will rip the meat from his bones and suck them dry. I will eat his heart and drag his body through the streets. Don’t call us a gang. Don’t call us criminals. We are the law. We are the future. Gotham city belongs to the mutants. Soon the world will be ours. Identify the appropriation of terrorism tropes in this text.
1. The use of violence and intimidation as a means of achieving political or social goals
2. The portrayal of the antagonist as a ruthless, uncompromising figure willing to commit heinous acts to attain power and control
3. The utilization of propaganda and media as a tool to spread fear and assert dominance
4. The emphasis on the idea of a group or individual claiming to represent the future and the inevitability of their success
5. The dehumanization of victims and the glorification of violence as a means of asserting authority and superiority.