Books like Absolute Dark Knight

I want to start this review by saying the following. I did not grow up in the 80's, hell, I was barely alive for the 90's and don't remember most of the 2000's, so I don't have any personal experience with the time period in which this was written and influenced by. I also am a very leftist person, which I think we all know Frank Miller is not. So, by saying this, I want to bring to the attention of anybody reading this review that I may well be biased or ignorant in the areas of which I touch on. Also, I only read the first two "books" or issues in this, which would be the first two issues of The Dark Knight Returns. I didn't even look at the Dark Knight Strikes Back, and aside from a quick flip-through of the last two parts of TDKR, I didn't read the rest of it either.So in the introduction of this bind-up, Miller talks a lot about what I would call the inspiration for both titles in this book. In this introduction, he is hyper-critical of the media, which I think is something we all should be doing. However, in the actual story, Miller represents the media to be on the side of people who claim that the Batman, who has recently come out of retirement, is having a negative impact on society, and that while he may be driving down crime levels, which have reached an all-time high, he is only continuing the cycle of crime and that his actions will only spawn more criminals (essentially).In the introduction, Miller makes reference to some psychologist who wrote a book which would go on to move Congress to creating the Comics Code Authority (I know enough about this already to not need to do any research on who that person was or what his book was titled, and Miller refuses to name it in the book, so I don't know that information, otherwise I would include it here). The CCA, for those who don't know, was created with the above mentions psychologist basically stated that the violence in comic books were driving children to be exhibit "unsocial behaviors" that led youth to committing crime. Even though the evidence was negligible (can't believe I spelled that right without the aide of spellchecker when committing gave me trouble), Congress went ahead an established the CCA to censor comics and make sure they were influencing the youth. This was around the 60's or 50's I believe. It is very similar to what a lot of people are trying to do to video games today.So, what Miller has done is liked what this psychologist has said about comics to Batman. While I don't think violence in any media affects anybody enough to make them commit a crime if they are "mentally stable", I think it's a bit foolish to liken this to Batman. For one, this Batman is a lot more ruthless than the canon Batman. In one panel, for example, he shot a man. This is not normally something that Batman would do. Batman has always been about seeking redemption for criminals if possible, and if not, then he locks them away for both the safety of them and the public. Batman is traditionally a force for good. In Miller's TDKR, however, Batman is more an avatar of vengeance, and I think that that would only continue the cycle of crime. In our world, when, for example, the poor are kept down by the more wealthy and powerful members of society, they will often turn to crime in order to survive (such as the grandmother who sold drugs to help put her grandchildren, who she raised, through college). Sure, crime is crime, but one must look at the reasons as to why someone is committing a crime before one judges someone.Miller is basically saying, in my eyes, that criminals are criminals and should be punished and that there is no redemption for them. The character of Two-Face is a prime example of him in this book. Miller write him so that, even have being rehabilitated, he is so traumatized from his past, that he cannot help but return to a life of crime. Sure, these are comic book characters, but still, if Miller is going to make the claims, metaphors, and analogies that he is making, then I can just the same judge him through a real-world lens. To me, what Miller is saying is that there is no redemption for those who commit crimes, only revenge. Which, as I stated above, goes against everything that Batman means to me.I think it's important for writers to include themes in their work. I think that if you're going to make them a major, obvious aspect of the test though, that you should at least make sure that they don't make you look hypocritical. The messages that Miller includes in the text, or at least the part of it that I read, are a) that the media takes things and warps them to their own narrative and b) the censoring of society will only hold it back. While I can definitely get behind him on how messed up censorship is, I think it's also important to look at what you're saying. For example, Charlie Hebdo. They had all the right to draw Mohammed, and what happened to them was certainly wrong, but what was their intention in drawing the Prophet? I don't think it was anything other than trying to provoke terrorists. Just because one has a right to do something, doesn't mean one should abuse it. We as a society need to look at what we want to do with our time on Earth/in the Universe. Do we want to go around and offend people just for the sake of offending them, or are we going to go and make a statement, whether correct or not, on what we believe to try and make people think?As for message A, Miller makes the media out to be a hypochondriac, but he's doing the exact same thing, only on the opposite side of the scale. In this book, Miller rights the media to be on the side that Batman is only helping to further the cycle of crime and portrays them as rather air-headed, nonplussed by most of the events (and those that are plussed are normally on the side of Batman), and non-emotional. On the other hand, Miller is making all criminals seem to be hopeless causes that are better of dead or locked away rather than being treated or reintegrated into society. The truth of the matter is this: some people aren't worthy of being treated or are unable to be treated (to far gone), but those cases are, normally, the exception to the rule. Most every criminal is able to be treated and returned to society if they are willing to seek help or open to it.I don't regret buying this book, because it is a piece of history, and I may one day return to this and read all of it. However, the themes that Miller included in this were just not something I can get behind, and they were too present in the text for me to look beyond them. I don't think Miller is quite on the level of Orson Scott Card (of whom I have no interest in reading any of his work because I just find him to be so low of a person and scum of the Earth), but he is very much, to be frank, an asshole. I am very much a Moore person, if that makes any sense. If his other works have similar messages and themes to this one, I don't have much interest in them, but I'm not going to say I will never read anything else by Miller. I just don't really foresee it in my future.