I was looking at some of my Dad's old comics today. He found them in a box while preparing for a move. One in particular caught my eye: "The Incredible Hulk." I had just read a comic staring the Hulk that can't have been more than a year old. Since 1969 Bruce Banner hasn't aged a day. He's still a few years out of grad school, still has all his hair, still young and hip and powerful. So are our heroes. Theirs is the glory of Achilles: to remain forever young, forever the best of the Achaeans. But every Achilles must have his Odysseus. That reminded me of the preface Alan Moore wrote for Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns." The genius of the work, as Moore points out, is that here alone are we allowed to witness the twilight of a hero. Through Frank Miller's story we see the unthinkable in our youth-worshiping society, the decline and slow death of a cultural icon. He faces all the things we dread: the dying friends, the whitening of the hair, the slowness and creeping frailty of the body, the knowledge that the earth is passing beyond our control into the hands of a younger generation, and the fear that things are only getting worse. "The Dark Knight Returns" is a story of Odyssian proportions: the return of the aged hero to fight a final battle for order against the forces of anarchy and a rising generation bent on squandering and wasting all that their fathers worked for. Of all the many comic books written, that makes it truly unique.
I was looking at some of my Dad's old comics today. He found them in a box while preparing for a move. One in particular caught my eye: "The Incredible Hulk." I had just read a comic staring the Hulk that can't have been more than a year old. Since 1969 Bruce Banner hasn't aged a day. He's still a few years out of grad school, still has all his hair, still young and hip and powerful. So are our heroes. Theirs is the glory of Achilles: to remain forever young, forever the best of the Achaeans. But every Achilles must have his Odysseus. That reminded me of the preface Alan Moore wrote for Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns." The genius of the work, as Moore points out, is that here alone are we allowed to witness the twilight of a hero. Through Frank Miller's story we see the unthinkable in our youth-worshiping society, the decline and slow death of a cultural icon. He faces all the things we dread: the dying friends, the whitening of the hair, the slowness and creeping frailty of the body, the knowledge that the earth is passing beyond our control into the hands of a younger generation, and the fear that things are only getting worse. "The Dark Knight Returns" is a story of Odyssian proportions: the return of the aged hero to fight a final battle for order against the forces of anarchy and a rising generation bent on squandering and wasting all that their fathers worked for. Of all the many comic books written, that makes it truly unique.
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