SOURCE: Nash, Jesse W. “Gotham's Dark Knight: The Postmodern Transformation of the Arthurian Mythos.” In Popular Arthurian Traditions, edited by Sally K. Slocum, pp. 36-45. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992.

[In the following essay, Nash explores the use of Arthurian legends in the Batman comic book series, particularly Frank Miller's Batman: Year One and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, theorizing that although the Arthurian mythos is often recognized by modern American culture, most Americans are unfamiliar with the original Arthurian legend.]

All too often, our insights into the nature of popular culture are the result of accidental encounters with the very people professional academics talk to the least—children and young people. Students of culture, and not just anthropologists, tend to operate as if culture is something adults transmit to children. According to that logic, to understand culture we need to talk to adults or study their artifacts. Popular culture, however, is an entirely different matter. Unlike the “culture” of classical anthropological and humanistic studies, contemporary popular culture is increasingly for, about and by young people (King).

A case in point is the fate of the Arthurian legends in contemporary American popular culture. Arthurian themes and symbolism continue to be widely disseminated throughout popular culture, the culture of our young people. Although few specifically King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table movies are being made, interest in Arthuriana can be detected in the themes, motifs, and symbols of many science fiction and fantasy films, from Star Wars to Willow. The heroic fantasy novels that crowd the shelves in our bookstores are essentially variations on the Arthurian legends. Comic books as well feed on Arthurian themes, symbols and artifacts. Series with such titles as Camelot 3000, The Knights of Pendragon, Excalibur, The Legends of the Dark Knight, etc. are highly praised and well-read, my own local comics dealer tells me.

The Batman comic books, and perhaps popular culture in general, exploit traditional Arthuriana to such a degree they actually replace more “classical” Arthuriana artifacts. A local book dealer tells me that very few copies of such works as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are sold anymore, and when they are bought, they are normally bought by adults buying them for unsuspecting and perhaps unappreciative children and young people. Young people, my book dealer tells me, rarely buy any of the many available traditional versions of the Arthurian legends.

Ironically, popular American culture is suffused by Arthurian-sounding titles and images. But the classical artifacts of Arthuriana, such as Malory's text, for example, are neglected, especially by younger people. A high school teacher explains that this neglect is due to the “cultural illiteracy” of her students. “Besides,” she adds, “that King Arthur stuff is really boring.”

Her students, of course, disagree. One student told me: “Man, they're not, like, you know, realistic.” I was intrigued. Not realistic? “No, like, the story's for the birds. King Arthur, his dad, Merlin, the whole crew are real crooks.” Another student was a little more articulate: “I can't really respect Lancelot either. How could someone be willing to die for King Arthur?” Still another student rescued me from total confusion by telling me: “Check out Frank Miller's Batman, not the old caped crusader crap, but the new Dark Knight. Miller's got the story right.”¹

I did “check out” Miller's Batman and compared him to the older Batman. There was a difference. With the help of my youthful informants, I was able to confirm that the difference does have something to do with “getting the story right.” And that difference helps explain that generational gap in the appreciation of Arthuriana artifacts, textual and otherwise, classical and popular. We will find that the Arthuriana of popular culture has undergone a considerable transformation.

Classical Arthuriana materials and the old Batman comic books belong to what might be called an Arthurian “mythos.”² My youthful informants reject this classical mythos as “unrealistic.” The “new” Batman, Frank Miller's recent version, is more than a simple variation on the Arthurian theme(s) but is rather a “postmodern” transformation of that mythos (Collins, 33-34; Nash). Why call this Batman postmodern? Miller's Dark Knight and other popular culture artifacts are postmodern precisely because they have rejected and/or transformed the older Arthurian mythos. This fact makes Miller's Batman and other popular culture artifacts of a similar nature somewhat revolutionary, if not un-American.

The Arthurian mythos is part and parcel of American culture. The Arthurian mythos is the ideology of the American political system.³ The elements of that ideology are so woven into the narrative of American culture that we can still speak of President John F. Kennedy's tenure as that of a “Camelot.”⁴ Ronald Reagan, too, although very different, appealed to the Kennedy myth to justify his own revolution and would have occasion to refer to America as the “city” on the hill, a Camelot. It is no surprise, then, that Reagan could be described in Arthurian language. He was an outsider, a knight in shiny armor, like Kennedy and King Arthur, riding in to rescue the system (Wills, 299). At his first state of the union address to Congress after the revelations concerning the “Iran-Contra Affair” were made public, Reagan would be referred to by one news commentator as “a wounded leader.” In keeping with the logic of the Arthurian mythos, both Kennedy's assassination and Reagan's problems are understood not so much as personal problems but as threats to the system. As Peter Jennings made clear in his analysis of Reagan's difficulties, what is at stake in such situations is the presidency and the system, not the man but the president, as in the older story, not Arthur so much as kingship itself. And that is the central element of the Arthurian mythos: the health of the system, its maintenance, its periodic degeneration and consequent regeneration. In one sense, because the system is so paramount, the sins of the two presidential-kings, like those of Arthur and his predecessors, only add to the mythic luster of their reigns.

Summarizing, the Arthurian mythos indicates that there was a golden age of politics and culture than can be relived, especially when inaugurated by a politician deemed to be an “outsider” to the political system, but who has “blood ties” to that system as a bastard child of sorts and who because of his uncertain status rejuvenates the system. This outsider doesn't function to tear down the system but to reform it, to make it stronger. A fundamental element of this mythos then is the periodic decline and resurrection of the system, but no matter what, the system must be preserved. As in both the Kennedy and Reagan cases, some will argue that the “evils” they committed, they committed for the “good” of the system and for its survival. Finally, that system must exist because there are forces, the forces of evil and chaos, an “evil empire,” antithetical to civilization, which would triumph if the Arthurian political system were not in place. Above all, the Arthurian mythos fears the triumph of these “evil forces” knocking at the gates of Camelot, and a crucial element in the self-definition of the Arthurian president is his opposition to these evil forces. The Arthurian king and/or president doesn't simply oppose evil, he, by virtue of who he is, regenerates the earth.

My young informants, on the other hand, do not only think that Washington, D.C. is no Camelot and Ronald Reagan is no King Arthur, they doubt if there ever was a Camelot or if such a place is even desirable. They have rejected at least partially the Arthurian mythos. In a way, Batman's Gotham City is Camelot, and that is a frightening thought. Camelot unmasked is Gotham City. And Gotham City is America disabused of the American dream. Camelot, one young woman told me, is a “trick” of the system. The new Batman is postmodern precisely because there is no Camelot-like Gotham to return to or work toward. Miller's Dark Knight, first introduced in 1986 as a revision of the Batman materials, is not a return to an older, more pristine Batman of the late thirties and early forties. The older Batman necessitates a postmodern rewriting because the older Batman himself has become politically problematic.

The old Batman is an ideal part of the Arthurian mythos. He is orphaned by a criminal, but he is wealthy, thus aristocratic, the victim of the unrestrained greed of the poor. He becomes a “dark knight” to pursue criminals at night, the ideal time for crime, and dresses as a “bat” to induce fear in the “superstitious” minds of the criminal class. Crime itself represents the activities of a “hidden world.”⁵ He is a caped crusader, which likewise evokes the image of the knight. He is chivalric and single. He has his own squire, Robin the Boy Wonder. He eventually belongs to a round table of sorts, the Justice League of America. And he works for both police commissioner Gordon and the president of the United States.

His wealth and his status as a spokesman for the system become politically untenable. As a superhero, he is only an industrialist protecting the wealth and property of other wealthy Gothamites. At the end of one of the first cases, Batman tells Robin that a certain company of criminals thought they could acquire wealth the “easy way,” that is, by crime (Kane 304). Bob Kane, the creator of the series, portrays a criminal class that threatens Gotham and its upright and usually wealthy citizens. As a spokesman for the wealthy and the political system, the old Batman is preachy, self-righteous and largely unconcerned with the life and rights of the criminal class. All of this makes perfect sense within the framework of the Arthurian mythos, which neatly divides the world up into binary characteristics such as good and evil, right and wrong, law and crime, wealth and poverty, etc.

The difficulty with these binary characteristics and the political system reliant on them is their naivete. They presume that crime is only something one willingly chooses. They presume that the political, judicial and legal system are just and impartial. More ominously, they are ahistorical and immune to criticism. The binary characteristics, being binary characteristics, are also doubles of each other. The Arthurian King is both savior and tempter, just and tyrannical.⁶ Batman himself is an ambiguous, almost shady figure, working for the law but outside the legal system and occasionally sought by the police. Being Arthurian, the old Batman and the rulers of his Gotham can rule precisely because they already rule. When we can ask why they rule and if they should rule, we are ready for a change in perspective. Miller's Batman is decidedly postmodern because he no longer buys the myth of power Gotham's leaders utter. All postmodern analysis will presume the fictional or mystical basis for legal authority in the first place (Derrida 944-945).

The ambiguity plaguing the Arthurian conceptual apparatus can be seen in the figure of Batman himself, who was once described as: “Count (Dracula) cleansed of his evil and endowed with a social conscience” (Leatherdale 224). Such a description is more apt for the old Batman, the Arthurian Batman, and the description also touches on the problematic nature of the Arthurian mythos. To begin with, it is odd for a system fearful of “evil forces” and “evil empires” to have heroes who are themselves of ambiguous or dubious origin and all too easily labeled criminal. Note that this labeling is equally possible of Arthur, Parzival, Lancelot and Batman. The Arthurian mythos needs this cloak of indecipherability, this air that law is the mystery of authority and not fiction (Nash 9). When he first made his appearance in the May, 1939 issue of Detective Comics as “the Bat-Man,” Batman is introduced as “a mysterious and adventurous figure fighting for righteousness and apprehending the wrong doer, in his lone battle against the evil forces of society …” (Kane 8). For the old Batman and his creators, evil is antithetical to society—the two descriptions are mutually exclusive. Historically, Kane is naive as to the nature of American society. When that society becomes problematic, the old Batman will become embarrassing, and the Arthurian mythos will be seen as an uncritical and perhaps unhealthy authoritarianism.

This early description of Batman as a loner, however, is really misleading. Batman rarely works alone. Almost immediately in his comic book career, he is adopted by the police and police commissioner Gordon. From a postmodern perspective his cozy relationship with the “Man” is troubling, and telling indeed is the fact that the legal and police system of Gotham City needs his help. Why he becomes the caped crusader is itself intriguing and terribly Arthurian. He tells Robin: “My parents too were killed by a criminal. That's why I've devoted my life to exterminate [sic] them” (Kane 131). He becomes the Batman to seek vengeance against criminals, which could also serve as a description of the political and legal system of Gotham. Although revenge is illegal, the law seeks revenge. Batman's revenge then justifies the system in a strange way. The old Batman protects the system from having to face its own inadequacies, especially the inadequacy of the legal system and police force. It is almost a religious affirmation of sorts: even if the police or courts fail, there is a higher justice which will even all the scores. But the score in the old Batman is always evened out in favor of the wealthy.

As an outsider, Batman functions to keep the puzzle that is Gotham City from falling completely apart. When he first meets Robin in the April 1940 issue of Detective Comics, Batman tells Robin that the future Boy Wonder can't tell the police who killed his parents because “this whole town is run by Boss Zucco. If you told what you knew you'd be dead in an hour” (Kane 131). If this is true, what kind of city is Gotham? And if this is true, why fight to preserve a corrupt and uncaring system? Batman doesn't ask these questions, but my younger readers think he should have.

Gotham isn't quite the Camelot it's cracked up to be, but Batman doesn't seem to notice. He doesn't seem to be aware of the contradictions. The introduction of Robin the “Boy Wonder” only adds to the problematic nature of those contradictions. At the end of their first caper together, Batman mildly scolds Robin for being too eager and not waiting for him before engaging a group of criminals. Robin replies smiling: “Aw! I didn't want to miss any of the fun! Say, I can hardly wait till we go on our next case. I bet it'll be a corker” (Kane 140). Batman and Robin, like the knights of the old round table, have become part of the problem. The heroic mythos, whether it is Arthurian or Homeric, masks the contradictions of society and by masking them allows them to persist. Batman not only becomes part of the problem that is Gotham City; his activities are misdirected. The real problem in Gotham City is not the penny-ante criminals he chases about the nightscape of the city or the masked and costumed super-villains he battles with alarming frequency, again like the knights of old, not dueling to save the city so much as to prove who is stronger, Batman or the Joker. No, the structures of Gotham City itself are the problem. If that is the case, to battle crime and evil, Batman must do the unthinkable for an Arthurian hero. He must rebel against the system. To do that, he must become, not a criminal, but postmodern, since the criminal is already a functioning part of the system.

Which is the starting point of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Batman has disappeared from the scene for ten years, having retired to become Bruce Wayne, not because his job was finished but because his job had become too complex. The Gotham of this series of Batman adventures is very different from the Gotham of the past. The contrast, for the uninitiated reader, is remarkable. This Gotham, the Gotham of the new Batman, is truly dangerous. At the beginning of Batman Year One, which is a rewriting of Batman's origins after the appearance of The Dark Knight Returns, Commissioner Gordon describes his entry into the city: “Gotham City. Maybe it's all I deserve, now. Maybe it's just my time in Hell … in an airplane, from above, all you'd see are the streets and buildings. Fool you into thinking it's civilized” (Miller, Year One 2). Bruce Wayne, who is also flying into the city, is thinking: “I should have taken the train. I should be closer. I should see the enemy” (Miller 2).

The enemy in the Dark Knight texts is also Gotham City. Its very structures and history engender crime. The nature of the criminal hasn't changed. The nature of Batman's perceptions has changed. In Batman: Year One, Batman returns to the “enemy camp,” a slum area. That's what the old Batman would have naively thought: crime is where poverty is, thus the criminal is the poor man wanting the wealth of the wealthy. This postmodern Batman quickly discovers that crime is a structural feature of the city as a whole and not simply the willful actions of the have-nots, who isolate themselves from the wealthy and proper citizens of Gotham.

Crime is something the rich and powerful also practice. And this new Batman declares war. He crashes a party of the wealthy who routinely finance and run the city's politicians. After having destroyed much of the ballroom, Batman announces: “Ladies and gentlemen, you have eaten well. You've eaten Gotham's wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on—none of you are safe” (Miller 38). The leader, a wealthy gangster-type, named, appropriately enough, Roman, calls Batman “a damned Robin Hood” (Miller 40). But unlike the Robin Hood of legend, the new Dark Knight has no loyalty to the system, and he doesn't just wage his war against the wealthy and politically affluent. He wages his war against any and all who threaten human survival.

Having noted this war, we must hasten to point out that Batman as a child of postmodernity is hard pressed to justify his stance. As is pointed out in the Dark Knight texts, Batman's existence, from the perspective of the Arthurian mythos, is a thorn in the side of the legal and political structures. Batman's activities are quite illegal. According to the logic of the Arthurian mythos, Batman has no right to wage war against either the full-fledged criminals or the quasi-criminals of the upper class and the nouveau-riche gangsters of Gotham City. He holds no office of law enforcement and has received no appropriate delegation. According to the logic of the system, Batman too is a criminal. In short, to crusade against crime, the caped avenger must break the law, must defy the law and eventually even fight federal troops.

Batman's stance is not easily taken. Nor is Police Commissioner Gordon's. In the Dark Knight texts, the commissioner is naturally opposed to Batman's involvement in the criminal scene, but Gordon shares Batman's/Bruce Wayne's uneasiness with the system. Both men become more complex in these texts. To adequately express that complexity, the Dark Knight texts must become more complex in terms of their narrative strategy. Unlike the texts of the Arthurian mythos, the Dark Knight texts are retrospective, uncertain. They reveal a change in the understanding of the person, an understanding which is postmodern in that it is reminiscent of Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Kristeva, etc. (Taylor). In the older Batman stories, Batman is a nifty schizophrenic, moving easily from rugged superhero to effeminate jetsetter. Identity is monolithic, a given, naive, we might say.

Frank Miller's Dark Knight is not comfortable with his schizoid state. But it is not something he can really control. There is a “bat” within that limits his control; the bat is no longer a model; it is now a totem. This Batman is more realistic. Fighting crime of whatever stripe in Gotham isn't a picnic. One cannot be nice or flippant in such a pursuit. One does become a bat, a hunter, a dark knight, a knight whose own interiority is labyrinthine and less than godly. As Delueze and Guattari formulate the matter, the human civilization of Gotham City is a sham; what is required is that one become an animal, a human-becoming-animal, a human-becoming-intense. Miller's Dark Knight is such a “becoming,” a creature no longer under rational control, because rationality as a convention only protects the powerful and refuses to address the issues at hand—a city of human beings threatened by the various criminal elements, including the city itself, innocent human beings who aren't really all that innocent. At times, as in the “graphic novel” Arkham Asylum, Batman fears that he is as bad as the Joker (Morrison and McKean).

To express this transformation of the Batman character and the reality of Gotham City, the Dark Knight texts are polyphonous. There is no one narrator. These texts are truly heterogeneous in that no one person, including Batman, owns the texts and speaks unequivocally (Kristeva 10; Collins 60-64). Sometimes Batman or Bruce Wayne speaks. Sometimes Gordon narrates. Quite often, newscasts inform us of what has happened. Even the criminals are given a narrative voice. And no one voice is authoritative, not even Batman's. The absence of one narrative voice reflects the rejection of the Arthurian mythos. There is no one narrative voice because there is no one structure of authority in the city. In The Dark Knight Returns, the various criminals have as much claim to authority as the mayor or the police. As the leader of the gang known as the “mutants” says: “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” (Miller 36). Who can dispute their claim? In a postmodern universe, we realize that authority belongs to those who control the city. In an Arthurian universe, those who control the city control it by the will of God. No one is that naive in Frank Miller's Gotham City, not even the mayor who knows he rules by virtue of criminal support and their complicity with the duly elected political officials.

Moreover, the lack of one narrative voice forces us to demythologize or deconstruct our notion of “the people” or “innocent citizens.” Media interviews with men and women in the street highlight the absence of innocence and the problematic nature of democratic or popular approval of Batman's vigilante actions. One man interviewed enthusiastically supports Batman: “Batman? Yeah, I think he's a-okay. He's kicking just the right butts—butts the cops ain't kicking, that's for sure. Hope he goes after the homos next” (Miller 37).

Who runs Gotham City? No one, and everyone. It depends on what part of town one happens to find oneself in. Batman's vigilante efforts are directed toward the wealthy criminal class and the mutants, a gang threatening to take over. Oddly enough, the police negotiate with the mutants and the gangsters. They don't really try to eliminate them. Even in the midst of the mutants' crime wave, the police and legal authorities are more concerned with Batman's interfering than they are with protecting lives. The gangsters and the mutants, aptly named given their punk hair styles, scarification rituals and filed-down teeth, justify the existence of the police force. Batman by virtue of his vigilante actions calls into question the need for the police force. Batman forces us to realize that the Law is designed to protect Itself, not citizens (Nash 9). In this sense, Batman is decidedly anti-Arthurian and postmodern.

The mutants understand the system. Their leader, the archetypal “black knight,” even issues a vaguely Arthurian-sounding challenge: “We will kill the old man Gordon. His woman 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 street” (Miller 36). The mutants are products of the system, and then they receive what they need to aid in their takeover of the city. A general, himself depressed and angry with the system, sells munitions to them (Miller 14-15). Reminiscent of political scandals in the Reagan administration, these scenes set the stage for Batman's battle with the mutant leader, his eventual branding as a federal problem, and the appearance of Ronald Reagan and his ambassador to Batman, Superman.

At the end of an early case (February, 1941), a military figure tells Batman and Robin: “You've done your country a great service! I'll see that the president hears of this and gives you both a suitable award” (Kane 276)! To which Batman responds: “That's not necessary. Being Americans is enough of an award!” That patriotism is a necessary part of the Arthurian mythos. The old Batman naturally thought that the enemies of the United States were evil and the President of the United States was the standard-bearer of truth and justice. With the appearance of Reagan in the pages of The Dark Knight Returns, those old ideas fade. Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra affair is parodied by the story of the general selling arms to the mutants. The comic's Reagan even gets the United States involved in a nuclear war, and Gotham City is engulfed by a nuclear winter. It is not that Reagan is any different from the other presidents Batman served under; he's not. It's Batman who is different. He is a superhero without a president, which is perhaps the ultimate transformation of the Arthurian mythos, the rejection of the need for a leader, a king, a president. But Batman can't have a president, knowing what he knows, believing what he believes, history being what it is.

While Batman is battling city hall and the mutants in the city's streets, Superman is working for President Reagan in a little dispute with the Russians. Batman's troubles escalate, and he must fight Gotham's finest just to survive. In an Arthurian universe, Batman would have to surrender to the authorities. In a postmodern universe, Batman cannot surrender. In an Arthurian universe, Batman would be vindicated. In a postmodern universe, Batman too is guilty. When he defeats the mutant leader, Batman unknowingly creates a monster: “the sons of the Batman.” Superman unknowingly helps Reagan start a nuclear winter. Unknowingly. Still, both superheroes are complicitous.

When Batman defeats the mutant leader, many of the mutants disband and become the sons of the Batman, a new breed of vigilantes. Again, it's the mutants who are truly Arthurian. Batman, because he has won, should rule and be followed. The king is dead. Long live the king. The sons of the Batman make a chilling media announcement: “The mutants are dead. The mutants are history. This is the mark of the future [pointing to a blue bat painted on their faces]. Gotham City belongs to the Batman. Do not expect any further statements. The sons of the Batman do not talk. We act. Let Gotham's criminals beware. They are about to enter hell” (Miller 46).

The sons of the Batman proceed to clean up Gotham City, much to the displeasure of the authorities and Batman. The sons of the Batman punish and punish harshly, making it difficult for readers to determine what they prefer, justice or crime. But these youthful vigilantes come in handy during the nuclear winter. The streets of Gotham are quiet and safe while cities elsewhere experience the expected panic and chaos. In a scene my young informants literally drool over, Batman and the former mutants ride on horses down Gotham's streets restoring and assuring order. They are no knights. The Dark Knight has no lord. The order they bring is of a different kind; we don't really have categories to describe an order without a legitimate political structure to obey, so Arthurian is our political language.

Because they aren't Arthurian, the order Batman and the sons of the Batman bring is, legally, disorder. Reagan sends in federal troops and Superman to bring Batman to “justice.” Batman fights though as Bruce Wayne. Early in the battle, Superman pulls Batman's mask off. He is no longer a superhero. Only Superman is a superhero, and superheroes work for emperors like Reagan. Batman works for no one, especially no political authority. He accuses Superman: “You sold us out, Clark … I've become a political liability and you … you're a joke” (Miller 41-42). Predictably, Batman/Bruce Wayne loses the battle; he is after all only human; Reagan, America's King Arthur, wins. The TV news announces fittingly enough: “The spectacular career of the Batman came to a tragic conclusion as the crimefighter suffered a heart attack while battling government troops” (Miller 45).

Battling government troops? No one reading Batman twenty years ago or in 1939 could have imagined Batman a federal renegade, but the changed nature of the political situation of the late eighties necessitated a reimagining of Batman. In particular, the Arthurian mythos that provided the framework for the old stories and the justification for Batman's existence is rejected and transformed. The Arthurian mythos of authority and law is decidedly rejected, but the Arthurian desire for order is not rejected so much as transformed. Batman does not leave Gotham City to chaos. At the end of The Dark Knight Returns, there is a postmodern transformation of the Arthurian apocalyptic ending. Batman stages his own death, and upon reviving sets about the task of training the former mutants and whoever else is willing to listen how to survive in a post-nuclear world, lessons not in authority and obedience—look where that got the Reagan generation—but in recreating society and a crippled earth.

With Miller's Dark Knight texts, popular culture provides American society with a brilliant and powerful critique of our Arthurian mythos and a transformation of that mythos. The story concludes with the hero gone, but the human Bruce Wayne working to restore the earth. Unlike the Arthur of legend or the movie Excalibur, Reagan, the king of Batman's America, is still alive but the earth is dying, dying because of the king. To Batman though, the king is dead, and the earth must live. There can be no more kings after the nuclear winter. The king is dead. Long live the earth. The postmodern transformation of the Arthurian mythos is not a retreat into nihilism but an affirmation of the worthwhileness of being human and committing to care for the earth.⁷

Notes

1. Miller's Dark Knight texts are conveniently collected in Frank Miller, The Complete Frank Miller, which places Batman: Year One first and then The Dark Knight Returns, reversing their original chronological order. My reference to Miller's texts will be to this edition.

2. By mythos I do not refer to Jungian archetypes but to the often unarticulated and unavowed mythological presuppositions of a culture. As Levi-Strauss makes quite clear this “mythos” is often quite contradictory and ambivalent.

3. It goes without saying that a deconstructive reading of the Arthurian texts is possible which would point out the difficulties I am referring to at the mythical and cultural levels.

4. Garry Wills (200-204) uses the phrase “Hollywood on the Potomac” to refer to the mythical, Arthurian air of both Kennedy's and Reagan's Washington, D.C. The point is that none of these Camelots, King Arthur's in the legends, Kennedy's or Reagan's, were healthy places.

5. In the older Batman materials, the criminal world is a double of sorts of the world of law and order, Gotham; they aren't a part of Gotham. It is sometimes thought that the earliest Batman episodes were more realistic than those seen in the campy 60s, but that isn't really the case. One will be disabused of that notion by a casual glance through the first volume of Bob Kane's Batman Archives.

6. See Campbell's (53, 345) somewhat naive discussion of the symbolism; it would be intriguing to take Walter Burkert's more critical and politically mature reading of myth and apply that to the Arthurian mythos.

7. See Derrida (933) who notes that a deconstructionist or postmodernist agenda has as its goal the transformation of the world and its protection. Similarly, Miller's Batman's agenda is no longer simply one of vengeance.

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