Krypton....ONE NOTE MY ASS!! Batman's character carries numerous levels of creativity.

What I got from the ORIGINAL focus of Batman since 1986 was really cool because we were able to get inside Batman's mind and discover that we were capable of anything. For me, this more came from the Joker, but Batman represents pure unadulterated power just as much. It was their freedom to do ANYTHING and philosophy/understanding of how life truly is that made me love them so much. "Killing Joke" was definately a big piece of that cake. I quoth myself on the purpose and greatness of that book:

Note: This is pretty much a hypothesis of the ending, but the ending is the greatness and point of the whole book so....There ya go.

Also note: I made it in reference for someone who thought the ending sucked.

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I can tell you why it blew my mind.

Because Alan properly defined Batman and Joker as two sides of the same coin through the mutual understanding of how each became the way they are. Then he accentuated it with a bang by allowing Batman to experience Joker's world of letting go while Joker did exactly the opposite and let go of his madness to embrace Batman's darkness.

Batman reasons with Joker and makes him sane for a full two seconds to allow him to uncover the true horrors he had committed and Batman had joined Joker in a laugh that symbolised his belief that the Joker's words were truth and he fully understood his motivations.

Of course, just because they understand each other doesn't mean either approves of the other's methods.
Here's a part of a quote from an essay made by Monica Hafer titled, "Postmodernism and the Batman Phenomenon".

Click here Beyatch!

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The second embedded element that The Dark Knight illustrates (and Batman lore in general) is the idea of the duality of the postmodern mind. In Batman texts, the splitting of a character’s identity is not simply the idea of playing "dress-up" so that a singular entity can fight or perpetrate crime, but the actual manifestation of dual identities which are separate and sometimes autonomous. Most of the characters in Batman have multiple identities which all assume equal importance to his or her psyche, and, in most cases, this splitting has occurred due to the necessity of the mind to accept two mutually exclusive truths or existences. The external dichotomies cannot be changed, synthesized, or made into any sort of unified opposites, and so this deadlock of dialectic is internalized and creates a split psyche to deal with this problem.

Batman is the most obvious example of this splitting of identity. When his parents were killed, the small helpless boy dealt with the trauma by devoting half of his personality to continuing to exist in society and the other half to becoming the type of man who would, one day, no longer be helpless and scared. Bruce Wayne is a philanthropist playboy who moves with aplomb in the high-society social circles of Gotham while Batman is a vigilante whose only motivation is justice. The schism between the two is irreparable, no matter how many years go by, and while Bruce struggles to be normal, Batman struggles to find a way to erase the past through current actions. Although it may appear that the two identities are mere facets of a single entity, we find that this is not the case.

This sectioning off of identity is common (though often not as severe) in the mind of the postmodern. Because the postmodern mind doubts reality and perceives the world as fragmented and often meaningless, it attempts to combat these notions to allow some type of continued and meaningful existence. The idea of compartmentalization has long been a fact in the psychological realm, but the characters in the world of Batman (and our world as well) all show some form of compartmentalization, which leads to a dualistic perception of reality or, in many cases, the splitting of identity into two unique halves. Compartmentalization is generally defined as a defense mechanism of the mind that allows certain information or ideas to be shut off from the rest of the mind to allow an individual to function. For example, this is the way in which a person can have a tour of a meat packing factory and still be able to order a Big Mac for lunch an hour later. It is the disassociation of one fact from the other. Postmodern existence, with all its irreconcilable dichotomies, requires a person to compartmentalize in their day-to-day lives. Yet, compartmentalization of psyche is most profound in cases where an individual has suffered psychological trauma (has experienced abuse, war, etc.) and the mind has protected itself to allow the organism of the individual to function in day to day existence. In the most severe cases, it can lead to full-blown multiple personality disorders or memory blocking of traumatic events.

In The Dark Knight Returns, Bruce is fighting to stay in retirement because of a promise he made to a former Robin, but the pressure to take action against the social chaos is unbearable. He says of his Batman identity, "He tricks me . . . when the night is long and my will is weak. He struggles, relentlessly, hatefully, to be free" (4). And Bruce is addressed directly in the comic by his Batman persona, who says to him, "You are nothing—a hollow shell, a rusty trap that cannot hold me—smoldering, I burn you—burning you, I flare, hot and bright and beautiful—you cannot stop me—not with wine or vows or the weight of age—you cannot stop me but still you try—still you run" (16). We can see here just how far comics have come from being perceived as material for children to that for adults. Only an adult mind could truly appreciate those feelings of age and of the longing that is expressed here for the vigor of youth.

We can also see from this passage that Batman and Bruce Wayne are perceived as being separate by the very being within which they co-habitate. And this separation becomes more evident as each part exerts a negative force upon its psychic counterpart, driving them farther away while Bruce tries to deny his other identity. Bruce is never a whole and seamless man, but is complete with both of his unique identities firmly in place. When the aging Bruce once more dons the Batman suit, he says, ". . . I’m a man of thirty—of twenty again. The rain on my chest is baptism—I’m born again." We can see the rejuvenating power of the role of hero on the whole entity of the man in this passage, and we feel Bruce’s relief and rebirth as Batman is allowed to come forward. Because he is human (unlike such heroes as Superman and Wonderwoman) he has to face the downfalls related to aging, but his identity as a hero has an impact that helps to counteract his physical (as well as mental and metaphysical) aging. This struggling with aging and the attempt to regain the fire of youth resonates with us as a paradigmatic human event, and we are therefore even more acutely relieved when Bruce submits to his Batman identity and releases us empathetically from the bonds of age and decrepitude.

Batman is not the only crimefighter in his world with a secret identity.1 Throughout the years there have been a myriad of more secondary heroes who also carry the burden of duality. Yet it is not only the heroes who have a splintered identity. Not only are his crime-fighting contemporaries plagued by this duality, but the villains which populate Gotham are also struggling with it as well. It seems as though Kane was closer to the postmodern mindset than were his contemporaries when he created his rogue’s gallery in the forties.

These dark figures almost all represent the duality of the mind and exemplify the "most perverse possibilities lurking in the dark side of human nature"
Another passage describing one of the villains Batman very much relates to. Not as much as Joker IMHO though.

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ur first example is Harvey Dent (formerly Harvey Kent), a lawyer who was ravaged by a criminal’s acid attack and, in contrast to Bruce, turns toward his dark side. He was first introduced in Detective Comics #66, but didn’t find his way back permanently until the 80s.1 He became known as the criminal Two-Face because one side of his face is unmarred and handsome and the other is hideously disfigured. His mind follows this schism as well, and he regards himself as a pawn of arbitrary destiny. He uses a coin to decide the fate of himself and those around him to emphasize the fact that one choice of action, good or bad, is equal in his estimation. Two-Face was Kane’s exclusive brainchild, probably taken from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 tale, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Daniels 45).

The Dark Knight Returns again allows us to experience the pain of Dent’s duality. He has gone through reconstructive surgery on his face and intense psychotherapy to cure his attendant madness. However, once he is released, he immediately begins a course which he knows will cause him to be caught by Batman. When Batman confronts him, we see that instead of the surgery making Dent a complete and sane whole, it has made his mind become the antithetical half; rather than his face being half maimed/half wholesome and his mind half maimed/half wholesome, the surgery makes his face completely wholesome and his mind completely maimed. Only in the duality maintained by his now "natural" state can Dent’s psyche remain in balance. Batman’s sympathies are evident in the text, and we are also able to see Batman’s own struggle reflected in that of Dent’s (see Illustration I). We can also see from this series of panels the dichotomy between Bruce’s human and animal selves. When he was only Bruce Wayne, his denial of his Batman half resulted in his subconscious becoming wholly animal. This struggle between human and primal elements is a paradigmatic struggle which has been seen in many cultures in many different time periods (especially, refer to the Geertz passage in the Introduction).
A few more highlights:

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One of the final cultural aspects of interest in The Dark Knight Returns is the idea of good and evil needing each other for their existence. This comic wrestles with the idea that the very existence of superheroes necessitates (even creates) arch-villains. Many of the commentators and journalists who are shown in this comic feel that if Batman had remained MIA that most of the arch criminals would have stayed away as well. However, it is important to notice that Gotham was riddled with crime even without the larger than life heroes and villains. And it seemed as though there was no such thing as altruism on the part of the common individual. From psychological studies, we know that there is indeed a perceived lack of altruism and empathy in society at large. However, it has also been shown that if a person is able to view another human with empathy, that altruism increases. We can see in The Dark Knight that Batman’s empathy for others causes him to act in a way which betters his society. We also see that his empathy for the villains (his reaction and empathy with Harvey Dent and in the next comic we will look at, the Joker) causes him to attempt to make decisions which are in their best interests while still upholding the law in most cases. The desire for altruism in society is communicated clearly through this comic, and we may therefore conclude that there is a perceived lack of altruism in the extant culture of the author. But we can also see in the text that the author does not believe that evil can be extinguished if there is no good. Therefore, good must fight to maintain a balance where they will never really be rid of evil because they require it in order to be able to perform altruistic actions. And it seems an excepted fact that there cannot be a situation in which only goodness exists. This is what a postmodern mind might consider an impossibility (either because of the pervasive cynical or "realistic" view of the world). But both good and evil seem to be ever-reoccuring forces. The ideas of the birth and death and rebirth (either metaphorical or actual) of both good and evil are very strong here. Perhaps because of the ability of the hero (and thus the reader empathetically) to understand the nature of the villain, we see that the lines between good and evil often blur, but need to be reasserted in order to maintain a balance.
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Many of these cultural threads are also included in the other comic selection we will be looking at in this chapter. In The Killing Joke, we are given a glimpse of the Joker’s origin from Jack, the out-of-work comedian with a pregnant wife to support, to the hideous grinning arch-villain, Joker. Jack has begun a life of crime to support his wife, but when she dies by electrocution while testing a bottle warmer, the senseless nature of her death leaves him disconsolate. However, his criminal associates will not let him back out of a heist they have planned. Unfortunately for Jack, Batman shows up during the job and knocks him into a vat of chemicals. He is disfigured and all of these things together make him go insane. But it is an interesting sort of insanity that the Joker maintains. He is fully aware of the alternative of sanity and how the "real world" functions, but chooses instead to adopt an identity which is mad in order to deal with/function within that reality. The Joker contends that the only difference between him and the "normal" members of society is one bad day.

In order to prove this, Joker captures Commissioner Gordon and his daughter Barbara (after shooting her in the back and taking pictures of her nude body as she bleeds to death). He has taken the commissioner to an abandoned amusement park in order to put Jim Gordon in a situation which is comparable to his own in order to drive the commissioner mad (thus proving his point). As Jim is exhibited, naked, to the circus freaks with whom the Joker has surrounded himself, the Joker explains his predicament (see Illustration E). The Joker then attempts to show Commisioner Gordon (and instruct us as well) that madness is the "emergency exit" through which people can avoid all the black and senseless things which happen. He urges the audience to understand the reality of the situation, sighting examples such as how close we have come to World War III because of a flock of geese on a radar screen, or the fact that the trigger to the last World War was the argument over how many telegraph poles Germany owed its war creditors (see Illustration F).

The Joker feels that madness is the only way one can rationally deal with this reality. He is unable to compartmentalize this information in his psyche to allow him to go on functioning, and it has driven him mad. As Batman arrives on the scene, he reiterates his final point—that everyone is merely one bad day away from becoming him. He says, "I’ve demonstrated there’s no difference between me and everyone else. All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day" (38). And he points out (guessing correctly) the fact that this is probably what has happened to Batman, even though he is fighting for the opposite side. In a final attempt to get Batman to understand, he says, "you have to keep pretending that life makes sense, that there’s some point to all this struggling. It’s all a joke. Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for . . . it’s all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can’t you see the funny side?" To which Batman replies, "Because I’ve heard it before . . . and it wasn’t funny the first time." Batman does not disagree here, which tells us that he may be feeling more empathy for the Joker’s position than is specifically stated, yet he fails to see the humor that is implicit (in a mad sort of way) in the meaninglessness of life. He hangs on to the meaning that has been given to him by law and by some sense that he is taking positive action for mankind.

Jim Gordon hangs on to this thread as well and does not let the incident drive him crazy: in fact, he tells Batman to bring Joker in "by the book." Gordon can be said to symbolize law in this case, and his attempt to remain whole under pressure is commendable. The monstrous experiment has failed to push him over the edge; his one bad day has not made him turn his back on the only shred of stability in his life: the law. No one in the script, especially Batman, denies the claims that the Joker has made as to the terrible nature of existence, but both Batman and Gordon rely on the belief system that gives them some meaning, some hope, that things will eventually become better. They are able to support the duality necessary to continue to remain sane in a sometimes meaningless and mad world.

At the end of the comic, Batman has beaten the Joker and is ready to take him back to Arkham Asylum. He asks the Joker to let him help them both by trying to fix their individual problems together. He wants to try to avoid what seems to be the inevitable necessity of them killing one another. The Joker says that it is too late for him (and thus for Batman as well) and illustrates his reasoning by telling a joke about two crazy men who are attempting to break out of an insane asylum (see Illustration G). Batman finds that he cannot keep himself from laughing at the punchline, and this allows us to see just how close Batman is psychologically to the Joker—how similar they are1. We see that it is only a matter of will and choice that Batman is not the Joker. This duality is perfectly representative of the postmodern mind, where both aspects of the psyche constantly struggle for dominion. Yet neither can be triumphant and still allow the psyche to remain balanced. The use of humor in this case is not only ironic, but it acts as a safety valve for us as readers so that we can deal with a situation that we cannot deny is horrible.
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When we become Batman, we are no longer afraid of the darkness in our world. We have fulfilled a desire for safety and have given purpose to a sometimes meaningless world. Batman becomes our ego ideal and urges us to choose to be a positive force for good in our apathetic world. And in allowing him to be the hero we emulate, we are able to come to accept (though not resolve) our own conflicted natures.
I have NEVER gotten this kind of depth and intricacy from Superman or any other hero for that matter (except for the question, but he never got a chance to evolve). All I got was miles of sermons from someone who isn't a preacher and long-ass runs of inconsistent power levels. Superman and his villains will never give this level of intrigue to me or ANYBODY I suspect.

If anything, Superman IMO is the one note character. I'm thoroughly sick of seeing heroes stand up in comics and deliberately/idiotically make themselves a target merely because it is the right thing to do/the American way (even if they're not American). Superman is the embodiment of all this tripe and stupidity. I'm not saying he should get a changeover though, I understand the need for his existence. Doesn't mean I have to like it though.

.....ONE NOTE MY ASS!! [you sunnuva...]