I just thought I'd respond and let you know that -- at your command! -- I did just that. The collection showed up on my doorstep this afternoon, and I'm really loving it so far. Thanks!

I rather think Gordon's the true hero of the piece; Dent undergoes his Greek-tragedy downfall, and Batman struggles with determining what's right, but it's Gordon who gets the job done when it needs doing.

I especially did not see any Morrison in there.

Then I might suggest (re-)reading Arkham Asylum...

But in specific response to you Bill:
I don't hate all things DC, but I do think the opposite is at play. People's love of DC and desire before even viewing this film to find it deep and brilliant has them adding meaning to it that is totally nonexistent, or seeing it as a reflection of the comic source material when it pretty much has only the most surface similarity to Batman comics. And it does glorify violence. It has its cake and eats it too. It indulges in violence and making the audience squirm and be uncomfortable, then turns around and claims the moral high road by making a token verbal stance against violence. It does not show madness in order to push it away or anything like like that, it celebrates nihilism and cynicism. The most violent, nihilist and cynical character is the movie's moral center, the only one with unwavering moral clarity and a consistent viewpoint that never has any doubt or expresses any hypocrisy. In fact, he serves to consistently expose the hypocrisy of all the "good guys" authority figures. Thnk about it, even the one supposed show of goodness winning out in the barge scene is just another exposure of hypocrisy by the supposed good guys, as the authority figures are willing to let the prisoner blow up the other barge, but lo and behold the prisoner actually throws out the controller, showing that the prisoner is actually more moral than the police and that when push comes to shove authority figures will try to save their own asses and are no better than the inmates they are supposed to be judging and controlling. Also, the barge scene is NOT a victory by Batman. Sure Joker loses in his barge prisoner's dilemma setup, but it's not by any planning or heroism by Batman, it's by dumb luck. The day is saved by a violent felon. Batman is not proactive at all and has no role in this victory. A violent criminal saves the day, no thanks to Batman. It's moral relativism at its finest.

Harvey Dent faces a little adversity and ends up a villain, making him exposed as a hypocrite. Batman breaks his oath to kill by killing Dent. Batman tries to steal Rachel Dawes from her fiance. Corrupt cops betray Dent and Dawes and end up getting her killed and causing Two Face to be created. The only real winner is the Joker, he does what he sets out to do, expose everyone's hypocrisy, drive heroes to extreme violence and rulebreaking, and makes authority figures and public institutions look impotent.

Armond White had a great quote about Dark Knight:

Aaron Eckhart's cop role in The Black Dahlia humanized the complexity of crime and morality. But as Harvey Dent, sorrow transforms him into the vengeful Two-Face, another Armageddon freak in Nolan's sideshow. The idea is that Dent proves heroism is improbable or unlikely in this life. Dent says, 'You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain.'

What kind of crap is that to teach our children, or swallow ourselves? Such illogic sums up hipster nihilism, just like Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World. Putting that crap in a Batman movie panders to the naivete of those who have not outgrown the moral simplifications of old comics but relish cynicism as smartness. That's the point of The Joker telling Batman, 'You complete me.' Tim Burton might have ridiculed that Jerry Maguire canard, but Nolan means it-- his hero is as sick as his villain.

A commenter on Rotten Tomatoes also did a good job of pointing out how this movie had its cake and ate it too:

I kept getting exhausted and repulsed by how The Dark Knight continually had its cake and ate it too, by how it shoved oppressively bleak moments in our faces, then turned away from them later on: Gary Oldman gets shot, and we have to deal with his wife breaking down and screaming at the policeman who inform her of his death; but a half-hour later: no, he's not really dead! We have to watch minute after minute of prisoners and civilians on two different barges decide whether or not to detonate explosives rigged to the others' boat, and linger over their 'screw everyone else, I'm totally in it for myself' rottenness (and *no one* on either boat stands up and says, 'stop these madmen!' but oh yeah, then the prisoner decides to throw the detonator out the boat window, and the civilian decides he doesn't have the heart to go through with it-- so you see, folks, the moviemakers finally demonstrated to us that these people REALLY aren't rotten after all, even though they've just forced us to deal with five straight minutes of odious human nature. And then we have to endure another five solid minutes of Aaron Eckhart's character's holding a gun to a child's head, to possibly avenge his girlfriend's death, while Batman stands by and does nothing except to try to talk him out of it. So many scenes seemed intentionally designed to make us all feel powerless against society's innate evil, and linger over and shove the rottenness of humanity down the audience's throats. The constant foisting of fear and oppression and helplessness, going hand in hand with vigilante justice (and even an indirect justification of the Patriot Act, with Bruce Wayne's radio-monitoring device) made me wonder if Dick Cheney had co-written the screenplay. My wife and I left the theater both wondering out loud, is THIS the movie that our country really needs to be tuning into right now? But of course, we're only two small voices amongst the movie's $150 million opening weekend, and after all (as so many fanboys are quick to point out), 'it's only a movie.'

When the Joker is your moral center of your film, you're pretending to justify law and justice, but in reality celebrating violence and chaos. I'd have to be incredibly gullible to ignore the evidence of my eyes and pretend this movie is decrying violence just because it has a few token lines at the end to that effect.

TDK (I think) takes more of a mish-mash from various modern interpretations, but I felt Morrison, Miller, Grant and O'Neil influences in there...

The only thing I really felt in terms of influences from the comics were Loeb's Long Halloween, which is actually worse than using no influences from the comics at all. Outside of that, the influences I felt were more from other movies, like Ichi the Killer, Saw and Hostel. I especially did not see any Morrison in there.

Think how I feel. I'm old enough to remember getting my hopes dashed by THIS one...

Yeah... boy do I remember that one... (That is the one with the plastic ears on the outside of his "helmet/hood" thing isn't it?)
I've even got the Corman Fantastic Four Movie... Now if you want "worst superhero movie ever".... Hoo boy!

Compare the Original Batman Movie (Holy Shark Repellant!) with Burton's Batman (Though I prefer his Batman Returns) and then take Schumaker's Batman and Robin and compare it with TDK... Similar sort of jump...
Batman begins has a Heck of a lot of source material straight from Year one... TDK (I think) takes more of a mish-mash from various modern interpretations, but I felt Morrison, Miller, Grant and O'Neil influences in there...

Look how far Sam Raimi's Spider-man improved on the 70s live-action TV series movies...

Incredible Hulk is much more of a Summer Blockbuster/Popcorn movie than Ang Lee's Hulk was, but I think both have their place.

I feel sorry for those who were expecting Marvel to go and do a low-grossing intellectual excercise.... They want money. Both Iron Man and Incredible Hulk are just "Pretty Good" as far as your summer blockbuster goes.

As far as Superhero movies go, they BOTH get 7 out of 10 from me... Which is VERY Good! TDK gets 9 though.

You'd get the impression that such folks haven't read any Batman comics made after 1986.

What does The Dark Knight movie have to do with Batman comics made after 1986? It doesn't really owe much of ANYthing to the comic source material, except for the occasional "We're two sides of the same coin, Batman" speeches by the Joker. If people want to defend it, that's their right, but I don't understand these people who try to defend it by saying it's loyal to the source material.

It's not THAT bad, it's just not what we were hoping for from a Superman movie.

Think how I feel. I'm old enough to remember getting my hopes dashed by THIS one...

Why did they even bother?

I find it hilarious that....there are people here calling TDK "the worst movie they've ever seen."

Think how I feel. I'm old enough to remember getting my hopes dashed by THIS one...

You'd get the impression that such folks haven't read any Batman comics made after 1986.

(Also amongst the indies, Oni seems determined to make this a memorable December by publishing not only Ted Naifeh's third COURTNEY CRUMRIN one-shot but also ... possibly, anyway, as I gather there's a chance it might hit next Wednesday ... Chynna Clugston's first BLUE MONDAY comic in something like two years. Huzzah!)

I demand multiple Essential Westerns & I demand them NOW.

Of course, I also demaned Essential Sub-Mariner, & Marvel initially responded by scheduling that very book to come out in September ON MY BIRTHDAY, but that was apparently just another case of Joe Quesada moving his lips (=lying) ... as far as I can tell, the volume isn't even on the far horizons anymore. *deeper sigh*

Bah, humbug. Combine #s 6 & 5 — that is, give me Essentials of the Rawhide Kid, the Kid Colt & the Two-Gun Kid — & we’ll talk.

The Marvel Westerns hardcover, in addition to a bunch of new stories, reprints a number of those very classics, and mine cost $4.00 plus another couple of bucks to ship. I don't know if you'll find one THAT cheap but every time I check Amazon there's at least one copy available for under ten bucks.

Also, for godssakes am I the ONLY person stuck in a backwater so benighted (i.e. Alabama's mediocre excuse for a capital) that the libraries are too poorly funded to spring for graphic novels? They're just not on the shelves here, as far as I can tell. (Neither is a whole hell of a lot else, it seems like, at least in comparison to the libraries in my former home of Little Rock, which until I moved here I hadn't realized was actually the 21st century version of classical Athens.)

And I continue to wonder why anyone gives a good goddamn about superhero movies, but I'm starting to suspect that that's just me. Oh, well.

Gawd I miss that show......

While I didn't like the Hulk, I don't like that Marvel seems to have given up on original movies after it failed. Hopefully the excellence and success of the Dark Knight will have the reverse effect, and they'll start trying things again with Thor and Captain America. I don't care if one of them is a 1/10 if the other one is an 8 or 9.