Based on the DC Comics character Batman, "The Dark Knight" is the 2008 sequel to 2005's "Batman Begins", considered perhaps the best of the Batman films ever made. Co-written and directed by Christopher Nolan, the film continues the Batman film franchise after an eight-year hiatus. Christian Bale reprises the lead role as Batman/Bruce Wayne. Batman's primary conflicts in the film include his fight against the Joker (played by the late Heath Ledger) and his strained friendship with district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart).

For his conception of the film, Nolan was inspired by the Joker's first two appearances in the comics and "Batman: The Long Halloween" and Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One". The movie was filmed primarily in Chicago (as was Batman Begins), as well as in several other locations in the United States, the UK, and Hong Kong. Nolan also used an IMAX camera to film six major action sequences, including the Joker's first appearance in the film. The Batsuit was redesigned, with a cowl allowing Bale to move his head. The film also introduces a recreation of the Batcycle. Warner Bros. created an aggressive viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screenshots of Heath Ledger as the Joker. After Ledger's death in January 2008, however, the studio refocused its promotional campaign.

The Dark Knight... A Brief History

Back in 1986 DC Comics released the first issue of "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns", a four-issue mini-series printed in the new prestige format, and written and drawn by Frank Miller. The story tells how Batman retired after the death of the second Robin, and at age 55 returns to fight crime in a future where crime and violence have taken over. Meant as a possible finale for Batman, Miller created a tough, gritty portrayal of the Dark Knight. Released the same year as Watchmen, it showed a new form of more 'adult-oriented' storytelling to a mainstream audience, as well as diehard comics fans. Receiving massive amounts of media publicity, Miller found that he had not only redefined Batman in comics, but had managed to remove the campy image many had of the character from the 1960s television series.

The Dark Knight Returns influenced the comic book industry by heralding a new wave of darker, more 'realistic' characters in comics, and along with Batman: The Killing Joke, it was also a major influence on Tim Burton's Batman in 1989. The trade paperback proved to be a huge seller for DC and remains in print 20 years after first being published. In addition, this comic finally helped to sever the formerly benign relationship between the two most recognizable DC Comics superheroes, Batman and Superman.

1986 also saw Miller return to Daredevil with artist David Mazzucchelli, creating a story arc that, like The Dark Knight Returns, redefined and reinvigorated its main character. In "Daredevil: Born Again", we learn about the Daredevil's Catholic background, and witness the destruction (and "rebirth") of alter ego Matt Murdock at the hands of archnemesis the Kingpin. (The Daredevil run actually precedes The Dark Knight Returns by several months, and, in fact, began in late-1985.)

Miller and artist Bill Sienkiewicz produced the graphic novel "Daredevil: Love and War in 1986". Featuring the character of the Kingpin, it indirectly bridges Miller's first run on Daredevil and Born Again by explaining the change in the Kingpin's attitude toward Daredevil. Miller and Sienkiewicz also produced the eight issue miniseries Elektra: Assassin for Epic Comics. Set outside regular Marvel continuity, it featured a wild tale of cyborgs and ninjas, while expanding further on Elektra's background. Both of these projects were well received critically, Elektra: Assassin was praised for its bold storytelling, but neither had the influence or reached as many readers as Dark Knight Returns or Born Again.

Miller's final major story in this period was in Batman issues 404-407 in 1987, another collaboration with Mazzuchelli. Titled "Batman: Year One", this was Miller's version of the origin of Batman in which he retconned many details and adapted the story to fit his Dark Knight continuity. Proving to be hugely popular, this was as influential as Miller's previous work and a trade paperback released in 1988 remains in print and is one of DC's best selling books.

During this time Miller (along with Marv Wolfman, Alan Moore and Howard Chaykin) had been in dispute with DC Comics over a proposed ratings system for comics. Disagreeing with what he saw as censorship, Miller refused to do any further work for DC and he would take his future projects to the independent publisher Dark Horse Comics. From then on Miller would be a major supporter of creator rights and be a major voice against censorship in comics.

The Film...

The films borrow from bits and pieces of Miller's works, including the portrayal of the heroic Gordon, played by Gary Olman in one of his best ever roles. Comparing Miller's work to the film, Jonathan Last of the Daily Standard wrote, "In Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, there is a moment where Alfred, the family butler, recounts a story from Bruce Wayne's childhood, a few years after the murder of his parents:

Master Bruce was but nine years old, and restless, as he always was, at night. Still he sat, politely enough, on his bed, as Alfred read to him. "The Purloined Letter." Yes, that was the story. He listened in silence as, finishing the tale, Alfred explained the importance of Mr. Poe's contribution to detective fiction. Then, with a voice like steel, so frightfully formal, his dark eyes flashing, Master Bruce asked--no, demanded: "The killer was caught. And punished." Alfred assured him that the villain had met justice. Bruce slept. Like a boy.

This is the quintessential depiction of Batman: After his parents are shot dead, young Bruce Wayne abandons childhood. He begins plotting, scheming, and obsessing about justice. This monomania eventually leaves him with a disfigured soul and a hollow life.

Batman is unique among comic-book superheroes in that his public identity keeps his true identity secret, and not the other way around. Bruce Wayne does not don a cape and cowl to become Batman. Batman, the dark, obsessive vigilante, is ever-present. Bruce Wayne is simply a construct used to keep Batman hidden. And the Batman is, in increasing order of importance, a vigilante, a hero, and a monster. As such, he is a uniquely complex character in the realm of comics."

"Superman, for instance, is a demi-god who decides to be the world's savior. Wonder Woman is a powerful being acting as an ambassador in the world of men. The X-Men are freaks of nature fighting to preserve their place in the world. Batman's only power is the clarity and will to understand what sometimes must be done to achieve justice. Even if the answers aren't very nice.

Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins had much to recommend it, but failed to grasp this key insight into Batman's character. Drawing heavily on Miller's Batman: Year One, in Nolan's telling, Bruce Wayne is a disillusioned college student, planning to avenge his parents' murders. He doesn't care much for justice, and is not interested in more than token vigilantism, until well into manhood. Once he becomes the Batman, the costume is just an alter-ego. Bruce Wayne, a normal man wanting to live a normal life, is just beneath the surface, trying to keep his head above water. For the Batman aficionado (this term is not quite as laughable as it sounds), Batman Begins was interesting, but ultimately flawed in its understanding of the character.

Nolan's sequel, The Dark Knight, is something else altogether. A gigantic, sprawling production, it is a super-hero film with literary ambition: The Dark Knight aims not to change the essential character of Batman, but to provide an alternate telling to how he became a hero/monster and to examine the costs and limits of civilized society.

The movie begins one year after the conclusion of Batman Begins. Organized crime has begun to wilt under Batman's vigilante campaign and the city of Gotham, suffering from terminal sepsis in the first movie, looks as though it might heal. (This is partially achieved by Nolan giving the cityscape a wholesale redesign. The Gotham of Batman Begins was full of CGI splatter; The Dark Knight strips away much of that artifice and uses a relatively unadorned Chicago as the fictional city.)"

Last continued with this accurate assessment, "Gotham's recovery is interrupted by the appearance of a man calling himself the Joker. Nolan creates a perfect distillation of the character. He is a psychopath of pure id, whose only motivation is a desire to break civilization into chaos. He is unlike any villain you've ever seen: The Joker doesn't want to rule the world, or amass power, or wealth. The Joker doesn't even want to kill Batman--he just wants to demonstrate the frailty of social mores. "When the chips are down, these civilized people will eat each other," he tells Batman, conspiratorially. "You'll see. I'll show you." In Nolan's telling, the Joker has no origin, no explanation. No one knows who he is. At various times he tells vignettes about his life--all of which contradict one another. He cannot be bargained with or intimidated or bullied. At it's most basic, The Dark Knight is about Batman slowly comprehending what must be done to stop such a man.

As such, The Dark Knight, like Batman himself, takes a dim view of liberal (meaning "classical Western," not "lefty Democratic") pieties. Nolan's argument is that the invisible ropes binding us together are not as strong as we might like, or imagine. A snip here, a cut there, and our rules begin to break down. Liberalism is well-suited to managing the competitions and collisions of liberal peoples. But it can be fatally ill-equipped for confrontations with those not grounded in the same basic traditions.

Of course this last bit is not a universally accepted truth. But this is precisely why Batman is the only comic-book hero worth taking seriously. The Dark Knight does just that and in the process becomes the first superhero movie worth being considered not as a genre piece, but as a very, very fine film..."

Last gets it right, and understands the success of the these comic book-to-films only work when we take that journey with our hero; to discover what makes them tick and how they came to be. It's been said that Bruce Wayne is the "mask", and that Batman, "the Dark Knight", is the true representation of what is inside us all.

E. "Doc" Smith is a musician and recording engineer who has worked with the likes of Brian Eno, Madonna, Warren Zevon, Mickey Hart, Jimmy Cliff, and John Mayall among others. He is also the inventor of the musical instrument, the Drummstick. He can be reached at http://myspace.com/edoctorsmith