Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Storytelling
Review: Frank Mileer is an absolute genius. I love the way he revitailized Batman in his first installment. Unfortunately this one isn't as good as the first(although still one of the best comics ever)and it would have been great if some of the artwork was better. The saving grace of this comic is the storytelling. Instead of completly focusing on Batman he takes us into many of the other characters from Batman's universe giving us all a glimpse on how powerful Batman trully is to be able and effect the lives of some of the greatest heros of all time. Some people had a problem with this because it wasn't as good as the first. Those people have a point but you still have to rate an item in comparison to it's peers and in this respect The Dark Knight Strikes again is extraordinary.
Rating:
Summary: mind blowing (spoilers ahead) but not as good as the origin
Review: I read this book several months after reading the origonal dark knight returns. This book just looks at fanboydom and says no buddy. Things such as dick grayson being the next joker and wonder woman and superman having a daughter (miller must have been influenced by Mallrats) and the death of Louis Lane. Miller just chalenges readers and it seems most don't like what they read. This may not as good as the original but its still good. I would love to see frank miller make a prequel to the dark knight returns to finish the dark knight graphic novels. Anyway just a good read.
Rating:
Summary: A delightfull surprise
Review: Frank Miller knows what he is doing. Making this comic was the biggest risk of his career. Sure, he will get some immediate sales from the comic book but from the looks of these reviews he will be hurt in the long term. It is unfortunate that comic fans cannot appreciate what he has done here. This is probably the second best batman comic I have ever read and I rate it that way. Better than The long haloween or dark victory or the killing joke. More in depth and poignant. This is a very experimental comic which, although taking itself very seriously, is also a joke about the nature of comics and superheros. The people who hate this comic have a few probelms 1/ they wanted another dark knight returns. 2/ They can't laugh at how dumb superheros actually are (which this book does). This is a comedy. A funny comedy with the most experimental and impressionistic art work I have ever seen in a super hero comic before. It is fast paced, and a hell of a lot of fun. The story has flaws and feels incomplete but that is part of what miller wants to do. Miller has always believed that a comic is an active medium. In other words, miller likes to see the reader fill in the spaces with their brain. His sin city series uses a similar technique. the idea is that you get only a little bit of information and then fill in the rest yourself. This makes for a more active reading than in the classic modern comic with hyper-realistic art that does all the work for you. The story is smart, political, dangerous, experimental, and very, very new. You should read this comic simply because there is nothing else like it. I'm not even a big miller fan normally but this is risky entertainment and I love the reactions it provokes, as well as the look and glib diaologue. Trust me.
Rating: 
Summary: dumb but not quite fun enough
Review: The gist of the story is Batman comes out of "death" (instead of retirement) to re-recruit all the old JLA heroes. The goal is to take down the people who have enslaved the world, apparantly, the people to whom Clark Kent/Superman sold out the superheroes in the original Dark Knight. Since back in that tale Batman claimed there were people worse than supervillains I thought I might see Batman battle the government, or corrupt businessmen. He sort of does but it quickly turns out that Batman just needs to beat Superman's enemies now that his own enemies are long gone. I suppose Lex Luthor qualifies as worse than Batman's old foes because he's taken over the world, but it seemed as though the Lex Luthor/Braniac team meant Batman just decided to fight Superman's enemeis rather than his own. That just doesn't seem like battling people worse than supervillains. There were a few things here and there I really liked. "Superman's a pussy!" made me laugh out loud. Yeah, the art is deliberately sloppy and the writing is mostly tossed off but Miller has assured us the very badness of all this is what makes it good. Maybe. Maybe Frank Miller is right to propose this is all a satire and maybe Steven Grant has a point saying this is a satire of the Silver Age the big publishers want so desperately to get back again. Still, the trouble I had with this series is that for all the dumb-funny-cool ideas the satire was too heavy-handed and rang oddly hollow. Hot Gates, the porn star remaking Snow White ["I'm doing it for the kids"] worked just fine in the original because it was just a toss-off one-liner. We never needed to see Gates in the flesh because for a satire to actually work there needs to be a plausible connection to some real thing being satired. Too often it seemed as though Miller was satirizing himself. Granted, Miller has never been about subtlety (not in writing, just in art). Miller is probably due to satirize himself anyway. And maybe he really meant to satirize the Silver Age comics so many people praise. Nothing wrong with that in itself. Perhaps he wanted to write a story that was as dumb on its face as most "classic" Batman stories. He succeeded there, too. Perhaps he was satirizing the "adult" content that has slowly creeped into comics originally written for children. The Superchix send-up of the practically naked superheroine touched on that. Miller attempted to send up everything in "mainstream" comics by combining all these contemporary elements with the worst elements of the earliest superhero stories. But if that's what he wanted to do he probably could have done this with a completely new set of characters. And combining the worst elements of the Silver Age [wooden plot, huge plot holes, chunky transitions] with a social satire gets unwieldly. As dumb as it gets it never really gets so transcendently dumb it gets funny, like Ranma 1/2. But even that reflects personal taste. I find martial arts send-ups easier to take than superhero send-ups because superheroes are usually too goofy to begin with. Even as a satire Strikes Again falls short for me because Miller didn't improve on anything he had done in the first Dark Knight tale. It doesn't help that the characters are largely ciphers for political caricatures. It's not as though Frank Miller is a public figure/entertainer known for political views like Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky. Or Tom Tomorrow. Whether or not you agree with any of them (I often don't) they at least attempt to explain how and why some of the things we see have come about. If Strikes Again was supposed to be a political satire all we get is a satire of media coverage and that's not something we really need from a guy who became famous for writing superhero stories. Using Superman as a symbol of oppressive government or Batman as a symbol of free thought only gets you so far. For that matter, the same can be said of the surplus of cameos. The Green Arrow represents communism and the Question is a hyper-Ayn Randian libertarian/fascist. This isn't a step beyond the Reagan look-alive saying "good boy" to Clark Kent as if Superman were the president's lap dog. That said, Miller does flesh out Superman a bit more here and we get to see why he sold out to the government in the earlier series. Many of the cameos advertised before the release are just that. Don't expect any character development of anyone except a bit of development for Batman and Superman. After all this a caveat is in order. Don't slam this book just because you liked the Dark Knight Returns. Now I happened to like it but in several respects Strikes Again is better. The fact is that if you attempt to break down Strikes Again as a plot it makes a lot more sense as a linear narrative than the original Dark Knight does. People who say this isn't as good as the first need to explain why. Miller's writing for comics is good but the truth is that as a story-teller he's mined variations on a theme. However brilliant the trick is Frank Miller, as a story-teller, has always been something of a one-trick pony. "I was sentimental back when I was old" may be the final word in this story but that may be the problem. The truth is that as a character Batman isn't getting any younger and Miller isn't either.
Rating:
Summary: Typical Pt 2
Review: Just trying to cash in on Pt 1!
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but no cigar
Review: Whimsical, flashy, poetic and at times sloppy, preachy and pedestrian..frank miller et al manages to do it all in 250 or so pages. Yet, in the end better than the run of the mill superman or xmen. It at least dares to be different, even though we may not like it and not meet our inflated expectations set from Frank Miller's last turn in Dark Knight series.
Rating:
Summary: The Dark Knight Strikes Out
Review: There's a Tony Millionaire quote on this book's small inner jacket flap: "This book looks like it was done by a guy with a pen and his girlfriend with an iMac." That's about the best compliment this book deserves. If truth in advertising were the standard they'd mention that the pen was applied sparsely and quite sloppily, and that the girlfriend is probably new to computers and given to horrible, eye-straining experimentation with already-overused Photoshop filters. Come on, all you Frank Miller apologists, get real. There is simply no excuse. Sure, nobody expected this thing to be as innovative and influential as Dark Knight Returns, but when the preproduction sketches at the end of the book have more care put into them than any given page in the finished story, it's time to hold Frank Miller accountable. 2 stars only because of the much-deserved scathing commentary on life under the illegitimate Bush regime. Then again, I question whether Miller even intended this.
Rating: 
Summary: A Killing Joke
Review: In Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller created a comic legend.
In Dark Knight Strikes Again, he kills it. Twice over. Anyone who has reviewed this and given it five stars is kidding themselves. They are writing their reviews with the original in mind. They so desperately want this to be as good. It isn't. I have given this a one star rating because that is the lowest ranking you can give on this site.
Rating:
Summary: I WAS SENTIMENTAL BACK WHEN I WAS OLD.
Review: It always bugs me when fans of an artist are angry when the artist's style changes. Frank Miller is clearly a victim of this fodder. Although it would be comic nerd paradise if he illustrated exactly the way he did back when he created the Dark Night Returns, I'm sure this wouldn't be very fulfilling for frank. The whole point of art is to evolve. evolve or stagnate. Has anyone heard U2 lately? They don't much sound like the did when the recored "boy" and they are considered the top of their industry. As far as I'm concerned Frank Miller has earned the right do tell a story any way he wants. That being said I agree with many of you who say the art of DK2 appears sloppy and unrefined, but this is the storytelling method frank chose for this project and (at least for me) it seems to fit. When reading DK2 I found myself wondering if this was Frank's new style or was he making a statement to all of the comic fans who were foaming at the mouth for this book. I think frank answered that question himself in the very last sentence of the book.... I WAS SENTIMENTAL BACK WHEN I WAS OLD.
Rating:
Summary: I WAS SENTIMENTAL BACK WHEN I WAS OLD.
Review: ART OR STATEMENT? It always bugs me when fans of an artist are angry when the artist's style changes. Frank Miller is clearly a victim of this fodder. Although it would be comic nerd paradise if he illustrated exactly the way he did back when he created the Dark Night Returns, I'm sure this wouldn't be very fulfilling for frank. The whole point of art is to evolve. evolve or stagnate. Has anyone heard U2 lately? They don't much sound like the did when the recored "boy" and they are considered the top of their industry. As far as I'm concerned Frank Miller has earned the right do tell a story any way he wants. That being said I agree with many of you who say the art of DK2 appears sloppy and unrefined, but this is the storytelling method frank chose for this project and (at least for me) it seems to fit. When reading DK2 I found myself wondering if this was Franks new style or was he making a statement to all of the comic fans who were foaming at the mouth for this book. I think frank answered that question himself in the very last sentence of the book. I WAS SENTIMENTAL BACK WHEN I WAS OLD.
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