The Dark Knight is more of a thriller than comic based, and I found Nolan’s insistence in grounding that verse in reality was a hindrance. WS despite being spy noir had heavy comic elements and didn’t shy away from its source and origin.
See I disagree with that. Batman’s source is pulp novels. And there are plenty of Batman comics that are right in line with the dark knight tonally. Long Halloween being the most obvious culprit. So to say it doesn’t have any comic elements doesn’t feel right to me. It feels completely apt to a Batman comic.
The idea that a comic book movie had to have certain things to be a comic book movie flies in the face of guys like Stan Lee and Gerry Conway and frank miller and Alan Moore. They were all told what a comic book had to be or what it was and said “nah” and decided to do their own thing to elevate the medium.
Dark knight elevates the medium in the same way lee did by saying you can have flawed protagonists or make political statements. Same way Moore did with watchmen and the same way Conway did by saying the hero doesn’t always win and will suffer true loss.
Dark knight keeps its feet in the real world but always draws from comics for parallels or tone. The trifecta between Gordon, dent, and Batman is right out of the comic book, along with Harvey’s descent to becoming two face. And even if the joker is now an allegory for a terrorist, he’s still in line with the comics from a character standpoint.
shyt ain't even been out a month.