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That's What's Up: The most important scene in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Each week, comic book writer Chris Sims answers the burning questions you have about the world of comics and pop culture: what's up with that? If you'd like to ask Chris a question, please send it to @theisb on Twitter with the hashtag #WhatsUpChris, or email it to staff@looper.com with the subject line "That's What's Up."

Q: I've heard you say that the best scene in Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns is not the one that people expect. If it's not the mud pit scene, what is it? — @benito_cereno

Over 30 years since it originally hit shelves, and The Dark Knight Returns is still one of the most influential Batman stories ever published—which, in pop cultural terms, probably makes it one of the most influential comics of all time, period. And it's also one of the most imitated. You can see huge sections of it recreated in live action in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but it's not just the specific moments and individual panels that were brought to life. It's the themes, the way the characters talk to each other.

And yet, with three decades of comics, TV shows, and movies all attempting to recreate, react to, and reject DKR, there are very few that manage to even come close to capturing the feeling of what seems like one of the book's smallest moments: two panels in the second issue that aren't just the best moment in Dark Knight Returns, but might be the single best moment of Frank Miller's entire career.