Since its inception in 1986, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight-Verse has proven to be one of the most influential and increasingly bizarre experiments in superhero-storytelling ever put to page. Miller paints a dystopian future through The Dark Knight Returns in which Batman, now aged and fighting the breakdown of his own body, must do battle with his former foes and even his former friend, Superman, in order to restore freedom and justice to not only Gotham City, but America. It’s a tall order, and Bruce must eventually assemble his own team of young street thugs to help keep the peace, as the Justice League is nowhere to be found.
The circumstances behind this prove to be even worse than even the crime-ravaged Gotham City: revealed in 2002’s sequel series, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Lex Luthor has taken control of the United States government, outlawed superheroes and forced the members of the former Justice League to do his bidding by holding their loved ones hostage except for Superman, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. While Batman eventually does free the team and get the band back together to take down Luthor once and for all, the Justice League has certainly seen better days when the alternate future dystopia opens.
Superman has been allowed to remain the symbol of truth, justice and the American way, but at a terrible price. While still a formidable fighter and unaged since his heyday twenty-five years earlier, Clark is now essentially a tool of the fascist United States Government, and is their last line of defense against any threat that might topple Luthor’s villainous regime. He has also married Wonder Woman, and serves as her consort. While the series begins with Clark and Bruce still on friendly terms, it famously ends with an iconic battle in which the elderly Batman manages to take Clark down. Bruce is declared dead after the battle, but of course he faked his own death. Clark knows this, but refuses to tip off the authorities to his old friend’s survival.
Also known as Oliver Queen, GA has probably made it out the best of any of his former comrades, and that’s saying something. A billionaire philanthropist, Queen has been fighting Luthor’s regime on his own since the covert takeover, and has lost his arm (most likely to Superman, actually) during his campaign. Green Arrow is the first (and only) former Justice Leaguer to join Batman in the original series, DKR, and served as both comic relief and extra-muscle in the final battle against Clark. Though aged, he reappears in DKSA with a cybernetic arm most likely provided by Batman. While clearly damaged by the dystopian fallout he’s had to witness, Green Arrow is the only remaining hero who has remained active in the interim and uncompromised in his moral integrity.
One of the last free members of the former Justice League, Wonder Woman is now Queen of the Amazons, and rules Themyscira with Superman as her consort. The two are revealed to have a secret lovechild named Lara who inherits both her parent’s powers and later have a son named Jonathan. Miller has drawn much criticism for his portrayal of Wonder Woman in this continuity, most notably the sex scene between her and Supes in the second issue of DKSA, which involves at the very least hundreds of people dying during their tryst. A poetic image to be sure, but perhaps not the best poetry.
Miller’s finest work in the DKSA would be the opening of the second issue in which Ray Palmer, the former Atom, has been trapped in a Petri dish for years and is surviving as a castaway in this alien world. Unable to return to normal size, Atom is forced to fight microscopic creatures that appear as horrifying monsters. He is saved by Batman, assists in taking down Luthor, and later restores the people of Kandor to their proper size. (This turns out to be a huge mistake).
The Flash, Barry Allen, is a prisoner of Luthor, having been forced to run on a hamster wheel in order to produce electrical power for Luthor’s America. Luthor holds his wife hostage, however Batman has managed to save her by the time he frees Barry. Meanwhile his best friend Hal Jordan has left earth and taken up an alien form in order to be with his new family on an alien planet. While not on earth at the time of the reformation of the Justice League in DKSA, he cameos at the end the story, and makes you wonder why he didn’t show up earlier. A being of immense power at that time, Green Lantern uses his power of sheer will to knock out every single satellite Luthor had been using to keep the world under his control. He later reappears in the third series, Master Race, and is handily de-handed by the restored people of Kandor. Which sort of doesn’t make sense, because Miller explicitly wrote he didn’t need a ring in the previous story. But since The Dark Knight Returns is his story, he can do what he wants with it.