Officially, Batman turns 81 this month. Detective Comics #27, which marked the Dark Knight Detective’s first-ever appearance, first hit shelves, was cover dated May 1939 (although that means it was probably available in late March of that year). Boring technicalities aside, this is the perfect excuse to revisit Batman: Year One. Written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli and Richmond Lewis, Year One dramatically expanded and retooled the Caped Crusader’s origin as established by his creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger, and built upon by successive creative teams over the decades that followed.

Unsurprisingly (or should that be “inevitably”?), this story arc ruffled a few feathers over the course of its four-issue run back in 1987. Yet Year One was ultimately embraced by fans, critics, and creators alike, and – along with Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – would go on to dominate how Batman was portrayed in comics and other media for the next 30 years, directly inspiring Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Dark Knight trilogy.

What explains Batman: Year One’s lasting popularity and influence? Read on to find out!

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

Batman: Year One opens with Bruce Wayne and Lieutenant Jim Gordon arriving back in Gotham City on the same chilly January morning. From the outset, Miller’s novel approach to these characters is clear. Not only will he be charting the entire 12-month cycle implicit in Year One’s title (unusual in the superhero genre, which typically plays loose and fast with time), but he’s elevating Gordon – until now unequivocally a supporting player – to the position of co-lead alongside Batman himself.

“He’s a criminal. I’m a cop. It’s that simple.”

– Jim Gordon, Batman: Year One

Indeed, the future Gotham City Police Commissioner comes perilously close to upstaging his pointy-eared ally, with events largely unfolding from his more grounded viewpoint as he slowly comes to accept Batman’s vigilante methods. Miller never forgets whose name is in the title, though, and scenes like Bruce’s quasi-spiritual decision to adopt his nocturnal persona or his reputation-forging clash with a corrupt SWAT team leave no doubt who the real focus of this tale really is.

Even so, Year One is more than just the story of why an orphaned billionaire dedicates his life to fighting crime kitted out in a Halloween outfit. Instead, at its heart, it’s about two men – exceptional yet undeniably human – from different worlds brought together by their shared, incorruptible thirst for justice. This as much as anything is a key reason Batman: Year One’s abiding potency with readers.

A creative team at the peak of its powers

Then there’s Batman: Year One‘s creative team. Frank Miller is a polarising figure today thanks to his ever-increasing emphasis on bold, archetypal storytelling (he doesn’t so much eschew subtlety as wipe his feet with it) and controversial political views. Few would deny that Miller remains a potent creative force, but debate rages over the quality of his output in the years since he released his creator-owned Sin City series. Books like Holy Terror and All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder earned particularly scathing reviews, and not unfairly.

But Miller was in red-hot form in the 1980s. Batman: Year One followed his seminal run on Marvel Comics’ Daredevil, as well as smash-hit miniseries Ronin and the aforementioned Dark Knight Returns at DC Comics. Like those books, Year One represents the perfect fusion of Miller’s passions (in this case, pulp novels and noir cinema) and arch-melodrama, along with just the right amount of self-restraint – an almost instinctive understanding how far mainstream characters can be bent out of shape before they break and lose their appeal.

With his more flamboyant impulses as a writer firmly in check, Miller could better channel his righteous fury over the crime running rampant in New York City in the 1980s into Year One’s narrative in a way that truly resonates. Indeed, few comics (superhero or otherwise) before or since have so effectively captured the mood of the time in which they were conceived.

“Ladies. Gentlemen. You have eaten well. You’ve eaten Gotham’s wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on… none of you are safe.”

– Batman, Batman: Year One

If there’s an area where Miller does indulge himself, it’s Year One’s first-person narration and dialogue – and this is no bad thing. From Batman’s tersely worded introduction to Gotham’s crooked ruling class or Jim Gordon’s bad ass internal monologue on what it takes to be a cop in Gotham City, Miller’s trademark hard-boiled words prove a perfect fit for both characters. Year One remains as quotable today as it was 32 years ago.

Of course, comics is a visual medium, so not even the most meticulously crafted script is worth the paper it’s printed on if the artist involved isn’t up to the challenge. Fortunately, David Mazzucchelli ranks among the greatest comic book artists of all time, and it’s impossible to imagine anyone – not even Miller, himself an adept artist – matching David Mazzucchelli’s work on Batman: Year One.

True, Year One doesn’t boast the formalist experimentation of The Dark Knight Returns. There are no attempts to emulate cinematic techniques (for example, slow motion) within its pages. But that’s less to do with a lack of ability on Mazzucchelli’s part – as the visual and narrative innovations showcased in Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp attest – and more a case of him respecting Year One’s almost documentary-esque sensibilities.

Under Mazzucchelli’s pencil, this cast of larger-than-life heroes and villains display the kind of subtle emotions previously reserved for indie comics like Love and Rockets. They also have a real weight and dynamism; whereas the actions of most characters in the superhero genre are communicated through impressive, stylised poses that (no matter how well-rendered) leave them frozen in time, the characters in Year One move in an uncannily vivid and lifelike manner.

Then there are Richmond Lewis’ colours – or to be more specific, the enhanced, fully-painted colours included with every collected edition of Year One since its initial release. The muted palette Lewis employs fits Mazzucchelli’s artwork like a glove. It’s instrumental in creating the suffocating atmosphere of what it means to live in Gotham, from the cheap lipstick rouge and stale-piss-yellow neon lights of the city’s red light district to the muddy drabness of its many low-income tenements.

A Gotham City of its time, for its time

Indeed, between Miller’s prose and Mazzucchelli and Lewis’ artwork, Gotham City takes its first steps towards becoming comics’ most memorable fictional city. Sure, the groundwork had been laid by the likes of Dennis O’Neill – who devised key locales like Arkham Asylum and Crime Alley – around a decade earlier. But really, Gotham was still just a thinly veiled stand-in for New York City, barely distinguishable from Superman’s hometown (and fellow Big Apple surrogate) Metropolis.

Batman: Year One irrevocably changed this. Miller took the lawlessness he saw around him in New York and dialed it up to 11. His Gotham was a city without a pity; a contemporary dystopia where the downtrodden residents are preyed upon by the uncaring elite, corrupt police force, and unchecked underworld element alike.

“Gotham City was cold shafts of concrete lit by cold moonlight, windswept and bottomless, fading to a cloud bank of city lights, a wet, white mist, miles below me.”

– Frank Miller, from his afterword to Batman: Year One

Mazzucchelli and Lewis matched this oppressive tone in their artwork, creating an urban hellscape that’s all too recognisable with its grimy rain-spattered streets and dingy boarded-up crack dens. You can almost feel the grit of Gotham under your fingernails as you flip through the pages, which is as clear a sign as any Year One‘s Gotham is no mere backdrop, but a living, breathing environment. It’s a supporting character in its own right, and a victim as much in need of saving as its denizens.

Human heroes we can root for

It’s fitting then that the self-appointed champions of a city this broken should be suitably flawed themselves, and Batman and Jim Gordon are certainly that. These guys may be the stuff of modern myth, but in Batman: Year One, they remain disarmingly relatable. Much like in The Dark Knight Returns, Miller regularly contrasts Batman’s supernatural aura with the fallible man behind it. Unlike in that book – which saw a past-his-prime Bruce Wayne grappling with old age – here, the Caped Crusader is hobbled by inexperience.

Gone is the unstoppable superhero of public perception, whose judgement and athletic prowess borders on the superhuman, replaced by a rookie still trying to get the hang of this whole costumed vigilante thing, often with disastrous consequences. He fails and fails often, making his continued struggles and eventual triumph all the more compelling.

This deconstruction of Batman is enough to make Year One noteworthy in and of itself, however, Miller’s crowning achievement is his masterful revamp of Commissioner Gordon’s characterisation. In a portrayal that has since become definitive, the Jim Gordon of Year One is a quick-witted, two-fisted ex-special forces police detective who’s hard as nails and can’t be bought.

He’s not entirely without sin – an extra-marital affair dims Saint Jim’s halo somewhat – but he’s utterly committed to and capable of (as Miller puts it) “clean[ing] up a city that likes being dirty”, which makes him fully deserving of Batman’s trust and respect. And that’s an aspect of Batman: Year One that doesn’t get discussed enough: how Miller’s depictions of Batman, Gordon, and their crimefighting partnership make sense of the Dark Knight’s inherently ridiculous world.

After all, in a city as downright rotten as Miller’s Gotham, it doesn’t seem so inconceivable that a brilliant yet tormented young man might decide the only logical way to find justice is to dress like an overgrown bat and confront crime head-on. Nor is it outrageous when a by-the-book cop realises his only hope of affecting lasting change is to team up with such a man.

That Miller wraps Year One up by hinting at the craziness yet to come – the Joker’s arrival is teased in the very last panel, presaging the rise of out-and-out supervillainy within Gotham’s underworld – only serves to further reinforce the necessity of Batman’s alliance with Gordon. It’s a beautiful transition away from Year One’s heightened realism towards the more outlandish escapades the character is known for.

Not a reinvention but a reminder

With Batman: Year One, Miller, Mazzucchelli, and Lewis achieved something truly special. Yet in DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle, Miller downplayed just how much heavy-lifting the creative team did to revitalise the character. According to Miller, what existed already was “good enough”; all he needed to do was give the character’s rich history a slight facelift. In short: Batman was pretty great already.

And this, ultimately, is the secret of Year One’s enduring appeal: rather than reinventing Batman, it simply reminds us why we loved him to begin with.

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