In anticipation of the movie "Batman v Superman" I thought I'd check out the Frank Miller Batman comics on which it was loosely based. My hope was to do so before seeing the movie, but a surprise screening at work messed up my timing. Fortunately the movie was pretty bad so I dismissed it and enjoyed the comic independently.

Depictions of Batman in my lifetime have successfully recast the character and rewrote the stories as dark, violent and brooding. So it's easy to forget that when this comic came out it was a revolution from the campy, family-friendly Batman of the old TV show and comics.

The story joins a middle-aged Batman, inspired to return from retirement by increasing crime in Gotham. Since retiring public sentiment has turned against heroes and he faces opposition from police and government, including from Superman who works invisibly for the United States. It's a fun read with lots of moral ambiguity. I'll definitely check out the sequel "The Dark Knight Strikes Again" at some point.

I picked this up at Powell's in Portland as part of my continuing quest to read "classics" which form the basis of many works and even whole genres in modern story-telling. After reading it was pretty obvious that most pirate stories owe quite a bit to Mr. Stevenson.

The book itself is a pretty standard adventure story featuring a young man coming-of-age. It's funny to think of it as "standard" though when it is one of the works that helped set the standard.

Although I liked the book, I wish I had read it when I was younger. In a few contemporary books I've read either the protagonist references Treasure Island as a source of childhood joy or the author of the book mentions it as partial inspiration. I feel like it is a book that is meant to be read first as a child and then returned to as adult and I've forever missed the first half of that equation.