First Look: Opening panel of "The Dark Knight III: The Master Race"

DC Comics have released the first panel from the final installment of Frank Miller's Dark Knight series.

It may not seem like much, but it's always neat seeing an artistic work in progress. When it's work from the likes of Andy Kubert and Klaus Janson (an underrated and under-appreciated inker whose contribution to The Dark Knight Returns deserves a lot more recognition), it's hard not to get even a little bit pumped.

It's a small panel, as you can see, so the context is all but nonexistent, but it almost looks as if the Batsuit is on display in a case. Perhaps we'll open on a contemplative Bruce?

Head over to DC's website for some more news on the series, including some new variant covers like this one from The Killing Joke's Brian Bolland.

The Dark Knight III: The Master Race debuts November 25th.

13 comments

Troll_Post_Sorry

October 1, 2015

Well, that's the most coherent thing Miller has put out in years.

JaymusYawsley
October 1, 2015
He didn't draw this. That's probably why.
1. Troll_Post_Sorry
  October 1, 2015
  He also didn't insert his views against Muslims, women, or LGBT folk, either.

Joker

October 2, 2015

I already like the art more than the last 2 combined :D haha

JAG2045

October 2, 2015

Well the art definitely looks better than DKSA so far

Jesse24O

October 2, 2015

After seeing what what Brian Azzarello could do in his coloboration with Snyder in Batman 44. I am interested to see how his writing style coalesces with Miller's unapologetic and extreme style. From the interviews I have read by Brian and comments from Batman editor Mark Doyle this will be a blend of both writers styles.

I must say that the art looks decidedly better than the previous rougher and abstract style that Miller puts out. Now abstract being a kinder descriptor of his prior work with Batman. I frankly don't know what to expect from this project I am hopeful it's a return to form than the final nail in the coffin for Miller. I am at least glad Azzarello is involved to keep things palatable.

JaymusYawsley
October 2, 2015
In all honesty, I'm thinking Miller is more a story consultant on this: he has his outline and specific beats he wants to hit, but Azzarello is doing the lion's share of the writing. Frank gives his final ok, maybe tweaks some things, but it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't do much in the way of scripting.
1. Jesse24O
  October 2, 2015
  I am of the same mind on that I also think from a PR stand point it's better that Miller be attached to the project in a more managerial role than that of the predominant work horse in the project.
  I feel that because of his reputation being what it is now he would have final say in the general story beats but Mark Doyle having the final say in terms of the finished product just because at the end of the day the product is Batman and DC is very invested in keeping their crown jewel unblemished.
2. Milo Yiannopoulos
  October 2, 2015
  I'd agree if Miller wasn't so good at writing Batman's lines. He probably did a few Batman heavy scenes mostly on his own.
  But yes, Azzarello is probably the workhorse for a lot of this. At least I hope so.

Milo Yiannopoulos

October 2, 2015

These 17 variant covers I've seen so far have been amazing. It's nice to see the honor and respect these guys have for DKR and these covers make it look absolutely amazing. I'm totally judging a book by its cover(s) and not regretting it.

Joakim

October 2, 2015

Very cool panel. Can't wait for this to come out!
Ps. I'm very pleased with the new commenting rules. Hopefully people will respect them.

gunsrlove

October 3, 2015

This variant cover, especially the joker reminds me so much of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

http://vignette3.wikia.noco...

It's probably just the old school aesthetic, but that Joker face seemed so familiar

Daniel Christopher Holt

November 21, 2015

http://i1.wp.com/batman-new...

I read newer information on Dark Knight III from a Q & A of Frank Miller. I think Bruce Wayne would be born a bully to be effective at it as a social elite spoiled sociopathic rich kid, and as Batman. Training with the League of Assassins added to that when he was much younger before he became Batman, but he wouldn't kill. He would have paid Ra's Al Ghul a lot of money. Taking so many hits in his career he would get some brain damage unless he can heal it which he did get complete healing in his 30s when he went into the fountain of essence twice that also extended his life by 5 or 10 years by bringing him back to 30 years old prime age when he went into it both times to age everyday after that. It's far more effective than the Lazarus Pits. Then he continued his Batman career that had more challenges than ever to where he can get brain damage again. He was banned from the mystic temple the second time, and the mystic temple contains the fountain of essence.

Rich spoiled sociopaths would go back by many generations in his rich social elite family that then went into their illegal links to the crime mafia and high level illegal investor sources in the 20th century, and in the 20th century those illegal investors were the original Court of Owls, not the new temporary one. The temporary Court of Owls had newcomer investors, and the descendants of the original Court of Owls that wanted to bring it back together. The original Court of Owls is very good at what it does, but it keeps it's stronghold in Gotham City and just focuses on that as investors of top businesses who make a lot of money on both legal and illegal activity who are very organized with many groups. The original Court of Owls had been around for many decades who tried to kill off the Justice Society of America in the 1960s with an outerspace satellite headquarters they built into a death trap. It was through a very corrupt senator of Gotham City who had those of Eliminations Inc. to booby trap the headquarters. Justice Society of America had a headquarters in New York City during World War II, after the war their new headquarters was in a building in Gotham City, and when they were created an outerspace satellite headquarters that was a death trap they realized there was a lot of corruption in the investors of Gotham City. They moved their headquarters to Civic City.

The original Court of Owls worked through the Pentagon, NASA, mafias, and as investors. Their corruption wasn't well known to most in those organizations. They had a network of people they worked through. There's other groups that are similarly corrupt like the original Court of Owls but those other groups didn't sap an individual city like what they did with Gotham City. Those other groups are apart of the corruption that saps the USA and the world as a whole. The original Court of Owls made a lot of money in military and NASA especially through Wayne Enterprises, experimenting with illegal research and selling firearms illegally over seas to take part in a lot of ongoing smaller wars in other countries and third world countries they would rake in money by doing that. Bruce Wayne had financial issues getting away from that, but had a great help from the business genius of Lucius Fox who Bruce Wayne made a CEO and President of Wayne Enterprises and Wayne Foundation. Lucius Fox has the midas touch for turning failing businesses into successful conglomerates. Wayne Enterprises was already successful with Thomas Wayne, but when removing the original Court of Owls they needed to make a lot more money without corruption. With the direction of Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox, Wayne Enterprises became a much wealthier business than it already was. Based in Gotham City, WayneCorp was founded in the 17th century but officially became a company in the 19th century under Alan Wayne. The company is the eighth largest international conglomerate in the DC universe; being exceeded by LexCorp, Stagg Industries, and Ferris Aircraft. Today, WayneCorp continues to achieve excellence across a wide range of industry sectors and markets, employing some 170,000 people in 170 countries.

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Bane went after Batman, knowing he's Bruce Wayne, because his father King Snake made a lot of his money from small wars around the world with illegal overseas involvement with Wayne Enterprises and the original Court of Owls before Bruce Wayne removed that corruption from Wayne Enterprises when he began as Batman in 1995 at 25 years old that took some years and was a complex process. Bane grew up in a political prison of Santa Prisca ran by corrupt criminal investors being sentenced as a baby taking on his father's crimes (his father was competition with the other crime business in the area) because his father left behind a pregnant woman when he left the area. Joker created the Laughing Fish business as a joke against Bruce Wayne who's business was partially ran by corruption for decades and led the person that became Joker originally into that path. 6 months in zero year before Bruce Wayne wore the Batman suit, he threw the person that became Joker in a chemical vat before Joker had become the serial killer who by the time of Kingdom Come is responsible for over 800 homicides. He was working a lot of part time jobs, gambling, and doing work for the mafias. His pregnant wife was killed by loan sharks when he failed the chemical plant job as Red Hood. After that he got into a lot more extreme crime and paid for Harley Quinn's entire college university education long before she joined him in crime. She didn't make that much money, she grew up with an abusive father, and she grew up socially partially knowing of the crime circles. She was going to drop out of college university that she just joined, but Joker paid for her entire education for her to become an M.D. as a psychiatrist. Joker could use her to get out of Akham Asylum. Gotham City has some of the best money making businesses, but their class system is imbalanced where only the richest 1.5% flourish in the city, while Metropolis's class system is as lot more balanced. That's why a lot of very intelligent and extreme criminals developed in Gotham City, because they're those that otherwise would have been born in upper class while 90% of criminals in the USA and the modern world are generally borderline retarded in the IQ ranges of 80 to 90, but the corruption destroyed many families' lives that lived in the city over the generations. Bruce Wayne has to deal with the evil his ancestors paved, but he and his father didn't like that powerful corrupt investors were controlling and making money from their business, and their business is one of the richest in the world. Bruce Wayne wanted to expose the original Court of Owls because if they got too well known they would lose their power right away, and Batman dismantled the mafias to do so.

As powerful as the original Court of Owls were, their foundation is very fragile if they're discovered by the public because their affiliates would remove any relations to them for their affiliates in higher places to retain their other legal and illegal businesses. The original Court of Owls paid Lew Moxon to send out the low-life Joe Chill to make the deaths of Bruce Wayne's parents appear as a petty class murder instead of a high level corrupt conspiracy. Lucius Fox had a lot of experience having to work along with the original Court of Owls as a high level employee of Wayne Enterprises as a businessman, entrepreneur, and inventor, and Alfred and James Gordon also came across their corruption and the mafia corruption which is why they helped Bruce Wayne as Batman to dismantle them. They wanted to save their own souls that would in turn save other souls as the goal. Harvey Dent was also apart of that but he already was partly corrupt as Big Bad Harv as the alter-ego with dissociative identity disorder, and then Sal Maroni threw acid in his face during a court case giving him a lot of permanent brain damage to his left neo-cortex also permanently damaging the left side of his face. As Big Bad Harv he resorted to the same mafia tactics as the mafia men who abused and controlled things in order for him to survive by Harvey Dent escaping to Big Bad Harv, and then he became Two-Face when his face was disfigured and he got permanent brain damage. Bruce Wayne traveled around the world for over a decade before becoming Batman, he learned from many every month of those years, examples such as Giovanni "John" Zatara, and directly with Ra's Al Ghul and with League of Assassins. Giovanni's daughter is Zatanna Zatara who's apart of Justice League Dark, a magic focused group. Dr. Leslie Maurin Thompkins had a big influence on Bruce Wayne growing up.

The damage to Gotham City was done to such a degree over the decades that when that group was removed, some of the generations of damaged citizens then became the next big threat as the extreme supervillains of Gotham City who are a lot more dangerous than the Court of Owls. That group kept it organized to where they had all the power, but there were other affiliations that wanted power who went for it after they disbanded as a negative cesspool that just rebuilds again and again in different forms. The same thing sort of happened when Bruce Wayne led Jean-Paul Valley to the path of dismantling The Sacred Order of Saint Dumas, who were a safeguard in the first place against the attempt of conquest and destruction of The League of Assassins over the centuries. When The Sacred Order of Saint Dumas was temporarily out of the picture, The League of Assassins attempted world takeover by unleashing the legacy virus of the Wheel of Plagues. Before becoming Two-Face, Harvey Dent's rich socialite wife resorted to becoming a serial killer, killing those of the mafias of Gotham City, like how Harvey Dent resorted to Big Bad Harv to survive using the mafia tactics on the mafia. With the influence of Lucius Fox, Alfred, and James Gordon with Batman, Harvey Dent tried to remove the corruption through law but then fell completely into the extreme supervillain Two-Face identity with the negative pool of other supervillains like Joker, Penguin, Riddler, etc. The mess left over was like a virus mutation outbreak that kept getting worse and worse through Batman's career but he wanted to aid in healing the injuries of the structure of Gotham City. Batman's vigilante heroism inspired those who were ruined to become a lot worse of villains. A great limitation is that Bruce Wayne worked with the system, but the teachings and education of the system in all structures of the USA are so limited and corrupt that people are just getting sicker and sicker mentally and physically, that's a bad combination with the history of extreme damage of those in Gotham City.

An outerspace satellite headquarters wasn't made again until when Justice League formed that was funded by Bruce Wayne, and further designed by John Stewart and Diana Prince. It has a sub-space warp to the Hall of Justice. Bruce Wayne's family goes back in a long line of the rich social elite bully sociopaths by over three centuries since the 17th century. In an alternate reality Bruce Wayne's older brother, Thomas Wayne II, was a bully who joined with the original Court of Owls and with The Crime Syndicate on Earth-Three as Owlman. That's not the newer temporary Court of Owls. On Earth-One, Bruce Wayne dissolved the original Court of Owls when he first began as Batman that led to the extreme supervillains of Gotham City. Bruce Wayne's father Thomas Wayne would have also been a bully who created the Batman identity and took it on in another alternate reality where his wife lived but Bruce Wayne died instead of them. In that reality Thomas Wayne would kill in the name of justice as a vigilante with his Batman suit, a sword, guns, explosives, gizmos, and deadly inventions he would make. Bruce Wayne and his father wanted to remove corruption from Wayne Enterprises. On Earth-One Thomas Wayne originally created the Batman identity but never got to use it, and Bruce Wayne took it into his own direction.

With that brain damage Bruce Wayne uses an animalistic rage to continually beat on the criminals he goes after and gets into lots of arguments with those he's worked close to throughout his Batman career. He just keeps hitting the criminals even after they're down like what cops do. That's an argument Jason Todd had with him as Bruce Wayne would continually beat down on Jason Todd when Jason Todd would go into his criminal tendencies in his youth. That's apart of when Jason Todd returned from the dead as sort of also a vendetta against Bruce Wayne who weakened him in ways in his own preparation that led to his death, and his blood mother's death, by Joker and a group of criminal angry goons with a crow bar and some explosives. Red Hood represented also how Bruce Wayne bullied the person into becoming Joker, and how Jason Todd's murderer was himself in the same ways. When Joker killed Jason Todd, Joker was trying to parent him, but found Jason Todd wasn't prepared that led to Jason Todd's death when Joker killed him. That's why Joker said to Jason Todd, "This is going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt me", when Joker continually beat Jason Todd down with a crow bar after the gang of angry goons repeatedly beat down Jason Todd having ganged up on him, and then Joker finishing the job with setting explosives to detonate on a tied up dying Jason Todd. Joker really did care but nobody could see that. People can't distinguish between the good guy and the bad guy. They'll see the bad guy as the hero and vice versa, they'll see the good guy as the villain.

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They say that Carrie Kelley is going to be more intelligent than Bruce Wayne. It depends what that means because Bruce Wayne is so multi-talented and he has an IQ of 190 with an eidetic memory. Unless Carrie Kelley happens to have a very high IQ, I knew she was intelligent. Barbara Gordon is also very intelligent and shows it as Oracle, when the very caring but often misunderstood Joker broke the Batgirl's back with a hand gun bullet like she's a red headed stepchild. Joker wanted to make a statement, and he was inspired by the statement Bane made to Batman. In both cases it's still arguable if they're more intelligent than Bruce Wayne, they can be gifted in different ways and have different skills that stand out. Bruce Wayne grew up on computers before public home internet was available, but he helped to bring in that technology with his research. He would have been good with building computers and computer programming since he was a child having access to technology most in the world didn't have. His company had access to the NASA and military internet systems, and supercomputer systems, that Bruce Wayne's father, and then Bruce Wayne further developed through their continued technology research for NASA and the military. The creation of many types of futuristic technology was through a full staff of scientists, inventors, and their teams in Wayne Enterprises. Bruce Wayne got ahold of Wayne Enterprises and all of it's available technology when he was a child after his parents were murdered, and he got access to his father's top secret technology such as in the batcave.

Carrie Kelley and Barbara Gordon both grew up in the newer generations, while Bruce Wayne was born before. In ways Carrie Kelley can be very sharp and keen in areas, and her skills can parallel others in many ways to where she may stand out in areas Bruce Wayne doesn't. Bruce Wayne is also getting old. In all aspects Bruce Wayne utilized a lot of other great minds, it wasn't just himself creating and doing everything. That's one of the greatest aspects of his business genius to utilize others, and he was as good at business as he was as Batman, and as a member of Justice League. While he had that higher mind he also had to learn the base drives when he learned from League of Assassins before becoming Batman, and that learning began again on many new levels after Bane first appeared to over a decade afterwards that was continual into the creation of the superhero militias of Batman and Superman. Batman used the base drive nature and the threshold of human will through League of Assassins he used for very good purposes to leading superheroes and mankind in the far future. Bruce Wayne's company's research has always been ahead of the times and of the best in the world by top level technology standards in NASA and the military.

That's why as Bruce Wayne gets older he's still very sharp on all technology that's available Bruce Wayne is well rounded and has a broad education, while Barbara Gordon specializes in computer programming she was said to rival Jean-Paul Valley in but that's more to do with the specific education they got. Jean-Paul Valley had his strengths and weaknesses, and he's also good at creating robots, cyborg technology, many types of weapons and firepower technology, computer programming, and a lot of other things. Jean-Paul Valley died when he killed off key members of Sacred Order of Saint Dumas, but he wasn't as good at that time because he shut off the subliminal programming and was relearning. Jean-Paul Valley had to relearn as a whole that goes against how he was raised into the programming of "The System". The programming he got also makes him forget about Sacred Order of Saint Dumas so he continues as an Azrael, but isn't aware that a hidden organization is operating him such as what they did with his father in the centuries old line of Azraels of the super warriors who are made to be one man armies. His best fighting styles are programmed into him with the subliminal programming, and he fights differently with different fighting styles without the subliminal programming. Bruce Wayne is genius in science and business, but he also relies on a lot of others where he can't know everything and is good at utilizing others when putting together patents for Wayne Enterprises through many of his scientists that he hires. He most likely has a lot of his own patents as well but Wayne Enterprises is a multi-billion dollar company, one of the richest in the world, where most of that money is made from who he hires instead of just his own genius. Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world.

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First Look: Opening panel of "The Dark Knight III: The Master Race"

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