Funny / Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

aka: The Dark Knight Returns

• Bruce's first night back as Batman includes taking away the dirty money that a taxi cabby was paid by a pimp to shut him up, and tearing it to shreds in front of the man in the most classic Batman aesop sort of way one could think of. There isn't even any bat glares or talking, making it come off as borderline petty as the cabby looks down in shame.
• Alfred and Bruce in the Wayne Infirmary:
  Alfred: If it's suicide you're after, Master Bruce... I have the recipe for an old family potion, It's slow in working, and quite painful. You'd like it.
  • And later in the same scene.
    Alfred: You know, sir, that there is precedent for wheelchair detectives...
    Bruce: Shut up, Alfred.
• Alfred is The Snark Knight.
  Alfred: Your accountants wait in the West Wing, sir.
  Wayne: Tell them I'm sick.
  Alfred: (mumbled under his breath) Shan't have to lie. That Refugee Charity called...
  Wayne: Write them a check.
  Alfred: And the Committee for the Prevention of Obsessive Behavior in Middle-Aged Men?
  Wayne: Write them a check.
  Alfred: Very good, sir. Your sense of humor is keen as ever, sir.
• Batman takes a phone call, and obviously plans to jump back into action immediately. An exasperated Alfred is seen pulling the Batsuit out of the washing machine.
  Alfred: (grumbles) He'll just have to wear it wet...
• Batman goes undercover to take down and interrogate Joker’s minion Bruno on what their boss is planning while Bruno holds up a liquor store. His choice of disguise? An overweight grandma screaming about how “Sebben Lebben” sells their alcohol for cheaper.
• Batman leaves Carrie in the batcopter and specifically tells her not to touch the controls, or she's fired. She does anyway, reprogramming the voice controls to use cooler commands. Afterwards:
  Carrie: I'm not fired?
  Batman: *grins* You're not fired.
• "Property damage. Auto." (A voice command to the reprogrammed Batcopter to fire a missile at a car)
• For his final fight with Superman, Bats leaves Carrie to drive the Batmobile. When Supes rips it open, there she is, aiming her slingshot at him.
  Superman: Isn't this a school night?
• "Rubber bullets. Honest."
• This exchange:
  Plainclothes cop: O'Halloran, ma'am, sixth precint. What've got?
  Commissioner Ellen Yindel: It's not suicide, lieutenant. The girl with him is from Kyle Escort. She's been drugged. Shut the joint down... And pick up Selina Kyle.
  O'Halloran: Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am.
  *O'Halloran goes away*
  Another cop coming from another direction: Commissioner... O'Halloran, ma'am, sixth precint.
  *Yindel looks at O'Halloran with jaw dropped and realizes she just talked with Batman*
  Yindel: STOP THAT MAN!
• From the animated movie, this Joker line. Doubly so if you think he was serious and wasn't joking.
  Wolper: He's a victim of Batman's psychotic obsession.
  Joker: (looks confused) ...I thought I was Batman's psychotic obsession.
• The animated movie also casts the talk show host David Endochrine (in the comic a David Letterman look-alike who told crummy jokes) with Conan O'Brien. The scene now contains so much dark, absurdly-awkward humor that you just know that Conan O'Brien had to have had a hand in re-writing it.
  Joker: I want people to get me.
  David: Alright then.
  Joker: (Slowly drinks out of coffee mug) That's why I'm gonna kill everyone in this room.
  (Beat)
  David: Oooookay. That's a little more insight than we had in mind...
  • A minute later, Joker asks David if he can do whatever he wants with the on-set coffee mug, to which David gives the okay for since they have dozens in the closets. When he promptly smashes it and tears his doctor's throat out with the glass, Joker smugly shrugs in the aftermath.
    Joker: So long as you won't miss it.
• From the animated film, during one of the News Monopoly Montages, the African-American guy wishing that Batman would go after the guy's landlord next.
• During Joker's homicidal rampage at the amusement park, there's this Black Comedy Burst when Joker grabs a little boy to use him as a human shield:
  Kid: You're the Joker, right? Batman's gonna kick your ass!
  Joker: He'll have to go through you first.
  • There's also his complete randomness in his victims at the Tunnel of Love. Some people he coldly shoots dead on the spot or as they're running away. Some he just pushes aside or punches. In one particular case, he just straight up shoots a boyfriend and then punts the girlfriend out of the boat to commandeer it for himself. And all the while "apologizing" like he's pushing through a crowd at the supermarket.
• An otherwise serious moment of Russia launching a nuke when they lost a territory battle Crosses the Line Twice when the President of the United States of America, who happens to be Ronald Reagan pastiche, gives a nation-wide announcement from inside a bunker and hazard suit... with a cheerful good-news-bad-news summary, even outright calling the Russians a Sore Loser over the launch.
• At Bruce Wayne's funeral, Clark briefly hearts a heartbeat, and then another as he turns around to see a thinly-disguised Carrie, who stares back with wide eyes as she waits with a shovel to dig up the still-living Bruce. After several moments of increasingly high tension... Clark just gives a knowing smile and a wink to her as their little secret. And the whole left side of his face is still bruised and swollen from the fight, which just makes it even cheesier.
  • There's also Clark's meeting with Bruce earlier in the story, where the movie goes out of its way to put him in a loose v-neck shirt that looks like it's out of a shlocky romance novel cover, while a bald eagle lands on his arm as he strikes a dramatic pose. It's so hilariously on-the-nose that it stuck in audience's minds.

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