Lynn Varley DKR #2 pg 17

Grail page achieved! As you can see from the rest of my account, Dark Knight Returns was a pivotal moment in my comic book reading and collecting. I hope to someday own an inked Frank Miller/Klaus Janson page from the original series, but those prices have gotten too high for this collector. Thankfully, the painted Lynn Varley pages are still somewhat attainable.

This page was such a fun get. When I was a kid first reading the series, I thought the Bat Tank was one of the coolest things I had ever seen, and this particular sequence of the story was really exciting. Batman taking on the mutant leader is iconic. This page leads up to that fight and puts the tank front and center. Plus, the lettering on this page is so great and bombastic. So fun!

It's great to see one of these pages in person and learn more about how this pre-digital color was created. Lynn had painted all the pages and the lines are just an overlay on acetate. You can peel the acetate back and see the painted (line free) page below. So cool!