Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

StoryI'm not sure if it's the hype, the amount of time since it's publication, the artwork or something else, but I find myself a bit underwhelmed. I originally gave this 4 stars intending to declare it a 3.5 star rounded up, but as I was thinking about my review I decided to just give it a 3.There was some really interesting parts of the story, but some pages I just found bogged down and confusing. This might be more a product of the layout, I'm not really sure.I'm intrigued by the notion of an old Batman no longer in peak physical condition despite his best efforts. The idea of a female Robin is cool too, although not really explained. She's just a Batman groupie that he decides to take under his wing after proving herself useful.It's certainly a darker story as things are falling apart around Batman and the law is closing in on him. Commissioner Gordan is even older and being forced into retirement and the new Commissioner elect has it out for him.This is a lot to like, but I found it slow in places that overall brought it down for me. ArtworkI didn't like the artwork at all. What worse was the layout. The pages felt cramped. The text was badly placed making it confusing which panel it went with at times. I wondered if the art was a result of having so many tiny panels crammed into a single page, but I found even the larger panels and some of the full page to be lacking.I didn't read comics in the 80s as I was too young. The Marvel stuff I read in the 90s looked better than this based on my recollections at least, and I've grown accustomed to the digital art of the last 10 years or so. I found it distracting in places which didn't help when the story felt confusing or slow.Maybe I'm not a good judge of it having nothing from that time period to really compare it to save [b:Watchmen 472331 Watchmen Alan Moore https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327866860s/472331.jpg 4358649] which to me looks much better despite only a year older.