From creating the seminal 1986 comic miniseries The Dark Knight Returns, writer/artist Frank Miller's influence on the Batman mythos has been a prominent one. It's impacted everything from Tim Burton's 1989 take on the character to this year's Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice.
Surprisingly, Miller has revealed that if he was given the keys to the Batcave, he would take the character in a markedly "smaller" direction.
"To lose the toys and to focus more on the mission, and to use the city a great deal more," he told Variety, "because he's got a loving relationship with the city he's protecting."
He contrasts this with someone like Superman, believing that Batman's connection to crime is a more intimate one given the thing that has driven him for all of these years: the murder of his parents.
"He defeats criminals with his hands," Miller notes. "So it would be a different take. But it will never be in my hands, because it would not be a good place to make toys from."
A perfect example of this approach can be found in Miller's 1987 story arc Batman: Year One, which had been in development in 2000 as a live action feature with Darren Aronofsky set to direct, and adapted as a 2011 animated feature.
"It was much more down to Earth," he details. "In it, a fair amount of time is spent before he became Batman,and when he went out and fought crime he really screwed it up a bunch of times before he got it right."