I know that later comics became more 'dark'.
I never said the term 'dark' was in itself a liberal one, it is a liberal one in relationship to a hero.
Darkness is about evil, light is about good.
The implication in making the hero 'dark' is to associate him with evil, a 'dark side'.
Here again, I don't think I was painting Batman himself as "dark," although others have, i.e. "Dark Knight", but rather I was referring to the mood of the Batman/Gotham world. That's why I referred to the comics, and not Batman per se when I used that term.