I worry that people that just get into FM work today will not understand what Miller was to mainstream comics in the 80s.
I remember being big into titles like Batman, Superboy & LOSH, Hulk & Defenders as a kid and then all of a sudden I just saw those FM DD covers. That's it. That's all it took to get me to wonder what was inside the book. Those covers just looked DIFFERENT than anything ive ever seen in comics. Dark, avant garde, emotional. This didn't look like a superhero comic book to me anymore.
Up until then no one really reinvented a superhero. With the exception of probably Neal Adams short stint on GL.
FM changed the rules of mainstream comics before it was cool to do so. The real question is.. Was he aware of it?