Corto Maltese

"Corto Maltese" appears in Frank Miller's graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as the name of an island at the centre of an incident not unlike the Cuban missile crisis. The choice of name is apparently an inside joke as Miller has stated he is a great admirer of Pratt's work. Miller also dedicated the Sin City one-shot Silent Night to the memory of Pratt, who died a few months prior. The Corto Maltese islands has been occasionally referenced in other DC Comics since. Similarly, in Tim Burton's original Batman, the character Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) tells Alexander Knox (Robert Wuhl) that she just came back from "the Corto Maltese". She shows him an issue of TIME magazine, which the Joker later flips through with Vale in the museum scene. Her pictures on the cover and throughout the magazine show a desert war zone strewn with dead bodies and the Joker gives his approval. Bruce Wayne also mentions her pictures from "the Corto Maltese" to Knox and Vale when they talk to him at his benefit party, regarding them as well above Knox's frivolous articles on "theBatman".