An adjective or adverbial participle phrase?

Question

The before helper gone, this is the revived version.

Either one of the top three on this list could have landed the No. 1 spot, but we’re going with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Not just because it’s the best Batman story on here, but because it’s all-around one of the best comics ever published. Setting its sights on a futuristic Gotham City and an aging Bruce Wayne, Miller’s magnum opus is a neo-noir tragedy with hints of social commentary and a metric ton of action on every page.

I'd like to know whether the underlined participle phrase modifies "opus" or "is."

Thank you in advance for your help.

Deadrat · Accepted Answer

Probably a revised version.

What's the antecedent of "its" in "Setting its sights," "opus" or "is."

Park sang joon · Answer

I'd like to revive this thread.

BillJ · Answer

park sang joonThe before helper gone, this is the revived version.Either one of the top three on this list could have landed the No. 1 spot, but we’re going with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Not just because it’s the best Batman story on here, but because it’s all-around one of the best comics ever published. Setting its sights on a futuristic Gotham City and an aging Bruce Wayne, Miller’s magnum opus is a neo-noir tragedy with hints of social commentary and a metric ton of action on every page.I'd like to know whether the underlined participle phrase modifies "opus" or "is."Thank you in advance for your help.

It’s not a modifier, so it's not modifying anything. The underlined clause is a loosely attached expression called a supplementary adjunct, the kind of adjunct that gives supplementary information. Unlike modifying adjuncts, which are tightly integrated into clause structure, supplements are fenced off by punctuation, as can be seen in your example where the adjunct is separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma.

BillJ

Park sang joon · Answer

Thank you, BillJ, for your valuable opinion.

Then, I'd like to know what you think is the subject of "Setting."

BillJ · Answer

Most non-finite clauses are subjectless, so we have to look elsewhere for the subject. In this case it's retrievable by looking at the subject of the matrix clause, i.e. “Miller’s magnum opus”. But it's only the 'understood' subject, not the syntactic one.

BillJ

An adjective or adverbial participle phrase?

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