Holy Terror
75TH REVIEW!!!
Writer and Artist: Frank Miller
Horribly written, illustrated, and offensive on every single page! Is this really the same Frank Miller who gave us TDKR?!
Ranking: 1 star
Oh Frank Miller, what has happened to thee?! He who once wrote the masterpiece that was BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, the thrilling take on noir-crime fiction that was Sin City, and the compelling battle of the Spartans in 300?! I know you stooped low with BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN and ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, but even those could be considered Shakespeare in comparison to this abomination known only as HOLY TERROR!!! Sorry for being so overdramatic and unnecessarily poetic folks, but I just find it hard to believe that the Frank Miller who wrote this trash was the same man who gave us such wonderful comic classics in the past. I know that countless great authors have had declines in the quality of their writing in the later years of their careers, but even then they can at least produce somewhat enjoyable material. Even ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN was enjoyable for being as hilariously bad as Mr. Freeze and his Ice-Puns in Joel Schumacher's BATMAN AND ROBIN, but this?! Even for a decline in quality, this is simply inexcusable for an author known major and critically acclaimed stories. For those who are unaware of what I'm rambling about, Frank Miller is quite easily one of the biggest contributors to the comic book industry. He first became prevalent with his work on Daredevil and the graphic novel RONIN (which I'd love to read in the future), but the work that first garnered him major attention was BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Not only was TDKR a great story about an aging Batman attempting to take back his city one last time, but like Alan Moore's WATCHMEN, it helped comics be recognized as a serious literary medium. He also showed major promise with BATMAN: YEAR ONE, SIN CITY, and 300, but then something happened. All of a sudden Miller's work became a parody of itself, becoming lost in mad ramblings and repetition of sentences that even SIN CITY would find excessive. The first sign of this was in the sequel to TDKR, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN, which was a contrived mess that was not only poorly written and illustrated, but failed as a successor to one of the greatest comics of all-time. He then completely forgot how Batman was supposed to be written in ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN: THE BOY WONDER, which was laughably bad, and portrayed Batman as a psychotic lunatic that referred to himself as "the Godd*** Batman" (which has since become an Internet meme). But even after all of that, you'd think his writing couldn't possibly stoop any lower, but Frank Miller reaches his lowest in HOLY TERROR. Originally conceived in 2006 as a project called HOLY TERROR BATMAN!, the comic would pay homage to propaganda comics of the 1940's (the ones that had superheroes punching Hitler, or fighting the Nazis and Japanese), by having Batman go up against Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. It was considered to be a passion project by Frank Miller, as he was living in New York's district Hell's Kitchen when 9/11 occurred. He wanted this comic to convey the evils that America was up against, and encourage people to take up arms against terrorism. Even it's production the project the project was controversial, with comics writer Grant Morrison (whose work I'm a fan of) deriding the concept of Batman fighting Al-Qaeda as, "decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world." According to Miller, he stated about halfway through writing the comic HOLY TERROR "was not a Batman story," and would focus on a new character that was "closer to Dirty Harry than Batman." He then left to work at Legendary Comics alongside former DC editor Bob Schreck (who was apparently championing the project; who knows why?), and finally hit stores in 2011. HOLY TERROR may possibly be one of the most controversial comics ever created. Both critics and readers have labeled the comic as propaganda against not just terrorists, but anyone who was Muslim or followed Islamic beliefs. Essentially, Miller's book states that if you're a Muslim, than you are automatically a terrorist. Not only is this highly racist and offensive as many Muslims are also victims of terrorism (and the fact that all religions have extremists; including Christians), but the bigotry is not the only problem to plague this comic. Filled to the brim with horrible writing, horrendous artwork, and zero characterization, HOLY TERROR is a complete mess comes off as not an actual comic, but an unfinished draft of a comic that was not proof-read by editors (was Schreck even championing the book like he stated?!) which may possibly be the single worst comic I have ever read. For what passes as a story, the book opens with Not-Batman (who has been named the Fixer; did he forget that he was a veterinarian and not a superhero?) chasing Not-Catwoman (called Natalie Stack; what is she a stripper?! Then again, this is by the man who wrote SIN CITY) on the roof tops of the Gotham City rip-off known as Empire City. After the Fixer attempts to arrest her for stealing a diamond bracelet, the two begin fighting each other while simultaneously kissing in the rain (was this supposed to be the plot of Jiriya's book "Make-Out Violence" in NARUTO?). Their disturbing battle-sex (or whatever it was) is suddenly stopped when a nail-bomb explodes in their vicinity, wiping out hundreds of citizens and destroying several buildings. The Fixer and Natalie Stack survive the explosion and soon witness several more explosions go off across Empire City. Immediately jumping to the conclusion that it's an Islamic terrorist attack (seriously, he has no evidence that terrorists are responsible, even though the reader knows that it is), the Fixer and Natalie Stack soon confront the terrorist and begin to kill and torture them. Ignoring the fact that these terrorists look like mummies rather than actually Arabs (did Miller do no research on Middle-Eastern attire?!), Frank Miller then goes into conspiracy theory nonsense by writing that Al-Qaeda is not a simple guerilla force, but is a massive army that employs every Muslim in the world, and possesses chemical weapons and fighter-jets (if they have these, then why would the terrorists use suicide bombers?!). Gaining this stupid information, the Fixer and Stack then race to stop the terrorists from completely destroying all of Empire City. From the information I've provided, one would believe that the main problem with this comic is that it is both racist towards Muslims, and fails as propaganda by making up conspiracy theory nonsense that only serves to disconnect people further from Miller's cause. While these are definitely deserving of the hate and criticism that this book has received, they are not the only problems with this comic. Out of all the comics I've read and reviewed, HOLY TERROR may be the most horribly written, illustrated, and lazily produced comic that I have ever seen in my life. Actually, it may be worst constructed book in general that I have ever seen period. There is no substantial plot or characterization anywhere present in this travesty whatsoever. Over half of the book consists of splash-pages (full-page images without panels) of the Fixer and Stack chasing each other across the roof tops, and it isn't until more than halfway through the comic that they actually confront the terrorists. Frank then tries to condense the plot as much as he can by filling pages with too many panels than a single page should contain (even with the sideways format that 300 had), and rushingly explains any vital plot information that should have been presented earlier. I have never seen a book padded out to such a horrendous extent than what is present here. This makes nearly every plot point in the book feel redundant and unnecessary. We don't even get any dialogue until page five, and it's only the Fixer and Stack grunting and ripping-off SIN CITY by repeating fragmented sentences over and over again. He only chooses to actually write genuine dialogue three-fourths of the way into the comic, and even then there is pointless nonsense spread throughout the comic. The reader is presented with the Fixer meeting with a guy who has the Star of David tattooed on his face alongside twin Asian assassins (what?!), random images of a coffee mug beside a t-rex (huh?!), an image of silhouetted figures in a movie theater (is the comic now ripping off MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000?), as well as the stupid conspiracy theories that Frank apparently believes. But probably the worst example of pointless nonsense is that there are random images of politicians, talking-heads, and terrorists splashed throughout the comic, but they don't say a single thing. Are the politicians responding to the terrorists attack?! What is the point of placing the heads of people like George W. Bush, Michael Moore, President Obama, Sara Palin, and Hillary Clinton in the comic if they're not even saying anything? Even the unnecessary talking heads in TDKSA at least were saying things that attempted to make a plot. This is simply laziness incarnate. I'm sure there are more pointless elements that I forgot to elaborate on, but honestly it would take an eternity to list them all. The characters are cardboard and racist cutouts with zero-dimension to them. The reader knows nothing about who the Fixer and Natalie Stack are, and what their personalities and characters are supposed to be. The only impression that the reader gets is that they're rip-offs of two of DC's most popular characters, and that they're racist murderers who enjoy inflicting pain on others. This particularly presents itself when the Fixer and Stack are fighting the terrorists, and decide to torture one in order to gain intel. They suspend the terrorist in the air by suspending his limbs from a building, with the Fixer standing on the terrorist's back at the same time. This is made worse by the Fixer clamping his foot down to snap his spine when the terrorist refuses to talk, and also threatens to gouge out his eyes (such a likable character...). The reader also gets no clue as to what motivates the Fixer to brutally murder these terrorists, as the only excuse provided is quite possibly the laziest backstory ever conceived. Apparently the only reason the Fixer fights crime simply to prepare for the night when a terrorist attack may occur in Empire City. What the heck?! How could he predict when Al-Qaeda would launch an attack on the city? Does he have psychic power that let him see into the future? That is simply lazy and uncaring on Miller's part. Just wow... The artwork in this comic is also atrocious. Frank Miller is widely known for illustrating characters in a blocky and gritty style in order to create darker tones, and for is heavy use of negative space which was simply amazing in SIN CITY. Just like his writing however, his artwork has also degenerated over the years, with the proportions of characters being over stylized and unnatural, as well as several images lacking any background. While this first became apparent in TDKSA, at least in that comic there were points where the illustrations partially resembled those of Miller's earlier work. In HOLY TERROR everything looks as if a kindergartener drew it. Heck, even a kindergartener could draw better than this (I know I could when I was that age). While some areas do work in conveying Miller's trademark use of negative space (such as the opening shot of the book), the art is heavily weighed down by inadequate proportions of the characters bodies. The Fixer and Natalie Stack often bend their bodies in bizarre manners that even Rob Liefeld would laugh at, and their designs look messy and unfinished. The backgrounds (or whenever there are backgrounds) are also atrocious. For example, several images during the opening chase have rain in the background, but the rain looks more like random splotches of paint splattered over the scene, making it hard to make out what is going on as they blend in with the characters Liefeldesque proportions and fights. It was as if Miller had a seizure while illustrating them. What's also confusing is that Miller places color in areas that don't make sense. Throughout the book, the reader constantly sees the red bottoms of Natalie Stack's shoes, always focused on for no apparent reason. The reason that color is added into certain objects in a black and white setting is to place emphasis on them. Here however, the colors are just randomly inserted onto objects that don't require symbolism to them, making them a distraction to the reader. Overall, the artwork of this book looks like a bad parody of SIN CITY meshing with THE DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN. The final and most glaring problem with this comic of course, is the bigotry and anti-Islamic propaganda. Miller portrays all Muslims as being members of Al-Qaeda, saying that there is no good or innocent Muslim, but that they are all terrorists. This hateful stance makes its first appearance after the Fixer and Stack survive the nail-bomb explosion, as the scene flashes back ten minutes earlier, revealing the attacker to be an exchange student from the Middle East. The only reason that this scene exists is to highlight Miller's racist beliefs by portraying an adolescent female as a mass murder simply because of her religion (what a load of bullcrap!). The bigotry is also present during the torture segment I previously mentioned, as the Fixer assumes that the terrorist's name is Mohammed (later calling him Moe) just because he is Muslim. While these two are not the only examples of racism present in the comic, they are perfect examples of why this comic deserves the criticism it has received. It shows that Miller obviously did no research in the teachings of Islam, but only wrote his biased opinions because he is racist (there's no dancing around that fact). In actuality, Al-Qaeda is only a small group of religious extremist out of a population of 1.2 billion Muslims. Their holy book, the Quran, does not advocate violence against Non-Muslims, but to shelter others and only fight in self defense as Allah is against aggression. Miller also writes them as if they were barbarians from the dark ages, when in reality Arabs where responsible for the creation of the scientific method, algebra, optics, techniques in surgery, as well as the earliest navigational and geographical charts. These are facts that are taught in classrooms, and can easily be researched on the Internet. The fact that Miller pays no attention to these facts only proves that he could care less about the real-life elements of Islam, and is blinded by bigotry and hatred. Overall, the racist themes of HOLY TERROR don't convince the reader into buying Miller's propaganda, but rather alienate them from the author. We live in an era that has begun to recognize the dangers of racism, and that people who advocate prejudice are more dangerous than the supposed evils they denounce. At the end of the day, the only things that HOLY TERROR achieves is insulting over 1.2 billion people for their religious beliefs, and brings down the career of a man once hailed as one of the comic industry's greatest writers. It is simply inexcusable and unfathomable as to how awful this comic is, and is quite easily one of the worst, if not the worst that I have ever reviewed (though I still hold eternal hate for Joe Quesada and SPIDER-MAN: ONE MORE DAY). It is just one of those comics that once you finish it, the only thought in your head is, "WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?!" That is all it is, and it would take a miracle for Frank Miller to dig himself out of the hole that he created with this abomination of a comic. "Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome." -Rosa Parks
