Frank Miller & Batman To Kick Osama's Ass

[marsteam]

If I were alQaeda... I wouldn't want the Batman after me...

ABC News: Batman Takes Aim at Osama

ABC News: Batman Takes Aim at Osama

The Caped Crusader Targets Al Qaeda in a Forthcoming Graphic Novel, But Patriotism in Comics Is Nothing New

Feb. 14, 2006 — Beware, terrorists! The Caped Crusader is targeting a villain more sinister than the Joker — Osama bin Laden.

At the WonderCon 2006 comic-book convention in San Francisco last weekend, legendary comics writer and artist Frank Miller revealed that Batman would hunt down bin Laden and al Qaeda in his next DC Comics graphic novel.

In "Holy Terror, Batman!" the Caped Crusader goes after the terror leader and his organization after Gotham City is attacked by terrorists. Though the graphic novel's title is a take on Robin the Boy Wonder's catchphrase, Miller said there was nothing campy about the story.

Miller's reinvention of Batman in the 1987 graphic novel "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" is credited with reviving interest in the superhero and helping launch the series of Batman movies in the 1990s and 2005's "Batman Begins." He said his anger over both the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and subsequent acts of terror worldwide had inspired his latest work.

"Emotionally, it's really raw," Miller told the WonderCon audience. "Imagine the powerful rage when someone crosses the passion between a man and a woman or a man and his city."

A Propaganda Throwback

Miller called "Holy Terror, Batman!" a "piece of propaganda" where "Batman kicks al Qaeda's a—." He said his graphic novel channeled an era in the comic-book industry when writers and artists used heroes to spread a clear message and generate patriotism.

"Superman punched out Hitler. So did [Marvel Comics'] Captain America," he said. "That's one of the things they're there for. … These are our folk heroes. It just seems silly to chase around the Riddler when you've got al Qaeda out there."

Like any art form, comic books seem to have always reflected and drawn inspiration from their times.

World War II and the battle against the Nazis provided the backdrop when Superman rose to fame in the late 1930s and early 1940s and Marvel Comics' Captain America debuted in 1941. The cover of the first issue of Captain America shows the superhero punching Adolph Hitler in the face.

Both Superman and Captain America represented patriotism and in some ways, American wholesomeness, omnipotence, idealism and innocence. Besides battling the Red Skull and a slew of other super villains, Captain America battled the Nazis.

Propaganda Loses Its Punch

However, against the background of the civil rights movement, assassinations, and the Vietnam War, heroes — along with the rest of the nation — lost their innocence in the 1960s.

Marvel Comics' creator Stan Lee introduced characters such as The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and The Incredible Hulk, all of whom had very human problems and weaknesses. Spider-Man worried about paying the rent while The Fantastic Four's Invisible Girl worried about her marriage to a workaholic man.

The X-Men, who debuted in 1963, were foils for the civil rights movement. The driving conflict in the X-Men was that their powers — and their classification as mutants — were also their curse.

Over the years, comic books have continued to tackle issues that have made headlines. DC Comics' the Green Lantern has introduced a gay character, and Marvel's Iron Man has battled alcoholism. Spider-Man has witnessed some of his closest friends deal with drug addiction, and the Hulk's alter-ego, Bruce Banner, has fought his own memories of an abusive childhood.

These mature themes — child abuse, drug use, racism, AIDS, gang violence, homophobia, and now apparently terrorism — almost vanquish the notion that comic books are child's play.

"The majority of comic-book readers are in their 20s, 30s and 40s," said M. Thomas Inge, professor of English and the Humanities at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia. "Most writers hardly ever write with children in mind. These are fully grown writers who want to produce good stories without dumbing it down."

Shouldn't Imaginary Heroes Stand for Something?

Comic-book heroes, many critics believe, cannot live in a bubble and have to reflect their time and culture.

"The Greeks had their gods and heroes," Miller said, in a recent interview. "We have ours. … What are they there for?"

It is unclear when Miller's "Holy Terror, Batman!" will be published. He said he has completed 120 of the novel's 200 pages. "Holy Terror, Batman!" is reportedly not expected to hit comic-book stores before 2007.

ABCNEWS.com's Bryan Robinson contributed to this report.

 

[Curt]

Awesome.

 

[racecar]

..i think captain america is more suitable for this :chimp:

 

[hermegildo]

I read about this in the newspaper this morning.

What a crock of shit.

Frank Miller lost it, he plain sucks now.

lol @ All-Star Batman and Robin.

PS: Fuck Frank Miller.

 

[BIG]

Weak sauce.

If anything,Batman should be fucking up Bush.

B-

 

[LoneSage]

Would've been somewhat acceptable 4 years ago.
I just don't like it when it crosses over to reality. Having realistic settings (like the UN, White House, etc.) with fake leaders is A-OK, but when you start putting real people in comics...eh.


But fuck, it's Frank Miller.

 

[zer0hue]

I honestly clicked the link just to confirm that this wasn’t some elaborate rouse. This is easily the most insipid item of news that I’ve been unfortunate enough to read for some time. The mere fact that an artist, especially a rather gifted one, would purposely engage in a transparent act of nationalist propaganda is at once beguiling, disturbing, and sad. Being forthright about his intentions hardly excuses any of this.

What makes this so confusing is that it’s Frank Miller, an uncompromising independent artist who seemed quite eager to criticize Regan’s militaristic ambitions in The Dark Night Returns and lambasted contemporary politics as a whole in the Martha Washington series. And while I’ll concede that there’s a reoccurring theme of vengeance that runs throughout his works - Sin City in particular - nothing as blatantly political as this has ever been represented.

When one reflects upon the mythological status of super heroes in our culture, even someone like myself who doesn’t really care about them, you have to recognize a certain degree of empathy and identity that’s imbued within these characters. In much the same way the Greeks used their gods as didactic devices, extolling war and conquest, so to are modern super heroes used to similar ends, whether consciously or unconsciously. In this case, I would be inclined towards the former rather than the latter.

But even if all the aforementioned is just some coincidental over-analyzation, you can’t escape the fact that this is just a downright stupid idea for a story. Attempting to romanticize the propaganda of half a century ago as if it's some forgotten treasure obscured by the dust of history is utter nonsense. Why stop there? Why not rediscover our lost heritage of institutional racism, widespread domestic violence, or cold-war paranoia? Hell, maybe Batman could beat up his poor Chinese wife for being a dirty Communist. That’d make a terrific Frank Miller comic...

 

[Hot Chocolate]

First All Star Batman & Robin and now this????

What the hell has happened to Frank Miller

 

[sQuareh4t3r]

Frank Miller is awesome because he's insane. Actually, I'd say bipolar. It's the only way to explain the strange jumps in his moods and his works. Then again, when the revolution becomes the institution, you can pretty much do whatever you want to.

This almost makes me want to bust out my issues of A Death in the Family and experience the 80's patriotism all over again...

EDIT:

When one reflects upon the mythological status of super heroes in our culture, even someone like myself who doesn’t really care about them, you have to recognize a certain degree of empathy and identity that’s imbued within these characters. In much the same way the Greeks used their gods as didactic devices, extolling war and conquest, so to are modern super heroes used to similar ends, whether consciously or unconsciously. In this case, I would be inclined towards the former rather than the latter.

Almost missed this. Comparing comic books and superheroes to mythological characters isn't necessarily correct, since mythology usually involves religion and deities and whatnot. Our superheroes are basically post-industrial folk heroes, sort of like if Johnny Appleseed had heat vision. Just thought I'd point that out.

 

[SouthtownKid]

I like the un-PCness of it. That, I like.

I don't think anyone has any complaints about Captain America punching Hitler, but when it comes to modern day figures, everyone gets all sensitive. "Don't punch bin Ladden! He had a traumatic childhood, that explains all his behavior and exempts him from being lampooned in a comic book." Give me a break. Who cares? You think it's going to bother bin Ladden that he's in a Batman comic? I'm sure that would be pretty far down the list of things he's worried about at the moment.

Having said that, the comic is going to suck so very hard, just like the last few non-Sin City things he's done. His art is devolving into cave painting, he's abandoned just about all pretense at story structure... this will just be a couple hundred pages of free-form scribbling. I'm curious how long he's been working on it, to alread be 120 pages in. Considering his other work, he may well have started this not too long after finishing DK2. I'll bet he's been working on it for a couple years, at least (from back when it was a little more topical).

 

[Nesagwa]

If the art style is done in the 20's and 30's style batman this will be pretty good.

If they try and go ultra modern on it, I think the concept would fail.

PS. Fuck hermegildo.

 

[sQuareh4t3r]

If the art style is done in the 20's and 30's style batman this will be pretty good.

If they try and go ultra modern on it, I think the concept would fail.

PS. Fuck hermegildo.

Although the article isn't explicit, it's pretty apparent that Miller's going to be writing and illustrating.

Go back and review The Dark Knight Strikes Again (or the cover of All-Star Batman & Robin #1 Special Edition) to see what it's more than likely going to look like. In a word: underwhelming.

 

[Nesagwa]

Although the article isn't explicit, it's pretty apparent that Miller's going to be writing and illustrating.

Go back and review The Dark Knight Strikes Again (or the cover of All-Star Batman & Robin #1 Special Edition) to see what it's more than likely going to look like. In a word: underwhelming.

I like the Dark Knight Strikes Again.

One of my favorite comics.

 

[sQuareh4t3r]

I like the Dark Knight Strikes Again.

One of my favorite comics.

Nothing wrong with the narrative, but like SouthtownKid stated so eloquently, the illustrations are over-glorified cave paintings, boring panels of a single character and a digital color wash as the backdrop. It's just stupid to look at, and that nearly ruins the fact that a lot of awesome shit happens over the three volumes.

Oh well, whatever.

 

[Nesagwa]

Nothing wrong with the narrative, but like SouthtownKid stated so eloquently, the illustrations are over-glorified cave paintings, boring panels of a single character and a digital color wash as the backdrop. It's just stupid to look at, and that nearly ruins the fact that a lot of awesome shit happens over the three volumes.

Oh well, whatever.

I strongly disagree and Loved the overstylized artwork.

 

[sQuareh4t3r]

I strongly disagree and Loved the overstylized artwork.

"Overstylized" must be a really nice way of saying "incredibly disappointing" in some modern vernacular.

Compare The Dark Knight Returns to The Dark Knight Strikes Again; his early work puts his recent garbage to shame. Miller's skills have gotten rusty as the years passed, and trying to apply his whole Sin City style to something with color just didn't work.

To each his own, but still...

 

[Nesagwa]

"Overstylized" must be a really nice way of saying "incredibly disappointing" in some modern vernacular.

Compare The Dark Knight Returns to The Dark Knight Strikes Again; his early work puts his recent garbage to shame. Miller's skills have gotten rusty as the years passed, and trying to apply his whole Sin City style to something with color just didn't work.

To each his own, but still...

Whatever, Im pretty bored with standard super hero comics. They all look the same, so when it gets a little more abstracted its interesting to me.

 

[Stinky-Dinkins]

I think it's great.

Half a century ago Superman was slapping japs for the American cause, Captain America was riding Hitler around like a pony, and sometime in the near future Batman will knock the towel off of Osama's head.

He will also use his utility belt against the henchmen. It is full of so many deadly gadgets. Muslims do not have utility belts.

Game set match.

America.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Whatever, Im pretty bored with standard super hero comics. They all look the same, so when it gets a little more abstracted its interesting to me.

The thing I did like about DK2 was that it flew in the face of ALL expectations. I liked that he took it a completely different direction and didn't just cash in by repeating what he did in Dark Knight Returns. It did have its moments.

But there's a difference between drawing something for black and white, and drawing something intended for color. Some things, like depth within the panels, have to be handled differently for clarity. That's why some of the 'Batman Black and White' stories fail so miserably...because some of the artists are unable to switch into a black and white mode...and their stuff just ends up looking like a color comic that hasn't been colored. And a lot of Miller's later work, like DK2, is the opposite, and looks like he is unable to get out of drawing for b/w mode. Not to mention the coloring looks like his wife Lynn was learning Photoshop on the job as she went. Some of the textures and stuff she used are painful to look at, like a class assignment from the least talented student in my beginning Photoshop classs a decade ago. If she wasn't going to paint it like her other works with him (and I can understand why they wanted to move away from that for DK2), I wish they had just left the book in black and white.

Then you add a rambling story that reads like he was making it up one page at a time, and the whole Dick Grayson subplot that makes no sense and seems to serve no purpose, other than a cheap shock just for shock's sake, that has little to do with the rest of the plot... While the thing had its moments, a lot of people have interpreted it (and All-Star) as a big and bitter "Fuck You" to the industry. I'm not completely sure they're wrong. In fact, I like and respect it a little more if I look at it in that light. For All-Star, I'll wait for a trade of the first 12 or whatever, before I judge.

 

[hermegildo]

Zer0hue nailed it with his last paragraph.

Yeah, Superman punched Hitler during WWII, but Superman propaganda also contained him suggesting that people "slap a jap" among other things. Those were different times and most of the stuff from back then would be unnacceptable these days in more ways than one. It's just stupid to have that kind of propaganda these days.

I never read DKR2 (and I probably never will), but All-Star Batman and Robin is a fucking joke. Everybody is bitter and angry for some reason and lol @ Batmobile turning into a jet turning into a submarine. I bought the 3rd issue on a whim and I actually laughed my ass off at the end of the comic when Superman crushes a milk carton, reads a newspaper, proceeds to burn it with his heat vision (going straight through his glasses I must say) and says "Damn!" That's not fucking Superman, Miller is just writing Sin City with DC characters.

Fuck Frank Miller.

PS: Fuck Nesagwa too.

 

[roninbuddha]

that is just tasteless... i never was a batman follower,still i respected the franchise... but this makes me wanna lose my respect for it, esp. frank miller

 

[norton9478]

"Don't punch bin Ladden! .

I don't think that Batman Should punch OBL, I think he should Kick him with the soles of his BatBootz.