Reading Comics 173 "Holy Terror, Frank Miller!"

On Friday evening, Paris came under a series of attacks that were quickly determined to be perpetrated by Isis.  France itself, as voiced by President Francois Hollande, swiftly announced military reprisal.  Isis is known by a lot of names.  One of them is the Islamic State.  The times we live in have seen a lot of Muslim extremism, best identified with the attacks on 9/11, but not limited to them. 

You may be wondering why I'm writing about this on a comics blog.  Or, assuming you know what Holy Terror! is, you may know already.  This was a 2011 graphic novel published by Frank Miller.  It was originally conceived as another of Miller's Batman adventures.  Miller made his name, in part, with the historic Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One.  His Batman wouldn't be terribly out of place taking violent retribution for 9/11.  Clearly Miller himself rethought the concept, and repackaged it with an original creation.

Holy Terror! met an unfavorable reaction upon its release.  As had become typical of his recent Batman work (Dark Knight Strikes Again; All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder), fans thought he'd lost his creative spark, gotten things horribly wrong, gone too far.  In particular, his scorched earth response to terrorism was seen as insensitive to the vast majority of Muslims who would never in their lives consider violence as a response to the world around them.

And yet, there was President Hollande speaking in much the same terms.  We'd become accustomed to different kind of talk in the years following 9/11.  Americans engaged in two increasingly unpopular wars, and that seemed to be about it.  Never forget, people seemed to say, but try your best to move on.

And yet, clearly radical Islam hasn't moved on.  And they're kind of the people who count in this conversation.  You might argue that we've provoked them, and one of the terrorists in Paris seemed to confirm this view when he shouted "This is for Syria!" in the concert hall.  The Paris attacks were all about bringing what is unfortunately entirely common in the Middle East to the Western world: random chaos meant to spread, well, terror.

Every time they strike out, there's the response that says, well, we'll have our revenge.  Radical Islam is not created from the minds of those who will sit at a table and negotiate.  It's the product of an environment that breeds frustration, which leads to a thought process people elsewhere just won't understand.  The governments of the countries where the radicals live can only do so much.  At this point, radical Islam has begun to build its own state.

Which, in some ways, might be a matter of convenience, in terms of retaliatory actions.  Miller's scorched earth response, President Hollande's scorched earth response, has a virtual playground to operate in as a result.  Is this the best response?  This is a conversation that seems to continue, and in the meantime, more tragedy unfolds...

When Miller published Holy Terror!, it was the last time he had total control over his projects.  This month his collaboration with Brian Azzarello and Andy Kubert, The Dark Knight III: The Master Race, begins its serialized publication, and another Batman adventure, The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade with Azzarello and John Romita, Jr., was just announced.

It's odd that Miller became so unpopular among fans just as he was becoming a Hollywood It Boy (Sin City, 300, V for Vendetta).  Such are the vagaries of fame.  But then, maybe Holy Terror! is due for a comeback, and Miller's fortunes could change again.  This is a crazy, mixed-up world.  Anything's possible.