Written and Illustrated by Frank Miller
In HOLY TERROR, join The Fixer, a brand new, hard-edged hero as he battles terror. The graphic novel is a no-holds-barred action thriller told in Miller’s trademark high-contrast, black-and-white visual style, which seizes the political zeitgeist by the throat and doesn’t let go until the last page.
Frank Miller, famed author of Sin City and 300, is back with his latest entry into the world of comics — and one that has been at least a decade in the making. Now with it’s release on the ten year anniversary 9/11, does the book strike the appropriate chord, or is it closer to other less-than-appropriate comics released this month?
Let’s talk about it after the cut.
Frank Miller is a creator whose work I approach with a mix of trepidation and excitement. I find that his later career choices have certainly removed some of the inherent respect I might give his current work before even opening the page, as I no longer expect a comic that will blow me away but rather “what comes after the Spirit.” It’s certainly not the most flattering way to prepare before picking up a new title from Miller, but there is still a part of me that remembers the first time I read his Daredevil work or Sin City, and that part of me still feels that it could be worthwhile to throw down some money for a new story.
Holy Terror unfortunately rests somewhere square in the middle between what made classic Frank Miller work enjoyable and what makes his modern work so aggravating. It’s clear from the beginning: Holy Terror is still Holy Terror, Batman!, except Miller did a “Replace All Words” in his Microsoft Word Document to make Batman the Fixer and a few other mild changes here and there. The book feels in line with his gritty Dark Knight Returns work, but never as powerful, as the Fixer and his sexy feline sidekick have their punch-sex interrupted by the explosion of a dirty bomb in fictional Empire City. What follows is a series of actions that essentially border on propaganda and paranoid fever dream, as the terrorists unleash their attack on a New York lookalike and the Fixer has to punch everyone until they stop.
And for reference, my new term “punch-sex” is in reference to when two characters spend a few pages in a book punching the crap out of each other only lto have it end in sex. Punch-sex.
What ends up defining Holy Terror is its dealing with what inspired it. Obviously the book is a direct reaction to the attacks in New York and Washington on 9/11, but the book has had such a long gestation period that it feels like too little too late. If Holy Terror had come out within the first few years after the attack then it might have had a resonating audience, but in no short terms do I say that on the smallest scale of things America has moved on. Yes, the impact of the event is still felt, but the nation is in a period of slowly rebuilding itself. It seems like now would be the time to move away from fear-based storytelling where our heroes can fix all of our problems with punches, but apparently nobody gave Frank Miller the memo. The modern comic audience isn’t going to get much out of not-Batman Batman saving the day with bullets and broads, but Miller is determined to deliver that story anyway.
Of course, that is assuming that Miller isn’t being insanely clever here. In reading the book, I couldn’t help but notice that the characterization here (like in most Miller work, truthfully) is over-the-top and sensationalized to every degree. No one character actually reads like a person, but rather a caricature of ideas given a physical body. The not-Batman Batman that is the Fixer doesn’t actually speak in straight sentences, but rather in huffs and puffs in between spouting some anti-terrorist rhetoric, and there is a brief moment towards the end in which Miller gives the Infidel (if that really is his villainous name) the chance to speak. It’s all stuff you’ve heard before, but given the presentation you can’t help but wonder if this is maybe, just maybe, Frank Miller turning the mirror around ten years after the fact to show us what sensationalism looks like.
Continued belowThen again, if you look at Frank Miller’s 2006 memorial commentary on 9/11, with the statement “Patriotism, I now believe, isn’t some sentimental, old concept; it’s self-preservation,” that doesn’t seem very likely.
So either Holy Terror is quietly brilliant as a subtle pastiche of post-9/11 culture — or it’s just stupid. Given how surface value Frank Miller’s work has been in the past decade, I’m willing to lean toward the latter.
We no longer live in a world of blind optimism anymore, where it’s possible to believe that someone of superhuman strength could punch our problems away. Instead, we live in a much more cynical but realistic world where we know this isn’t true yet wish for something better. By having not-Batman Batman run around punching Al-Qaeda, Frank Miller isn’t saying anything interesting or inspiring hope in the reader. He’s just having not-Batman Batman run around punching Al-Qaeda.
That’s not to say that it is all bad. It really isn’t. The comic is just exactly what you expect it to be. Do you expect the Fixer to punch up some terrorists after punch-sex? You’re in luck! Do you expect a very straightforward run of the mill adventure of a superhero who hates terrorism written by an author who hates terrorism? Check this title out! Do you expect Frank Miller to be the same Frank Miller he was twenty years ago with his now patented neo-noir style? Have I got news for you. That may all seem like admonishment, but it’s not intended that way; Frank Miller knows how he wants to tell comics now and he is going to stick with it. The success of the Sin City film and the existence of the Spirit film prove this. Visually it’s a mix of 300 and Sin City, although at no time does it match the inherent quality of either of those titles, nor does it recreate what made them special (and as a side note, it is much more messy than those titles, to the point where I don’t know what’s going on in some of the punch-sex panels — though I can assume). Miller doesn’t need to try and reinvent himself like he has in the past, however, because that’s not what people want from him anymore. People want “booze, broads and bullets”, and Miller delivers that in spades.
On some base level that is most likely fueled by nostalgia, the comic is fun for the 15-20 minutes it’ll take you to read it. It just needs to be understood that in no uncertain terms is this the evolution of Frank Miller from when he last took to the drawing board in 2002. If you keep that in mind, Holy Terror will find a nice enough home on your shelf, where it will assumedly collect dust until a rainy day when you invite a friend over and say, “Oh man, how have you not seen this? It’s ridiculous, you’re going to love it.”
It basically boils down to this: have you seen the cover to the book? You have? Ok. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. If you still want to read further into the book after that, there’s no real reason you shouldn’t.
Ultimately, Holy Terror is the comic equivalent of a one-night stand — you’re done with the book in an evening or less, and you’re fulfilled enough not to immediately want to go read another comic but you’re not going to really hold onto the memory of the comic with anything other than surface value. Yes, it was fun and we all had a good time reading it, but there are better comics being published every day. Given Frank Miller’s talent, you are certainly in the right to expect better of him from this, because it no longer feels like Miller is trying to do anything exciting; Miller is just going to be Miller, and you’re either onboard with this or you’re not.
In general, though, I think I would’ve been more comfortable with this book if it had at least tried to sell me war bonds.
Final Verdict: 3.0 – Can’t hurt to at least browse, though
Additionally, my pre-ordered copy of the book arrived bound upside down and backwards, and for that alone I’m willing to take another point off the total score. How someone didn’t check that before letting it go out the door is beyond me.
