Holy Terror

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Holy Terror is a 2011 graphic novel written and illustrated by Frank Miller and published by Legendary Comics. the focuses on a "superhero" named The Fixer and his partner, Natalie Stack/Cat Burglar as he battles Islamic terrorists after an attack on Empire City.

Holy Terror
"I can tell you squat about Islamism. But I know a lot about Al-Qaeda and they need to burn in hell." - Frank Miller
Book Type: Graphic novel Genre: Thriller Suspense Novel Author(s): Frank Miller Publisher: Legendary Comics

Originally, It was supposed to be a Batman comic revolving around the title character fighting terrorists such as the non-fictional Al-Qaeda by DC Comics titled Holy Terror, Batman!. In 2006 however, it was no longer a Batman project according to Frank Miller who said that it was a "partway" that was not a story about the title character.

Why It's Holy Terror-ble

No wonder we call it terror.

1. Originally was supposed to be a Batman comic called Holy Terror, Batman!; however, rumors suggested that DC Comics' former editor Bob Schreck was laid off and worked for Legendary Comics, which indeed implies writer, Frank Miller took the proposed comic and make it not be a Batman comic, which led it happened as well to get the cat out of the room.
2. An extremely racist story about terrorism and Islamism where the comic's "hero" named the Fixer is on a mission to take down terrorists by torturing and killing them without remorse, which is never going to be good on paper or an interesting concept. This comic itself takes its way too seriously as a "modern" yet "serious" propaganda comic.
   • Of course, it has no right to have the potential to be a "modern" propaganda comic.
3. Tries way too hard to be dark and edgy compared to the old propaganda comics and media.
4. False Advertising: The comic implies that it's going to be in color when it's actually in black and white.
5. The art style while passable, appears to be the worst of Frank Miller's since sometimes the characters will look hideous and have a highly uncanny valley look on their faces.
   • Also, it even tries to imitate the tone and lore of his Sin City anthology series but fails to make more sense.
   • He often relies upon unrealistic physics such as defying gravity horizontally.
   • His other artwork is also wasted with so many people's faces in one panel along with lots of blank white panels that feels like Miller barely even draws details and negative space over buildings that are never detailed at all.
6. It is extremely Islamophobic, as it accuses all Muslims of being terrorists no matter their age and having no regard for human life according to The Fixer and his conspiracy theories.
7. Uncharismatic characterization which some of the characters Frank Miller has written are uninterested, racist, and super lifeless:
   • The Fixer, the "hero" of the book and considered to be not Batman without the bat-esque horns in his mask may be just as bad as, if not worse than the terrorists he and his girlfriend Natalie Stack are fighting, as he tortures other terrorists by revealing their plans and kills them. He even steals a cop car! Even his name doesn't match where he "fixes" things and his costume is nothing more than red-orange spandex. Also, he even tortures terrorists to commit the sins of their terrorism.
     • His moral the Fixer delivers is broken and hypocritical to a bad degree since after he criticizes terrorists for having "zero" regard for human life as mentioned in WIHT#3, the next page, as in, the IMMEDIATE page, he says, "Let's get some killing done!", making him as unheroic and racist.
     • We barely have any explanation of his motivation and backstory, where the Fixer states that he never has a family while spending his whole life "getting ready" for tonight, and that's it, making his "battle" for the terrorists pointless and unresolved.
   • Natalie Stack/Cat Burger is just a generic "hero" (or villain) sympathizer who doesn't even care when the Fixer kills people. Her costume looks too similar to Catwoman without the cat-esque ears from her mask. She has cat-esque eyes. Her costume is a rip-off of Black Canary's.
   • Dan Donegal is a rip-off of GCPD commissioner, Jim Gordon from the Batman comics, whose walking is just weird and awkward along with his cigarette defying gravity horizontally. He barely gets any screen time and doesn't even care if the Fixer and Natalie Stack are killing terrorists something that Jim Gordon would never do.
   • The Empire City police department is very pointless to the story and is supposed to fight against the terrorists.
   • Amina is a generic suicide bomber and foreign exchange student who has Jaye commit suicide with her and is rather pointless to the story.
   • David, with a blue Star of David, tattooed on his face and his two female Asian assassins served no purpose to help the Fixer whatsoever.
   • The terrorists, the main antagonists in this book, don't seem to be good terrorists since most of them are suicide bombers, which doesn't seem very good if they want to kill people since they're getting themselves killed, and what's worse, near the climax, they drive jets and blow up the Statue of Liberty Expy, thus implying they could've done that earlier and it ends up making the suicide bombers POINTLESS!
     • Speaking of their leader, he is depicted to be a dwarfed elderly man with beads all over his clothes and eyes.
8. Throughout the comic, The Fixer and Natalie Stack do not take off their masks, and we barely know anything about them without any characterization.
9. The talking heads from Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again return, but unlike said Dark Knight book, there are no speech balloons, so it renders them useless to the story and filler.
10. Terrible dialogue like, "A nail. A GODDAMN nail. What's A GODDAMN nail doing stuck in my GODDAMN leg?!"
11. The fight scenes are meaningless and subpar.
12. The tone is way too dark and consistent.
13. No characterization that in which we barely know much about the Fixer and his true intentions.
14. The pacing feels either rushed or slow to go through.
15. The cover is just a generic "punching-a-crook" trope in which the Fixer is punching a terrorist member so hard, that the stream of his teeth is defying gravity and flying out of his mouth in a straight horizontal line.
16. The rectangular dimension of this book is too big to fit on some shelves compared to other rectangular dimensions smaller than said big, you just don't do that!
    • According to Lewis "Linkara" Lovhaug, states that he has seen comics without standard sizing compared to normal proportions.
17. It has a bad message of terrorism that should be unkind and untrusted to people. it even said that violence is compassion and peace. Hurting others was not only justifiable but even could have been employed first when dealing with threats and the way of power. It even says that we should fear the realism of terrorists that would frighten the people outside of Iraq.
18. The ending where the Fixer and Natalie Stack succeeded in killing terrorists accomplished nothing to be "heroes".
19. It was considered to be Frank Miller's declining career in mainstream comics until he improved somehow in 2015's Batman: The Dark Knight III - The Master Race.

Redeeming Qualities

1. An unnamed policewoman is the only female character from Frank Miller's who is not a prostitute or talking about sex, which is good despite only appearing in one two-page splash panel.
2. Despite WIHT#5, the art style is at least passable.

Reception

Holy Terror received negative reviews from comic book writers and Batman fans for being controversial about Frank Miller's racist Islamophobic depiction of Muslims and other terrorists or terrorists. Some reviewers felt Miller's writing was simplifying matters to barely an absurd level of being a "modern" propaganda comic. It was even the controversial subject for treating the enemy (terrorists) in this book as some offensive terrorist organization and religious from Islam. This is described as nothing more than a tedious attack on Islam, and outright not interesting towards conspiracy theorists.

Stan Lee, a well-known Marvel Comics founder called the novel "corny, outdated, and Inappropriate".

Even All-Star Superman comic book writer Grant Morrison would criticize it and imagines that Batman would fight Al Qaeda (that was originally in the final version of the book) and other terrorists when it comes to some "decadent indulgence" with "real terrorists" in the real world. He was more impressed if Frank Miller would give up the graphic novel business and jokingly joined the military with hatred.

Lewis "Linkara" Lovhoug would describe it as Frank Miller's worst comic he's ever written.

Trivia

• An unrelated comic, Batman: Holy Terror, focusing on Batman in DC Comics' Elseworlds imprint was released 10 years before this book was made.
• Before Holy Terror, Batman! to echo one of Robin's "holy" catchphrases from the 1966 Batman TV show was abandoned, the plot would have had the title character instead of the Fixer fight Al-Qaeda, a non-fictional terrorist group from Islam as a "modern" propaganda comic.
• In 2017, Frank Miller responded to his graphic novel on his blog which was intended to be an "unapologetic" propaganda ever since he was too old to serve his old country and imagined that he gladly was "pulling the trigger" to himself.
  • On April 27, 2018, Miller stated that he regretted making this book containing said propaganda. Although he intended it to be a tribute to 9/11, Miller admitted that he was blinded by hatred and patriotic fever to the point that the comic became an Islamophobic diatribe and felt that he could feel the anger rippling out and never wanted to wipe out his personal life in his biography and not capable of Holy Terror.

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