@DefaultProphet said:

Making the terrorist hide-out a Mosque? That was pretty bold and more than a little bit offensive.

Uh....More like realistic within region. Not saying all Mosques or even Mosques in American/Europe/Etc but in the Middle East? It's definitely happened before

Perhaps. But who runs the mosque they are hiding in? Do you think a holy person living in a country that has trouble with the building of a mosque anywhere near Ground Zero would take the risk to harbor terrorists..? The actually devout Muslims believe in peace and to do no harm. Islamic extremists shouldn't even be called Islamic. They're simply hate-mongers and spreaders of violence.

I don't mean to jump on your point, because I am sure it is true that it has happened in the Middle East. But, I don't think the people who actually ran any mosque, who were actual devout Muslims would have allowed such violent people to stay in a place of worship unless they were being threatened.

I don't know the context in which the characters in this story are hiding in the mosque. Perhaps they threatened or killed those that run the place, but from Babs' impressions of the book not depicting any peaceful Muslims, I am assuming that this is not the case. So what could be transpiring in the book is that the Muslims who run the mosque are allowing these terrorists to squat there. And that's what is offensive, that Miller is painting a place of worship and peace as a breading ground for violence that represents their community in a bad light. Not to mention that mosques are probably the number one place that the NSA keeps an eye on, whether there would be any chance of terrorists being affiliated with the establishment or not.

So I believe Babs' point is that Miller is painting Muslims with a large brush. We only see Muslims portrayed in a negative light, and none who have views counter to what these terrorists are doing. In addition, what is also an issue is that these extremists exist and we as a country still worry about. To use them in the story only feeds the fear and hatred towards Muslims as a group because it does not offer any understanding of how diverse this group of people is. Miller labels it as piece of propaganda, and to do so only makes matters worse, because even if he wanted to tell a little piece of fiction and handle it how he likes, he is now identifying his book as something that is supposed to offer some amount of patriotism and a rallying point for people who may take out their anger on Islam as a whole. By taking this position Miller he is giving the story specific purpose, and at the same time eschewing responsibility for the lopsided representation. That is where the problem is.

@Babs: I'm tagging you in this post too because I'm curious about the situation that the terrorists came to use the mosque as their base of operations. I talk more about my impression above, if you feel like discussing this whole thing any further, as it looks like you are having to respond to enough already. :P

@chipsnopotatoes: Meh. Even if this did feature Batman, I don't think it would have sold that well. Dark Knight Strikes Again was really weak, as was All-Star.. I think a lot of people would have skipped out.

...Although, I would have loved to have seen Kate Beaton's Hark A Vagrant! still make number one selling graphic novel for September and beat a Frank Miller Batman story at the same time..! That would have been pretty cool.

Naaah! It's better that way. So Miller can go all bonkers and run crazy around his story, without DC overlooking over his shoulder.

@daredeville: It already topped the charts in September: http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2011/2011-09.html

I guess I'd be biased regarding my choice to stay away from this title, being a Muslim myself. I did check out the previews and various snippets of it I've seen on the net though, and I wasn't impressed, even when I tried to put aside my own beliefs the best I could. Is the art that...wild for the entire book? I genuinely couldn't tell what was going on in some of the pages I saw. An acquired taste, I guess.

As offensive as I find it, Miller has the right to freedom of speech and all. I'm glad that he dropped the idea to use Batman.

No,thank God.Miller needs to be quit,i don't particularly care about who was offended or not but the publishers should take care and be thoughtful.On a personal level i'm against this because i don't wanna read Superman vs Hitler or Batman vs Laden simply because it's an insult to those who're fighting these people or have fought them in the past.I'ts like the writer is trying to convey"heh you can't beat these guys so let's bring in the superheroes".We already have Darkseid/Sinestro and Ra's al Ghul as parallels to those people.

Miller is great. Whereas most writers and artists working in the medium today either conform to convention or actively work to homogenize it, Miller is one of but a handful of truly creative people trying to widen the boundaries of what can be done in comic books.

Regardless of whether I find Miller's work traditionally tasteful or not, he is undeniably great.

@christopherwalken said:

Miller is great. Whereas most writers and artists working in the medium today either conform to convention or actively work to homogenize it, Miller is one of but a handful of truly creative people trying to widen the boundaries of what can be done in comic books.

Regardless of whether I find Miller's work traditionally tasteful or not, he is undeniably great.

Everyone has ideas,it's how you channel them.Millers execution is easily the worst amongst mordern writers.

It is too bad that this took so long to come out. Regardless of how truthful its depiction of Muslims is, it is an honest snap shot of the post 911 hate that a lot of people felt. Ten years is too long to wait.

If he made this a Batman story, then the worst thing that happened to Batman wouldn't be Batman and Robin.

btw I loved Batman: Year One

I had always been under the impression that it was DC that walked away from this being a Batman book, not Miller. I.flipped through it not too long ago at Hastings and thought it seemed interesting if nothing else. I guess I'll have to air down and actually read it.

Thanks for this article.Reminded me to go buy my copy of Holy Terror along with Captain America:Prisoner of War from amazon..To all the nay sayers/Miller haters... THANKS! with out your um opinions i would not have ordered this today..From telling who should an should not earn a living ,to those who just want things only their way..Then talk of freedom..Oh the irony.

For anyone feeling angry about this, grab dc's 9/11 tribute book instead. That was much more tasteful about the subject and came from artists who wanted to handle the subject in a mature way. Just ignore Miller, he may have written some of the best batman stories of all time, but now he is a joke.

I've been reading '90s era Wildstorm books lately, and Stormwatch and Deathblow (Tim Sale art from issue 3) both had prominent storylines set in the middle-east. In Deathblow you had Cray kicking off the series with an attack on Iraq (killing one of Saddam "K"ussein's body-doubles), but it featured a team of apparently non-powered presumably muslims who were "on the good side." In Stormwatch you had a story about a team of superpowered muslim extremist terrorists who attempted to blow up three major cities with neutron bombs, and the storyline centered on Stormwatch teaming up with an Israeli superpowered team.

Deathblow was a much better story. Stormwatch had a similarly badly conceived storyline running around that time about Russian extremists as well, which was pretty hackneyed but at least played into Winter's background in interesting ways. The Balkans stuff was significantly better.

I think I'm gonna buy this just because it offends people. It's fiction, get over it.

@Skies327 said:

I think I'm gonna buy this just because it offends people. It's fiction, get over it.

Frank Miller is real and he has shown some pretty racist views in the past, Legendary Comics published it so someone real must have agreed with the idea. Real people write fiction and we have every right to be offended

Wasn't there Batman : Holy Terror elseworld comic book?

@kashif1 said:

@Skies327 said:

I think I'm gonna buy this just because it offends people. It's fiction, get over it.

Frank Miller is real and he has shown some pretty racist views in the past, Legendary Comics published it so someone real must have agreed with the idea. Real people write fiction and we have every right to be offended

About what? Frank Miller is just some guy who writes/draws comic books. Getting offended by his views only gives them power.

@Skies327 said:

@kashif1 said:

@Skies327 said:

I think I'm gonna buy this just because it offends people. It's fiction, get over it.

Frank Miller is real and he has shown some pretty racist views in the past, Legendary Comics published it so someone real must have agreed with the idea. Real people write fiction and we have every right to be offended

About what? Frank Miller is just some guy who writes/draws comic books. Getting offended by his views only gives them power.

That someone would hold blatantly racist view, that someone else would publish them, that other people would agree with them and that people will make money off them. Portraying Muslims in this way is not okay and it says something about our culture that people think it is.

@kashif1: You know, I had a reply all written out explaining to you how Frank Miller isn't actually the racist devil, because his views don't impact everyone's life, but I can see this discussion would just go downhill pretty quick. So, boycott all you want.

Me personally, I'll judge it based on actual content, not whether or not Miller is some ranting, racist, lunatic.

If this were a Batman story, it would actually be popular and raise a whole lot of middle fingers towards DC and the character.

Wasn't there Batman : Holy Terror elseworld comic book?

No, it shouldn't have been a Batman story, I think like Babs' other article superheroes shouldn't mix with politics unless it was intended to do so in the first place. Batman making ignorant accusations could of had major repercussions to the multi-billion dollar character. Bruce Wayne has studied every culture in the world, he has an endless database, he wouldn't be ignorant enough to accuse every Muslim as a terrorist. he wouldn't kill them either. He would simply destroy every weapon they had.

I'm glad Comic Vine is finally acknowledging that this exists. It is the new release from one of the most important and controversial creators in comic history, after all. And it is documented as topping the trade sales for September.

I've taken Frank Miller's viewpoint since 9-11 not as "anti-muslim" but "anti-all-organized-religion." His initial, three panel reaction to 9-11 was simply "I'm sick of flags. I'm sick of God. I've seen the power of faith." I take Frank's viewpoint as a less verbose Christopher Hitchens Depending on your background, you may find anti-religion just as offensive, but that's how I see it.

I wonder how concerned Frank Miller is with people bad-mouthing him on the internet...

I'm going to say "not very."

I may check it some day

@Arkham J said:

Frank Miller needs to stop writing. just like Rob Liefeld needs to stop drawing

NO!

The exact opposite should happen!

They should team-up, and blow everyone else away with their combined "so-bad-it's-good" awesome

Frank Miller is such a has-been.

@daredeville: The mosque in the story is located in Empire City, where the story takes place, somewhere in the United States. It's never explained how the terrorists take over the mosque, and these scenes are the ones I felt most offended by, personally. The panels depicted people carrying guns walking up and down the stairs within the Mosque. The problem with the book is that the peaceful Muslims (which are the majority of the world's population) are not represented at all. Miller's implication is basically that all Muslims are terrorists, and we all know that's not true.

I've always firmly believed America to be a melting pot of religions and cultures, so generalizing an entire religious group and implying that they are all "evil" is incredibly racist and un-patriotic. It's essentially just one big piece of propaganda that is very much Miller, no holds barred.

I'm not sure if that's what you were asking me when you tagged me in your comment, but I hope I was able to clear up the way I perceived the story.

Personally, I think he should be banned from ever doing anything Batman related again. Frank Miller is completely overrated.

I bought it not owning any Frank Miller and thought it sucked. It looked like it took 5 minutes to write, 20 to make and 45 minutes laughing at us knowing we are all stupid enough to buy it.

There are times (the majority, actually) that I feel like Miller writes not to write good stories (because he's probably the most overhyped writer in the industry other than absolute horrorshows like Bendis and Loeb), but to simply shock his audience.

@Arkham J said:

Frank Miller needs to stop writing. just like Rob Liefeld needs to stop drawing

You have won my undying adoration.

I miss All Star Batman and Robin.

@Babs: so generalizing an entire religious group and implying that they are all "evil" is incredibly racist and un-patriotic

Muslims are not a race or ethnicity, but a term denoting adherents to Islam. It would be akin to calling Christians or Americans a race.

I don't see where this story is supposed to be offensive, now granted i haven't read it so i may be in the dark but this story is a about a very real situation, at least the Islamic terrorist part.

I think I'm going to pass on this one. There's a difference between this and Cap' fighting Nazis. The difference is that 75 years later we're supposed to be better than we were back then. There's a pretty good quote from Grant Morrison on the wikipedia entry about this thing,

"Batman vs. Al Qaeda! It might as well be Bin Laden vs. King Kong! Or how about the sinister Al Qaeda mastermind up against a hungry Hannibal Lecter! For all the good it's likely to do. Cheering on a fictional character as he beats up fictionalized terrorists seems like a decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world. I'd be so much more impressed if Frank Miller gave up all this graphic novel nonsense, joined the Army and, with a howl of undying hate, rushed headlong onto the front lines with the young soldiers who are actually risking life and limb 'vs.' Al Qaeda"

that about sums it up.

@HumanNumbersaid:

I don't see where this story is supposed to be offensive, now granted i haven't read it so i may be in the dark but this story is a about a very real situation, at least the Islamic terrorist part.

In the real world, terrorism doesn't define Islam. Or at least it absolutely shouldn't.

This was originally supposed to be a Batman story. DC cancelled the idea, for good reason.

@sEsposito7:

I know she's not endorsing the message of the story because she said this: "However, amid the interesting concepts, and Miller's gritty art and poetic writing style, this is still an incredibly offensive piece of literature; if for the sole fact that Miller basically disregards the millions of people who are Muslim that aren't terrorist and do not co-sign to a murderous, terrorist ideology." However, she is endorsing the book by saying it is worth reading. The poster wrote, "I know that this book is going to be terrible...", which means that poster feels the book isn't going to suit his/her taste. The poster then asked, "is it worth reading?", which is basically asking 'should I read this?". Babs answered yes, even though the poster admitted that he/she probably wouldn’t like the book. I feel that somewhat goes against her statement of if you don’t like it don’t buy it.

@Gordo789 said:

I think I'm going to pass on this one. There's a difference between this and Cap' fighting Nazis. The difference is that 75 years later we're supposed to be better than we were back then.

I don't know, at least back then we knew exactly who to fight and why. With this latest war it just seems we were looking for anyone to strike back at and the people in charge concluded that it only made sense to strike at the people with the most oil.

There's a pretty good quote from Grant Morrison on the wikipedia entry about this thing,

"Batman vs. Al Qaeda! It might as well be Bin Laden vs. King Kong! Or how about the sinister Al Qaeda mastermind up against a hungry Hannibal Lecter! For all the good it's likely to do. Cheering on a fictional character as he beats up fictionalized terrorists seems like a decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world. I'd be so much more impressed if Frank Miller gave up all this graphic novel nonsense, joined the Army and, with a howl of undying hate, rushed headlong onto the front lines with the young soldiers who are actually risking life and limb 'vs.' Al Qaeda"

that about sums it up.

I pretty much stopped taking the criticisms of one writer from another seriously when Byrne came down on Bendis for the way he writes, especially considering some of the nonsense Byrne has spouted on his message boards.

@pgizinski said:

This was originally supposed to be a Batman story. DC cancelled the idea, for good reason.

See, everywhere that I've read said it was the opposite, that Miller decided to take this project away from DC. You'd think that if it was the other way around Miller certainly wouldn't be shy about slamming DC for it. Lord knows he's never been shy about bashing either of the Big 2 in the past.

Miller hasn't written anything good since the 80's. His work on Daredevil was wonderful. Year One and TDKR were great. Now he's a crazy old bastard. Holy Terror is no more worth any notice than the bigoted little turds on the internet who say that we should bomb the Middle East.

@JoseDRiveraTCR7 said:

@sEsposito7:

I know she's not endorsing the message of the story because she said this: "However, amid the interesting concepts, and Miller's gritty art and poetic writing style, this is still an incredibly offensive piece of literature; if for the sole fact that Miller basically disregards the millions of people who are Muslim that aren't terrorist and do not co-sign to a murderous, terrorist ideology." However, she is endorsing the book by saying it is worth reading. The poster wrote, "I know that this book is going to be terrible...", which means that poster feels the book isn't going to suit his/her taste. The poster then asked, "is it worth reading?", which is basically asking 'should I read this?". Babs answered yes, even though the poster admitted that he/she probably wouldn’t like the book. I feel that somewhat goes against her statement of if you don’t like it don’t buy it.

I don't want to argue over semantics, but it does not go against what she's said in the past. Again, she was answering a simple question with a simple answer. There are a number of reasons why a book would be "terrible, but still worth reading", and many of them would not constitute an endorsement of the book. Here's a somewhat related example: years ago, when George W. Bush was our President, I used to watch all his state of the Union addresses. I usually came away pissed off or riled up at the end because I didn't like his politics,.My father asked me once why I watched the speeches all the time if I didn't like what was being said. And, of course, the answer is simple: I respected the man, the President, enough and felt that what he had to say was important enough for me to watch him bumble around a speech every once in a while.

I found it to be in poor tastes and horribly offensive, had this been a Batman comic DC would have lost a fan for life. I will never buy anything by Frank Miller again!

@Gordo789 said:

I think I'm going to pass on this one. There's a difference between this and Cap' fighting Nazis. The difference is that 75 years later we're supposed to be better than we were back then. There's a pretty good quote from Grant Morrison on the wikipedia entry about this thing,

"Batman vs. Al Qaeda! It might as well be Bin Laden vs. King Kong! Or how about the sinister Al Qaeda mastermind up against a hungry Hannibal Lecter! For all the good it's likely to do. Cheering on a fictional character as he beats up fictionalized terrorists seems like a decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world. I'd be so much more impressed if Frank Miller gave up all this graphic novel nonsense, joined the Army and, with a howl of undying hate, rushed headlong onto the front lines with the young soldiers who are actually risking life and limb 'vs.' Al Qaeda"

that about sums it up.

Miller is too stupid to listen to Morrisons advice.

@The Dark Huntress said:

There are times (the majority, actually) that I feel like Miller writes not to write good stories (because he's probably the most overhyped writer in the industry other than absolute horrorshows like Bendis and Loeb), but to simply shock his audience.

@Arkham J said:

Frank Miller needs to stop writing. just like Rob Liefeld needs to stop drawing

You have won my undying adoration.

I honestly felt even The Dark Knight Returns was like that.

Holy Terror can't be a Bat book for one simple reason. It is not in Batman's character to go seek out retribution. Batman protects Gotham City, not the earth. Typically, the only reason Batman every leaves is to track down someone or something that directly threatens his city. While there may have been a Batman, Inc. angle in there somewhere, Batman leaving his city to fight terrorists is out of character.

Of course Batman, Inc. is out of character also. Why would Bruce ever publicly announce his funding of Batman? It's a dead giveaway that they are one in the same. I guess I'm in the minority for thinking Batman, Inc. is not a good idea, but it's not the first time I've been the outsider.

There is also the issue that Batman would have to kill, and there is no way around that; he can't subdue an entire army.

@drumguyrob said:

Holy Terror can't be a Bat book for one simple reason. It is not in Batman's character to go seek out retribution. Batman protects Gotham City, not the earth. Typically, the only reason Batman every leaves is to track down someone or something that directly threatens his city. While there may have been a Batman, Inc. angle in there somewhere, Batman leaving his city to fight terrorists is out of character.

Of course Batman, Inc. is out of character also. Why would Bruce ever publicly announce his funding of Batman? It's a dead giveaway that they are one in the same. I guess I'm in the minority for thinking Batman, Inc. is not a good idea, but it's not the first time I've been the outsider.

There is also the issue that Batman would have to kill, and there is no way around that; he can't subdue an entire army.

Tony Stark did something like that as well.It worked for him for years,Batman has been leaving the city for years.

I'm a Muslim, not a really devout one but I'm going to read this for the lulz

Well you can't say DC wouldn't be crazy enough to let Frank Miller do whatever he wants to with batman...because they HAVE in the past...and encouraged sequels. Still I think it better Batman left out of this particular equation.

" That was pretty bold and more than a little bit offensive."

But is that really a valid criticism when Miller himself said he wanted this story (when it was about Batman) to be shocking?