Oh, Frank Miller. What a strange and crazy journey it has been. From producing some of the very best Batman comics ever published to writing one of the worst Batman comics ever published, from penning some of the most vicious satire of Reaganomics to sticking some reactionary guff about the Occupy movement on his blog, watching the evolution of the writer/artist from a maverick reinventing the genre to a depressingly staid and conservative member of the comic book elite has been...interesting, to say the least. Just when we thought he had hit rock bottom with the execrable All Star Batman and Robin, though, Miller gave us a fresh reason to worry for his sanity in the form of Holy Terror. Originally conceived as a Batman story, only to be turned down by DC (for reasons that will no doubt become clear), Holy Terror is the best evidence we've ever seen for the truism that you get more right wing as you get older. In Miller's case, he appears to have switched from outright critic of the right-wing to a member of the nuttiest, most Limbaugh-loving Tea Party member in the world; at least, that's if this book is anything to go on. When it was still in the hands of DC, Holy Terror was pitched as "Batman fights Bin Laden". Out of DC's hands, it got even worse than that, a Islamophobic and racist tract masquerading as propaganda, an incredibly incendiary work that equates all Muslims with Al Qaeda, is purposefully and wilfully offensive, and is a complete mess in every respect that you're kinda glad nobody takes the old git seriously any more. It's like reading the racist ramblings of your senile grandfather.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
