From SF Gate
After more than six decades fighting the Joker and Two Face, Batman is getting ready to take on perhaps his most complicated foe yet: terrorism.
Frank Miller, who changed the way people looked at comics with his noirish 1980s Batman graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns" and his "Sin City" series, says he's started work on a book where the caped crusader will "kick a lot of al Qaeda butt."
"Not to put too fine a point on it -- it's a piece of propaganda," Miller told a group of about a thousand fans this weekend at the WonderCon comic book convention in San Francisco. "Batman kicks al Qaeda's ass."
Miller says the book will be called "Holy Terror, Batman." While there's no telling when it will be released -- Miller is known for taking his sweet time with his best projects, and he's in the middle of a different Batman series -- it's clear that the writer of "Sin City" is passionate about tackling the subject.
"I wish the entertainers of our time had the spine and the focus of the ones who faced down Hitler," Miller said. "I just think it's silly to have Batman out chasing the Riddler when you've got al Qaeda out there."
Wow, Frank Miller isn't going to be happy until he's deconstructed Batman into a hyper-violent, sociopathic shadow of his former self.
A few things stand out.
1) If "Holy Terror" (really clever name, Frank) is anywhere in quality as "Dark Knight Strikes Again" (which turned Robin into a gay pedophile serial killer) to "All Star Batman and Robin" (in which Miller bizarrely sounds as if he's a third-tier author trying to parody Miller), then this thing is going to be toxic. Will Batman use "I'm the Goddamn Batman" on terrorists?
2) Which Batman is going to show up? The vigilante who attempts to being his own sense of order to the streets? The scientist? The detective? The one who married the daughter of eco-terrorist Ra's al Ghul? If the vigilante shows up (Dark Knight Returns/Strikes Again), the "Holy Terror" is going to be pages of smash and crash, pain and suffering. The detective? Oh, just what would Batman do if he peered deeper into the al-Qaeda network and followed the money? Maybe took a look at just where Osama bin Laden got his early backing for his activities? Finally, is this going to be a flag-waving Batman or the cynical one from his "Dark Knight" series? Will he go from one to the other? Can he?
2.5) Has Miller forgotten that in his "Dark Knight Strikes Again," his Batman played violent terrorist revolutionary on the streets of Gotham City?
3) Will Wonder Woman take on anti-abortionists next? Will she go to South Dakota? Seriously, I remember when the Joker worked for Ayallotah Khomeini. Are we going to go "real" in comics from now are, or will al-Qaeda just be another villain of the week, akin to capturing the Joker, who will escape a few issues down the road so Batman can capture him again?
I understand there is a pull by an artist to respond to what is going on around him. Personally, I thought Miller did a potent job with his contribution to "9/11 Artists Respond." Somber, moving, brief. Miller joined his writer/artist comrades in trying to create a diverse, yet focused response to the terror attacks. Now, I don't know what to think of this. I can smell the bloodshed coming on this one, where Miller brings his "Sin City" pain and channels it through a character he even admits is a "dick." The trouble is, this isn't the Riddler anymore. This is terrorism, this is real, with attacks coming to the proxy New York of Gotham City. Do we need to revisit the pain and suffering almost six years on (street date for "Holy Terror" is slated for 2007)? Are we just looking to sate some primal feelings of revenge with an enraged Batman swinging his fists for us?
They're just comic books, you say. Sure, but comic books are a near-perfect arbiter of archetype. Samuel L. Jackson's comic-obsessed character in "Unbreakable" notes that comics "are our last link to the ancient way of passing on history" and follows up with "The Egyptians drew pictures on walls about battles, and events. Countries all around the world still pass on knowledge through pictorial forms. I believe that comics, just at their core now... have a truth. They are depicting what someone, somewhere felt or experienced. Then of course that core got chewed up in the commercial machine and gets jazzed up, made titillating - cartooned for the sale rack."
And that's what worries me about Miller, a man who does not write half-hearted or meek prose. If this is Batman swinging away, I'm wondering just what the message is going to be. Where was Batman before all of this in the War on Terror? Will he get shitty with Superman again, as Miller's Batman loves to do, saying that ol' Supes didn't do his duty on 9/11 and protect America? Is Batman going to be angry at American politicians for exploiting 9/11 for their own gain, or even making very questionable security deal with entities linked to the terror attacks? Is this Batman tale going to be just a disposable adventure? Miller is treading into the real here, and I wish him luck. He's viciously talented, and saying he has an eye for the visceral is an understatement. But there's delicate ground here, and Miller is going to have to figure out how to pack a three-dimensional world into just two.
3 comments:
Art imitating life always kills the heroes and the fantasy.
Several years from now, the kids who watch Batman will not look back with fondness to the childhood memories associated with watching it. Anyway, do children watch Batman these days? Are we the children growing up with the all-new, never been seen before Batman?
In any case, I want my hero back.
that's a very good question. Batman has a hardcore following, especially if Miller's at the helm. Batman Begins might attract a good casual following who will take in Batman at the cinema. The Batman vs Al Qaeda sounds like a publicity stunt, like when Superman was killed about 10 years ago. He didn't stay dead for long, and there's almost no object permenance in comics. Al Qaeda will come and go, like how the Russian supervillains faded.
I think comic readers these days are a fickle bunch and with stuff like Splinter Cell and 24 out there, the comics do look a little more overblown than usual. There was one comic series "Ex Machina" that I thought did a good job missing real with fantasy. It's about a superhero who retired to be the mayor of NYC after 9/11. He did it in part out of guilt that he couldn't save both towers. Somber, yet not overly so. I get the feeling after 9/11, a lot of comic artists took inner stock and wondered "What the hell am I doing drawing guys in tights? How can I write about fantasy disaster when there's real destruction?" Maybe we're still at that point in the industry.
probably it is a creative phase for the artists and we have yet to see the effect on the generations growing up with it. it reaches its target audience of course and probably affects, but in what way? to re-assesing values which should lead to forgiveness and healing or to spreading the propaganda and flaming the anger?
you know john i'm so clueless that as i speak, we are in very great danger of the country being declared under martial law. that's why school was cancelled, and i didn't even know the whole time because the tv was tuned in to 'animal planet'.
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