He's not far off the mark, politically speaking, but his approach is more than a touch reductive. With The Fixer as a stand-in figure for Miller himself, the message is entirely clear - the United States faces a monstrous opponent and must repay blood with blood. Ostensibly Miller's heroic avatar, The Fixer is 'ready for killing,' and the only thing he seems to fear is falling in love with his sultry sidekick. As a Batman exaggeration, The Fixer is perhaps more appealing strip away the mantle of the Bat, and you have a less than compelling character. The rooftop-chase-turned-sex-scene between The Fixer and Natalie Stack isn't a far cry from Miller's All-Star Batman, but The Fixer's casual use of lethal force is.

That said, there are a number of reasons why Holy Terror could never work as a Batman story - even one written by Frank Miller.

But despite Miller's attempts to distance himself from his original version of the story - the cleverest being when Natalie Stack inquires about The Fixer's origins by asking, 'Murdered parents? An exploded planet?' - it's nigh impossible to read this story without seeing Batman, Catwoman, and Jim Gordon. The Fixer, Natalie Stack, and Dan Donegal are straight out of Gotham City (with a healthy dose of Sin City, especially the scene in which The Fixer seems to visit Old Town). Originally conceived as a Batman vehicle, Holy Terror never lets you forget that fact. Unable to trust the cops of Empire City - even 'tough cop' Dan Donegal - The Fixer drafts Natalie Stack into the war for some good old-fashioned 'postmodern diplomacy.' The Fixer knows intuitively that it's the work of Al-Qaeda, led by a chainmailed successor of bin Laden. While in hot pursuit of slinky cat burglar Natalie Stack, Empire City's great defender - The Fixer - is caught off-guard by a series of coordinated suicide bombings. While his early work has been all but canonized, Miller's post-9/11 work has been criticized, often in tandem with his polarizing political perspective.Īll Miller's extreme conservatism, all his political anger, all his willingness to sacrifice aesthetics for the sake of his message - all of that gets distilled into Frank Miller's Holy Terror, an oversized OGN with the physical dimensions of 300 and the political subtlety of. To be sure, The Dark Knight Strikes Again is nowhere near the one-two punch of The Dark Knight Returns or Year One (although I contend that All-Star Batman and Robin is more readable than its detractors give it credit). It's been said that Frank Miller has lost his touch.

Holy terror comic