Holy Terror comic is 'Islamophobic', say critics

There is nothing subtle about Frank Miller's newest graphic novel, Holy Terror. The book opens with the quote: "If you meet the infidel, kill the infidel", which Mr Miller attributes to the Prophet. From there the jingoism, violence and Islamophobia take off.

Miller is no stranger to controversy. His stories, which include the famous Batman mini-series, The Dark Knight Returns, and comics-to-film 300 and Sin City, regularly explore the darker corners of society amid shades of moral grey. Any nuance, however, is all but absent in his latest work.

Originally envisioned as a Batman tale after September 11 attacks on the US, the comic features heroes The Fixer, and thief-come-love interest, Natalie, as they join forces to stop an Al Qaeda plot on Empire City, a thinly veiled New York City.

For some, the best-seller underlines a worrying shift in American entertainment. "We are witnessing a growing industry of information and fear-mongering, and this work fits in the centre … It's unfortunate that Islamophobia is becoming mainstream," said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim civil-rights group. He described the work as "shameful".

Certainly, Miller's mixing of Muslims and Arabs – the book never differentiates – with terrorists highlights Holy Terror's unflattering portrayal of Muslims.

Jack Shaheen, a professor of mass communications at Southern Illinois University, said this combining is a "common thread" in post-September 11 media, and that Holy Terror warrants attention by rights groups as comics grow in influence within the American entertainment industry.

After the book's initial fight scene, The Fixer says to a captured terrorist: "So Mohammed, pardon me for guessing your name, but you've got to admit the odds are pretty good it's Mohammad…" The Fixer then tortures and cripples the man before detonating his explosive belt.

Miller's depictions of women in Islam were no better. A two-panel spread that juxtaposes westerners and Muslims/Arabs shows one of the comic's most gratuitous scenes. In stark contrast to westerners at a cinema in the first panel, the second depicts a brutalised woman buried to her neck as silhouetted men stone her while yelling insults.
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Batman's New Muslim Recruit

Right-wing bloggers decry Nightrunner, DC’s Muslim ‘Batman of Paris’

A conservative blogger who earlier sounded the alarm about the perceived attack on the tea party movement in Captain America and warned of the “anti-American nihilism” of Watchmen has now turned his attention to Bruce Wayne’s recruitment of a Muslim to be the Batman of Paris.

But Nightrunner, the parkour-trained crimefighter introduced in this month’s Detective Comics Annual #12, isn’t just any Muslim — he’s a 22-year-old Algerian Muslim living in Clichy-sous-Bois, the poor commune east of Paris best known outside of France as the epicenter of the 2005 riots. And that doesn’t sit well with Warner Todd Huston.

“You see, DC Comics has decided that the ‘French savior,’ the French Batman is to be a Muslim immigrant,” Huston writes on his Publis’ Forum. “The character’s name is Bilal Asselah and he is an Algerian Sunni Muslim and an immigrant that is physically fit and adept at gymnastic sport Parkour. Apparently Batman couldn’t find any actual Frenchman to be the ‘French savior’.” What constitutes an “actual Frenchman” isn’t entirely clear, but presumably the writer is referring to one of the “Frenchmen of European stock” he mentions later.

Huston takes aim at David Hine’s story, which centers on a series of political assassinations that lead to riots by communist union members and neo-Nazis, describing it as “PCism at its worst”: “The whole situation is a misreading of what ails France. The truth is, neither communist Union members nor ‘Neo-Nazi’ Parties are causing riots in France. Muslims are. Yet DC Comics is absurdly making a Muslim immigrant the ‘French savior’?” He accuses the publisher of badly downplaying in Nightrunner’s origin “the seriousness of the actual racial tension in France” and oversimplifying the problems “as mere racism as if that is all there is to it ignoring the fact that Islam is the single most important factor in the strife.”

He isn’t alone in his criticism; he’s merely picking up the baton passed by far-right commentators like Avi Green who, writing last week at The Astute Bloggers — a site dedicated to “exposing leftist propaganda,” “highlighting under-reported news” and “promoting universal human rights” — said, “How about that, Bruce Wayne goes to France where he hires not a genuine French boy or girl with a real sense of justice, but rather, an ‘oppressed’ minority who adheres to the Religion of Peace. And this is a guy whose very parents were murdered at the hands of a common street thug!”

So while Huston isn’t the only defender of the, I don’t know, wounded honor of “actual Frenchmen” in this manufactured controversy, he may be among the most widely distributed. Commentary from his Publis’ Forum regularly appears at other conservative outlets, such as Andrew Breitbart’s network of websites and Canada Free Press. His Feb. 8 column about Captain America #602 was followed by FoxNews.com’s article about the comic’s “tea party jab” which, in turn, triggered more widespread coverage.

Huston characterizes DC’s decision to make “a Muslim in France a hero when French Muslims are at the center of some of the worst violence in the country’s recent memory” as “PCism run amuck.” It’s apparently part of the “PCing of the American comic book industry” that includes the Captain America-tea party incident, the introduction of gay character Kevin Keller in the pages of Veronica, and … Larfleeze? That’s right, Agent Orange.

Andrew Belonsky at Death and Taxes, who was among the first to pick up on the reaction to Nightrunner, views it in light of the recent calls for a boycott of Marvel’s Thor movie because black actor Idris Elba was cast as the Norse god Heimdall:

The Nightrunner controversy differs a bit from the Thor scandal seen earlier this week. In the Thor scenario, the Council [of Conservative Citizens] wasn’t saying black people can’t be heroes, period. They simply don’t want to see Idris Elba in a specific role.

“It’s not enough that Marvel attacks conservatives values, now mythological Gods must be re-invented with black skin,” they said. “It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves.”

It’s a discriminatory, myopic view, yes, but not nearly as narrow as the one The Astute Bloggers trumpet. Green and his colleagues assume Muslims can’t be heroic because they’re inherently villainous and out to spread “Islamic supremacism.”

Nightrunner’s introduction continues in Batman Annual #28, in stores this week

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Naif Al-Mutawa: Superheroes inspired by Islam

Funny Pic: Muslim Super-Heroes

Islamic Super Heroes Comic Launched

New comic book created by Naif al-Mutawa and published by Teshkeel Comics features characters who develop extraordinary abilities after coming into contact with Noor Stones - ancient gems imbued with power and wisdom


The cover of the first issue of the 99, a comic featuring superheroes inspired by the qualities of Allah. The superheroes are 99 characters who develop extraordinary abilities after coming into contact with Noor Stones, ancient gems imbued with power and wisdom


More pictures here.