Robin, to the AEI Briefing!

The LA Times profiles suddenly-cool-again Frank Miller and digs out some details on his new project:

At a comic book convention in 2006, he announced that he was working on a book about Al Qaeda attacking Gotham City that would be titled "Holy Terror, Batman!" People glanced around to see if he was joking. He wasn't.

The book is still not out, and in the industry there is the general sense that the project has stalled a bit. At the W, though, Miller said about 120 pages of his Batman tale have been drawn and inked and he's starting in on the "final 50 or so." He said he plans to finish it even though he senses squeamishness by executives at DC Comics and its parent, Warner Bros. Entertainment, in sending a franchise character on a blood-quest after terrorists. The topic is clearly an uncomfortable one for him, and he gave the impression that the title, the distribution deal and the nature of the project are in flux.

Still, the plot is decidedly straightforward: "Our hero's key quote is, 'Those clowns don't know what terror is,' " Miller said. "Then he sets out to get the guys."

With the hero as terrorism avenger, Miller is pointing to the days of comics in the 1940s, when Superman, Captain America and the Human Torch were drawn taking punches at Hitler or Hirohito.

"These terrorists are worse than any villain I can come up with, and I think it's ridiculous that people in entertainment are not showing what we are up against here…. This is pure propaganda, a throwback, there's no bones about it."

Miller also said he relishes a backlash. "I'm ready," he said, "for my fatwa."  

Michelle Malkin sees this as a sign that Miller "gets it." I don't think that Miller would win many fans on the conservative blogosphere if he elucidated all his views. He's that rarest of neocons: a president-hating hawk. In his first Dark Knight series he portrayed Reagan as a pajama-clad weirdo and Superman as a government stooge. In the second series, which was written post-9/11, the president is a malfunctioning hologram and thinly-veiled analogues for Ari Fleischer and John Ashcroft enforce the brutal will of the State. His hatred of al Qaeda is rooted less in patriotism than in the desire to fuck with people.