The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 119, Holy Terror with Bryan Stratton

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Seanbaby wants to talk about Holy Terror, the Frank Miller graphic novel that's just What If...? Batman Was Islamophobic. The perfect guest for this is comic book magician Alan Moore... but he said no. The second best guest is comic book historian Bryan Stratton... who also said no, but eventually gave in. Brockway said no, too, but he's apparently not allowed to do that.

One nine hundred hot dog. One nine hundred hot dog. Out of podcast slams with maximum hype. Say hot dog podcast word. Yeah. When you taste that nitrate power, you're in the dog zone for an hour. Come on.

You know the number. One nine hundred. One nine hundred hot dog. One nine zero zero. One nine hundred hot dog. One nine hundred. One nine hundred hot dog. One nine zero zero zero.

Yeah. Nine thousand. Welcome to the dog zone. Nine thousand. The only zone for one nine hundred hot dog, the number you dial for laughs. I'm Sean maybe from the internet and you should go to our patreon.

It's at patreon.com slash one nine hundred hot dog. It's how we live and pay writers and we're the best. I'm here with my partner. Honk magazine's number three package. 2017 and 2022. Robert Brockway. What the fuck was that one?

All right. Robert Brockway. Here's a Brockway fact. I have a very unique way of discerning Frank Miller's torso. No follow up question. I have none. I know what it is.

It's the tentacle. Our guest today is comics expert and podcaster host of Marvel by the month. My daughter broke his son's ghost buster strap. He's Brian Stratton. Hey, hey, thanks for having me. And also we fixed the ghost buster strap. Everything is cool.

Your kid is welcome at the house again. Excellent. Ghost get away. Did you even think about that? Your house is filled with ghosts. God. Yeah. So you're welcome.

My daughter did that to you. You may not want to come over, but yeah, it's all good. It's all good, man. Let's talk about Marvel by the month because I don't know if all of our listeners have heard of it. It's a star studded podcast. You guys get like some, some pretty serious guests.

Brian Michael Bendis, Chelsea Kane, Matt Fraction, a lot of comic book stars. Yeah. Yeah. And, and Sean baby a few times. Yeah. The internet's the internet's own Sean baby. Yeah.

On baby. And you guys are featuring introducing. And you guys are like deep into the weird 70s. I guess the premise of your podcast, I'll let you explain it. Yeah. So basically it's what it, you know,

it does what it says on the tin. Each episode is one month in the history of Marvel Comics. So we started in August 1961 with the first issue of Fantastic Four. And then every episode after that has been the next month. So we're like halfway through 1973 now. So like Stan Lee. Yeah.

Stanley's gone from the company. Jack Kirby's gone from the company. There's monsters showing up everywhere. We just did the, the episode that came out the week that we're recording this. Was the death of Gwen Stacy. We had Mark Wade join us for that one. Damn.

And it was, yeah, we all needed a drink afterward. It was horribly depressing, but a great episode. So check it out. Did you dodge any black exploitation? I err. The 70s Marvel got, got super weird. That's coming. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, we actually, so we just had David Walker on the writer of, I mean, he's written Cage and he's written, you know, Power Man and Iron Fist and, you know, Bitter Root and a bunch of other great stuff. But we had him on to talk about the issues of. Wait, let me guess. Yeah.

The time Luke Cage was going to get that fucking money back from Dr. Doom. Where's my money, honey? Absolutely. Yes. So, yeah, it's, I mean, it's great. It's like everything in Marvel at this point is just like turning Grindhouse.

I mean, there's still the superhero books, but they're all honestly kind of boring. But the really exciting stuff is like it's martial arts and swamp fighters and Dracula is in the Marvel Universe now. So it's great. It's a really fun time. You had me on a show when it was an issue where the Hulk got shrunk down and it was like Harlan Ellison did the plot.

And, and then someone came in and scripted it and added like 45 Harlan Ellison references. So I was just so fucking pissed off the whole show. Yeah. Wait, wait, hold on. Like oblique Harlan Ellison references. No, no. I mean, this is Marvel Comics we're talking about.

So, yeah, it was very in your face. Yeah. It was actually a boy and his dog. It was like they really had to force it, but like the Hulk was near a dog and it's like the only thing that's left is a boy and his dog. You're like, buddy, congratulations on squeezing it in. Yeah.

It was, we went so hard on Harlan Ellison that Harlan Ellison has now become like a running joke on the podcast. So thanks. Thank you very much for that. Yes. Speaking of hate resonated through your show. You're welcome. Speaking of hate.

I was going to say, speaking of hate resonating. Yes. We are talking about one of the most fucked up comics it's ever been. Yep. It's 2011's Holy Terror by Frank Miller. 2011. 11. Yeah.

11. Like recent. Yeah. Maybe that's not the word for it, but. It's no longer recent. I know time has collapsed in on itself and we're aging like we are aging. It's the wrong grail.

But it's no longer recent. But you know what? What it's also not recent to? 2001. Yes. It's not recent to 2001. It's just what I'm saying. It was a terrible thing, but I say this with all due respect,

Frank Miller, you got to get over it, pal. Yeah. Of all the people. Yeah. Of all the people. You and Dennis Miller, you just got to. I do want to say nice things about Frank Miller. I love a lot of Frank Miller books.

A lot of people have a lot of negative things to say about them and they're all absolutely right. But I kind of love cranky anger and violence and the way Frank Miller does it. I think Dark Knight Returns is still one of the best Batman books. 100%. Yep. Sin City is almost entirely awesome.

And I think like broke the seal on super bold and stylish comic book adaptations into movies. I think maybe more than even Mark Millar, he's capable of extreme badness in addition to like super crowd pleasing fun stuff. Yeah. Now what's the deal with these comic book millers and their problematic Batman?

Yeah, no, I grew up a big Miller fan. You know, I started reading comics in the mid 80s. So, you know, like right as I was getting into the superhero stuff and getting a little bit past it or wanting a little bit more from it, you know, that's when I discovered Dark Knight. That's when I discovered Batman Year One. Like he wrote the first stories that made Daredevil an

interesting character. So like there's a lot of good Miller, you know, and even, you know, there's selected things from his later career that have done all right. But yeah, I mean, something happened to him about 20 years ago. I wonder what it was. Yeah.

Well, it was I think it was a combination of 9 11 and extreme alcohol abuse. And yeah, the combination was pretty potent. And that's why we got Holy Terror. Yeah. I didn't even hate also Batman. I usually read comic books really casually. Yeah.

And I kind of knew that wasn't like special. Like I knew like, ooh, new Frank Miller, this is going to be amazing. But I was like, this is fine. And then like most of society agreed. This is fucking stupid. But that's kind of what I liked about it. I think a lot of his stuff is fucking like 300 and cities, kind

of a stupid take on that genre of stuff. But that's what I like about it. Yeah. Yeah. It's big dumb fun. Like when it's not hateful. Right. Yeah.

We are done with the nice things about Frank Miller. Okay. Good segue. I live in constant terror of being Frank Miller. Like I feel, I know there must be these issues present in his life before. And he's just hasn't had an excuse to express them. And I believe he even says that in this comic book that he

cops to that directly. But there's also about yourself. You have a lot of darkness inside you. No, no, like the narrative is that, that we see from the outside that we see with, with, I mean, you see it with, we were talking about this the other, the other week with like people that have a stroke or a head trauma or something. In this case, like Dennis Miller and, and, and Frank Miller,

all the millers, every Miller that's ever been, it's, it was like 9-11. And there's just like some, that there's some sort of Manchurian candidate, like sleeper phrase out there that's just waiting to turn you from a guy that does like big dumb fun things into fucking just, I'm going to throw it all the way just to let Muslims know I hate them. I'm like, I'm going to take my whole career just to let, you

know, trans women know that they're not welcome in Harry Potter. Like, yeah, it's fucking crazy to me. And I'm, I know that's not the real narrative, but that's from the outside, it looks like something just triggered a part of your brain that just ate the rest of your personality. Yeah. Because I mean, I think, look, any of us who were, you know, alive and adults during 9-11, I think I'll, a large percentage,

probably a larger percentage than we want to admit of us went a little nuts for a short period of time. And we were on board with basically whatever. But it's all had a vengeful anger. Exactly. A group of specific, well, specific people that were already dead, like the people who did it were dead, but there was, they were part of a larger group and that the line containing

that larger group could fluctuate a lot. Yeah. And then it's like, you know, after a couple of weeks of, you know, watching the towers in a loop on the news, you're like, ah, God, like, I can't, I can't do this to myself anymore. And also, like some of the things that it seems like there, there's some folks who are ready to do some terrible things. And they're using this as an excuse to do those terrible

things. And it's like, maybe we should think twice about this before we get to something that we can't take back. Yeah. There was like a speed and ferocity that you were like, oh, you had something in the chamber though. Yeah. You were like, you were like right here with your, with your

characters and your shirts. Yeah. Like, okay, you had that ready. Exactly. Yeah. There is a theme to the comic. I'll talk about that later. That ties into that.

That like, this was inside of him. And when it came out, they weren't like, oh, what was this darkness inside of me? Oh, I was right to be this terrible the whole time. Yeah. Again, I believe he says that word for word. Yes. Yes.

So he has all this vengeful anger. Like I think a lot of people did. He held on to his a little longer than I think is reasonable. 2011. Yes. And I think he started it. I think in 2005, 2006, something like that. It took him five years to do this.

Yes. Well, it was originally going to be a Batman comic. It was originally going to be a Batman comic called Holy Terror Batman. It was being developed at DC Comics under the editors name is Bob Shrek. Shrek winds up getting laid off from DC. He winds up becoming the editor in chief of this new comics

company called Legendary Comics, which is part of the same media group that is legendary films. Oh, really? Yes. So yeah, this is the, you know, the film company that made, you know, the Dark Knight trilogy, Pacific Rim Watchman, Inception, Dune. Mordecai.

Yeah. Mordecai. Yep. And so Shrek winds up editor in chief over there. The very first thing that Legendary Comics publishes is this piece of shit. Oh, crap. And what an amazing.

Yeah. The tone shift that is accomplished simply by adding the word Batman to the title is astonishing. Yeah. I can't think of a better tone shift. Yeah. A more dramatic tone shift. I legitimately love the idea on a base level,

a knee-jerk reaction. Like the idea of making a 1940s propaganda comic. Yes. Today, starring Batman with like the tone of Holy Terror Batman. Like if he's sort of wackily punching Al Qaeda members, like Captain America punched Hitler, like that's hilarious until you think about it for just one second. Like I just don't see how you could do it without Islamophobia

or I don't see how Frank Miller could do it. I think Tom King could do it. Oh, sure. He's another great Batman writer. But Frank Miller writes these huge one-dimensional characters. He's not going to like follow some Al Qaeda recruit around in a B-plot while he struggles with his beliefs and ethics. Like he's going to like he's going to have dynamite covered

camels with fucking guys screaming Ogabuga, which again would be awesome. And like a long time ago, 1985, that'd be fucking hilarious. There would be, there would certainly be content warnings on the cartoon adaptations that would cite how it's important to understand this period of history. Yeah. So, yeah.

Okay. Okay. I don't want to list all the ways Al Qaeda is different from the Nazis. Let's get into that. But like the kind of patriotism Frank Miller is calling back to is just kind of fascism now. Like it's nationalism.

Yeah. It's just this maniac us versus them. But, and I think that was fine when the them was Nazis, but a lot of people could make the case that we're the them to a lot of people's perspective. Yep. We're the them. It's, it's, I recognize it's not my expertise,

but I recognize more that it's fucking a not Frank Miller's area of expertise. And now in, but in over the course of five years, it never occurred to Frank Miller. No, nobody introduced that to him like on year three of like, no, no, no, it's Batman, but he hates Muslims. Yeah. No, nobody that he pitched that to over a legendary.

We're like, uh-huh. Let's, uh, let's just put a pen and circle back to that. Yeah. Well, I mean, he, he was in that situation where it happens to so many extremely successful people that they rise to a level of success where no one around them is saying no anymore. And it is like in the, the early 2000s, he, he had his, his issues with alcohol, which went on for quite a while.

Um, but also like he was almost systematically purging people who would say no to him from his life. Uh, like, uh, in 2006, um, he winds up getting, uh, divorced. Uh, his, his wife, Lynn Varley, who did the colors on, you know, dark night on 300 on a lot of his work really brought out the best in his art. Um, they wound up splitting up after 20 years of marriage and you can kind of read between the lines of, you know, the

collapse of this person. Um, and, you know, and, and just watching bits of his life fall away. Um, and then there was just, and DC, you know, it's like, dark night is a perennial bestseller for them. Like the dark night returns probably sells more copies in an average month than just about any other graphic novel in their entire catalog.

So it's like, yeah, but at the same time, it's like, there's only so far that they're willing to, you know, push back against this. And it's like, okay, Frank, yeah. I mean, it doesn't seem like he's really moving this ball too far, you know, too far down the, the field. Like, I don't know if this book is ever going to get made. Let's just not tell him no and keep him on our side.

And so we can continue using his name on other things, you know, that's great. That's great, Frank. Listen, uh, yeah, Batman's going to fight Muslims next month. We'll do it. This month. Let's just, uh, how about the Joker? I like the side of that.

Uh, so yeah, Grant Morrison had a quote. Um, you might have heard this. It was in a news drama interview and he, uh, just fully called him out on it. He's like, oh, Batman versus Al-Qaeda might as well be Bin Laden versus King Kong. Or how about this Mr. Al-Qaeda mastermind up against a hungry Hannibal Lecter for all the good it's likely to do.

Cheering on a fictional character as he beats up fictionalized terrorists seems like a decadent indulgent when, uh, real terrorists are killing real people in the real world. Uh, I'd be so much more impressed if Frank Miller gave up all this graphic novel nonsense, joined the army and with a howl of untying hate, rushed headlong onto the front lines with the young soldiers who are actually risking life in limb versus Al-Qaeda. Weird quote.

Weird quote from a weird guy. Yeah. I would have just like left it alone. Hey, that chaos magician is saying strange things about me. But Frank Miller responded to it. And like the shit that you let lie, he says on his own blog, he says, I'm, uh, too old to serve my country in any other way. Otherwise I'd gladly be pulling the trigger myself, which is just

fucking weak ass shit. Like that's like, dude, man, my knee is a hundred percent. I'd fuck you up. No, listen, fools. I have a theory that I would be quite dangerous if I were a completely different person. It's just sad internet losership. Yeah.

Yeah. So anyway, that's like, that's the discourse around the comic on like the high between him and his peers. Yeah. Is just instant like troll shit. Yeah. Ellen Moore went after him too. Cause around the same time Frank got shitty about the occupying

movement. Every chaos magician hated this comic. Yeah. Absolutely. But yeah. Um, and you know, that's where we sort of found out that, that, you know, Ellen Moore, who, you know, is, he's, he's certainly come under fire for things that he has said and, and you know, done as

well, not to the extent anywhere close to the extent that, that Frank Miller has. But, um, but yeah, I mean, you know, he was saying, it's like, well, I, he said, Frank Miller is someone whose work I barely looked at for the past 20 years. Um, I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller's work for quite a long time. Uh, I heard about the latest outpourings regarding the Occupy

movement. It's about what I'd expect from him. I had the quote from the Occupy movement. If you'd like to hear that. Oh yeah. Let's go ahead. Let's, let's whip that one out. Okay.

This is Frank Miller's quote from his own blog. He called the Occupy Wall Street people. A pack of louts, thieves and rapists wake up pond scum. America's at war against a ruthless enemy. Maybe between bouts of self pity and all the other tasty tid bits of narcissism, you've been served up in your sheltered comfy little worlds. You've heard terms like El Qaeda and Islamist Islam.

So like, yeah, yeah, maybe he was stuck in traffic behind a protest or something, but it's pretty bad. It's hard to take a little guy called Batman who, uh, who wouldn't occupy Wall Street. Yeah. Cause he is Wall Street. Cause he's a billionaire. Yeah.

You'd be like Batman. You dumb fucks. And also, I mean, that quote just kind of underscores something that we also see in Holy Terror was he's just like, how far his writing ability had fallen by this point. Like the thing that, so Holy Terror on its face is an extremely offensive piece of propaganda for a number of reasons.

It's also just offensively bad. Like it is poorly crafted. Uh, the, the art is terrible. The writing is terrible. The plot for what there is of it is just ridiculous. Um, it's a cartoon and it takes itself very seriously. Right. Like the tone is, uh, I guess like somber and like a,

like a funeral procession. Yeah. Like a real like nine 11 Memorial type of vibe. Yeah. I mean, they literally are like pages and pages of just squares with the people's faces that have died. Only the people's faces that died like in this comic. And a lot of them are the people that Frank Miller is

clearly trying to say, look at these fucking assholes. But then he also wants to do a memorial for the fucking assholes. It's, it is bizarre. Like there's four blank pages of just like portraits fading out. Like, okay, wait, you can't, but that would originally distinguish those portraits as the memorial to fade them

out. Are you like, we should forget about them? Like your metaphors are, are fucked, buddy. And also, by the time he gets to the, the, the double page spread, the double, double page spread, cause all these pages are double wide. Um, when it's just empty boxes, um, they start out symmetrical, but even like by the last page, uh, like he

can't even get the, the boxes to be symmetrical any longer. It's so sloppy. It is such a sloppy piece of shit. That's a little metaphor about how like our memories, they'd let us look shut up. Yeah. Batman wouldn't question these squares.

Yeah. It's a metaphor for how when you really pissed off and drunk when you draw a comic book, it just gets all fucked up. You're just fucking blouts and thieves. Uh, anyway, I, I feel like, uh, it's a bad take to say, uh, you shouldn't care about the economy while there are Muslims out there. And I don't know if I'd ever call someone a rapist just

because they didn't hate Al-Qaeda as much as I did. Yeah. Um, so I, I just want to talk a little bit more about Frank Miller before we talk about the terribleness of this comic book. Sure. Sure. Uh, he did another interview with the Guardian where, uh, he's

like pretty recently where he didn't apologize for anything, but he admits he wasn't thinking clearly when he made this comic book. And he's like, I don't know, like he seems to know like kind of what the problems were, but like, he doesn't want to address them. And it's obviously written by an emotionally unstable person throwing a fit, but I also want to make the point that he

fucking tinkered with it for 10 years that like, even if he was super mad when he started the thing, like he was going back in a lot and he could have at any point like just made one of the, there had to only been like 40 word bubbles just to make that's the other thing. Writing wise, I feel like this is two evenings of work, not like hard, hard work. It's just like, this is a really short script.

And, um, anyway, I have an interview with him in 2011. It is, uh, it's really something that's with Bob Shrek, the editor you mentioned earlier. Well, gee, it's going to take him two years to do this book, which would have made it, what, 2007? Yeah, it's on market. Wow. And, and literally we heard all over the place.

Oh, by then that whole terrorism thing is just going to be passed, say, hi, here we are. I mean, you got any apologies from people telling you that you were going to be behind the curve and here we are 10 years later. Yeah, I'm not hearing from a lot of people telling me that they aren't afraid of, um, of, um, of trouble from abroad. She's getting a lot of apologies.

And, and, and, uh, homegrown trouble. Um, the, the issue here is a method of killing. It's not a religion. I, for instance, was born Catholic and I can tell you very little about the mysteries of Catholicism, but I could tell you a fair amount about the Spanish Inquisition. And, but the same token, I can tell you squat about Islam. I don't know anything about it.

Wow. But I know a goddamn lot about al-Qaeda and I want them all to burn in hell. That's, that's their smash cut away. Fucking anime waifu, anime waifu, anime waifu. I thought they were going to drop the beat and make it a techno remix of that last one. And I know a lot, a lot, a lot about al-Qaeda.

So that's him basically saying, hey, no, no, it's not Islamophobic. I hate al-Qaeda. And, and his way of justifying that is like, dude, I don't know fucking anything about Islam. And, uh, Good one. Yeah. Oh, okay.

So it's you. Consider it. I couldn't be hateful. I'm an idiot. Look, I'm not hateful. I'm just ignorant. And, uh, we'll see as we go through the comic, there's a lot of stuff in here that he comments on that has nothing to

do with al-Qaeda and only to do with, uh, Muslim shit. Yes. Um, so anyway, let's, let's talk about the comic. I have some notes. Okay. Um, okay. Let's start with the comic book itself. It's a big dumb fucking yellow thing.

Like it's designed so it won't fit on a shelf. So I think, I think authorities forced them to do this so that you have to leave it on a horizontal surface. So guests in your home know that you own it. It is like this fucking four foot wide rectangle. Uh, anyway, uh, it's all like stylish, like Sin City. So the first kind of feels like 50 pages are just like black and white ink splatter.

Uh, then there's a quote. Finally. Spanning two pages that says if you meet the infidel, kill the infidel Mohammed. That's a quote from Mohammed. Now, um, I already have some, some notes, some actual notes. The, the, the translated line from the Quran is when you meet the, meet the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads.

So he's taken some liberties. I mean, it's, it's not the most gentle passage, but I think Frank Miller is actually quoting Ayatollah Khamenei, not the prophet Mohammed. Uh, anyway, I found that on the first Google match leading to a 2004 article specifically about that line. So Frank could have done that. He could have done that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He just told you that to know something about, Islam would make you an Islamophobe as long as you don't know anything about it and you can't complicit in the hate. Yeah. To know something.

What kind of son of a bitch would know something about it and then hate it. So, uh, no, it's, it's just Batman and cat woman, like jumping across rooftops. Yeah. The page after page after page. Can we describe his cat woman real quick? Uh, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, she's cat woman, but sluttier, which was not necessary.

Yeah. Yeah. Cat woman's main, main feature is that, uh, she's a real, real sexy cat woman lady and you're like Frank Miller was like, Oh, but what if a short shorts? Oh, that's not enough fish nets. That's not enough. Oh, thigh highs that are also sneakers.

I've got it. There's an old video that, uh, you might have seen where they took, uh, one of the Arkham Asylum games and they swapped the bodies, uh, with the animation. You know what I'm talking about? I love that one. Yeah. Like here comes Batman just writhing around sexily like cat woman.

And it is so funny. And it was funny to me because, uh, like cat woman sexiness is just backwards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's so funny. And it was funny to me because, uh, like cat woman sexiness is just

background noise for my brain. Like I just never even noticed she was doing that. Like the first time I played it. Yeah. Inhumanly. Like if anybody to watch somebody else do that, you're like, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah.

A body can't even move like that. It's, it's wild. I mean, she's basically one of the, one of the girls from old town, um, from Sin City. I mean, that's pretty much what he, what he's referencing. And the only female character he is capable of writing. A hundred percent. Yup.

Well, he could also do, I also think, uh, maybe there's something to the fact that the only color in, uh, her entire first, like 30 pages is her feet. I'm not going to say more about that. That's something. It's a, it's a strange motif to just color only the woman's feet. Yeah. And that, uh, perhaps the biggest splash page at the start is when

her boot comes off and her foot's, you know, like right, right up in front there and they're a little fish that's talking. I think, uh, you know what, never mind. I'm sure that's not. So, uh, I wrote down some of the dialogue it starts with. Um, she's, her name is Natalie Stack. She's a cat burglar. That's the, all we know about her.

Uh, she's not cat woman. Uh, she's certainly not cat woman. Right. Yeah. Legally distinct. Cause she's Natalie stack cat burglar. Uh, there's no serial numbers on this character. They've been filed off.

Yeah. That's something like, uh, he had to have just gone in and like, he raised a bunch of bat and cat ears for most of this. Yeah. Yeah. He was a hundred page, a hundred pages done with this before DC said, this is fucking not a Batman comic book.

Fuck out of my office. It's way more blatant than even the watchman swap. You're just like, Yeah. You, you literally just erased the cape from some of these panels and you can kind of tell where the cape was supposed to be. And he's,

his brain is just like, I don't know what to put here. It's just a bunch of empty space for that. Okay. What about a dinosaur head? How about some ink splatters? Oh, ink splatters. She gets Frank Miller. What about feet?

Women's feet? The dialogue is her. She goes, he's right on my ass, right on my ass. What is this goddamn problem? All I did was steal a lousy diamond bracelet and now he's right on my ass. So he's, he's doing this word repetition,

like a really bad knockoff of Sin City. Yup. And that's kind of what this all looks like. It feels like, um, called like an AI comic, like someone fed Frank Miller to an AI and this is just the fucking first draft of the garbage it spat out.

Yeah. Yeah. It feels like, like the, the comics gate Kickstarter version of a Sin City knockoff where they're only going to get around to shipping the first issue. Um, and the rest of it will never actually get done. Yeah.

And then they all end up in jail for domestic abuse or something. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Or fraud for the Kickstarter fraud. Anyway, she falls off a building, the fixer catches her. That's his name.

We find this out. It's not Batman. It's the fixer. And, uh, and they have like this weird loving embrace like Frank Miller, like took the time to draw the sketchy ink splatter to draw like this, like intense embrace. Like if this didn't suck,

you could find meaning in it. Like that's what I mean is he's, you can tell already that he's going for art, but like not putting a ton of energy into it. Um, God, uh, the dialogue here,

I wrote some more down and goes, you're busted girl. She kicks him in the dick and says, the hell I am. You son of a bitch. Just, just raw first draft temper tantrum writing. Yeah.

The sound effect. Uh, when she kicks him in the dick is Fudd. I believe, I believe he says Gar. It's amazing that even the sound effects were badly written. Yeah. And then she kicks him in the face and the sound effect is cock. So that's pretty good too.

You just swapped them out. You should have said cock when you kicked him in the cock. Exactly. That's what art is Frank Miller. That's what I'm saying. It's a very sloppy production. Yeah. That's it for the dialogue for a while.

That's, uh, just a bunch of fighting until they kiss and then they fight some more. I'm not leaving out anything. They just kind of fight and kiss and. I took that one panel to mean full penetration. Like right before the pipe bomb explode.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Explode. Oh, this is him coming on explosion. Wait. Oops. It's a real explosion.

Right. Yeah. Like I also hated when she goes, I hate your guts and he goes, sure you do. I hate your guts. You make me sick. Sure I do. And she goes,

make me sick. And he goes, sure I will. It's right. You thought you were building up to something, but it was nothing at the end. Make me sick. What does that mean?

Yes. What are you? It's how the world's greatest bully would make fun of Frank Miller. The world's greatest Frank Miller bully. Yeah. Miller. That's true. They all fucking pile of blood and cheddar bones because they beat

the shit out of each other. That's the thing. It's like, I mean, they're punching each other in the face. It's super uncomfortable. Like they take turns punching each other in the face. They're all fucked up. And then they get it on. And it's just.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I didn't know that was meant to be shocking and disturbing. Like, I mean, that's the effect he was going for, but it's still a shitty effect. Yeah.

It's such a fan fiction thing. Like the only thing that's happened is he's chasing cat woman and he fucks cat woman. Like it, this is like a brainstorming session between like two horny 11 year olds, like writing their, their own Batman story.

It is absolutely the Kickstarter fan thing. You're spot on with that. So that's the first thing is like, I, they've been dancing around it for so long. I think we should immediately have the fuck. Like, yeah, that's, that's what you would do as a, as a hard up nerd with the,

with the leash off. And there's no attempt at, like, you know, characterization or anything. Like you are just supposed to instantly recognize their Batman and cat woman. I mean, that's it. You know, it's,

but there's, that's what I mean. It's such a lazy, you know, adaptation of the way this thing started out, you know, where it's, you know, you know, you just have to file the ears off and just let the

reader fill in the rest. They know who these characters are. It's just lame. And the dialogue here, while they fuck it says, it's just a slow night. That's all. That's all.

That's all. It is Roger Corman doing Quentin Tarantino. It is. It's, it's bad Frank Miller doing good Frank Miller. I think it's, it's a better description. There's no need to fucking make an allegory.

That's, it's just what it is. So it's like 35 fucking pages in and one of the things that's really good and, we've described everything that's happened. Like this is the already the length of a single comic book and it literally nothing has happened other than a rooftop fuck.

And they get hit by a bunch of nails and an explosion. And cat woman, I started cat burglar Natalie sex. She goes, yeah, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ Jesus. This really hurts, which is, I loved it.

Instead of saying something you could quote or they would have meaning. He just Frank Miller just went with what he blurts out when he steps his toe. just went with what he blurs out when he stabs his toe. He's like, fuck it, lock it in. 10 years he tinkered with this and that's what he left. Like, I have-

It's to set up the payoff at the end, which is when he says, it's war, darling, it's war. And she says, it really hurts. And he says, I know it, baby, I know it hurts. Don't you get it? It's war. It's the war is the thing that hurts. You thought she was complaining about the nail in her shin,

but it was really war. Her internal monologue is better though. She says, and I quote, a nail, a goddamn nail. What the hell's a goddamn nail doing stuck in my goddamn leg? What's with that? What the hell is going on? We learn a lot about the character from like the internal leg. Really doesn't like nails in the leg.

Yeah, yeah, really, they really hurt. Well, much like war, much. Oh, Jesus. It's as if he was like, he was paying out of pocket for each additional word that he was using in the book. So it's like, man, it's like, I've already bought 25 words. It's like, I'm just going to use these over and over so that I can stay under budget on this thing.

Right. It's like he had a contract with a letterer that said, like, I'll pay you four cents per word, but nail counts as the same word. So now we see, now we go to the perspective of a sexy and alluring Islamic suicide bomber. And she's seducing a guy outside a bar and she takes a drink of his beer, which is like fucking, huh?

Like, I know Frank Miller doesn't know a lot about Muslims, but I would say a devout Muslim about to sacrifice herself for the cause wouldn't like go out breaking such a fundamental taboo. It's my point. Unless this is him like saying, the hypocrisy of these people, they have all these rules,

but they break them right before they kill themselves. I know it. Yeah, she's introduced as Armina, exchange student, humanities major. Yes, yes. Just fucking smearing liberal hate. Fucking humanities major. I don't even have to say she's Muslim.

That's you. That's you assuming that. You can know that. Yeah. They're fucking feminine studies class. Yeah, I love that he saves humanities major for the end of the scripture, which is where you would put the most despicable part.

Fucking humanities major. I got that. I got that he hated that part of it. And the the captions that accompany the introduction, again, this is like such bottom basement writing. Empire City, USA, it's cold. The city is cold and wet and noisy. And so very proud of itself.

Empire City, cold, wet, noisy, haughty, arrogant, always building itself bigger, taller, like some mad gaggle of robots, always climbing. Mad gaggle of robots. That's how I look at a city. And that's the first thing that comes to mind. When I see a skyline, it's like, that looks like a goddamn mad gaggle of robots.

Wet robot gaggle. That's what New York, the cold, the big cold, wet robot gaggle. Yeah, that's what they call her. It's my daughter said, daddy, the buildings look like a tall stack of robots. I'd say I raised you better than this. God damn it.

What are you going to be a humanities major? He calls the buildings haughty and arrogant twice. Oh yeah. These goddamn smug buildings. I'm going to blow them up because I am a humanities major. That's what he thinks the Muslims think. They must really hate buildings. Look at them.

That's it. That's what they did to their grudge, yeah. Because they don't have like, I guess in Arabic countries, they don't have arrogant buildings. The buildings, they're very humble. Yeah, yeah, modest, you know. I don't, I have no idea what he's doing here.

I've never seen less effort to try to understand a villain from the person who has created this villain. Like he's just like, I do not give a shit who this person is at all. He's got the one detail wrong and everything else is just nothing. So she like whatever, I don't know. I don't even know what the fuck.

All this talk like takes 12 pages. This, I counted 12 pages and I learned no more about her than I would from like a Rob Liefeld box describing blood razors, laser sword powers. Like it's just nothing. I'm saying this is worse than Rob Liefeld on his worst day. That's how serious I'm criticizing this. Yeah.

And so she blows up the nightclub because it's looking at your arrogant buildings, apparently. And we're back with the Fixer and the Catwoman and they're all fucked up from the nail bomb. And then another bomb goes off. This one is shooting razor blades. And there's like a stagger between them. So I guess he's implying they blew up the building

and then they had a second bomber waiting out there to run into the first explosion and die again. Why would it be right there? It's just fucking buildings a lesson. That's why. So Frank Miller's, I guess writing is himself now because one of the captions just says the bastards, the bastards, how many of my neighbors have they murdered?

Which I believe I've heard him quote in several interviews. When they're recovering from the explosion, there's this fucking panel where they're like, I don't even know who I'm breathing in right now. And they choose that exact line of dialogue to do a sexy panel where it's like, we're heaving her tits out and Batman's like, oh, just like they're both just like flexing on a rooftop,

fucking, fucking thrusting their tits and asses out and just breathing in, just huffing 9-Eleven. Who does get sexy with 9-Eleven? This is also amid the sexiness is where like, Frank Miller started doing the little drawings of the people that we lost in the comic book explosion. And so they're like, I don't know if they're really his neighbors, but they're super mean spirited drawings.

Like it looks like a third grade class tried to learn how to draw Frank Miller's faces. Yeah, he has no respect for the people he's putting in the memorial. Like they're largely minorities and liberals as if he's saying, they're killing your people too. You're goddamn idiot people. And like the line work is like really different.

It's like you drew them all like on different like off-road races, like it's so fucking bad. I don't know how to describe it. I mean, you could literally tell that his hand is shaking. Yeah, I guess there's that. Like when he's drawing this, either in rage or, because he's drunk or whatever. But I mean, could be both things.

Drunk rage, but just another kind of underscoring just how far his skills have eroded by this point. Right. And then there's four pages of the blank boxes and he does, as you mentioned earlier, kind of fuck that up. And so here's the tone is like, I basically read all the dialogue to you

from the comic book so far. That's the tone. Like just two people fucking on a roof while they complain about like nails in their leg. And then there's all this like silent memorial to people we just lost in a razor blade bomb to a humanities major who didn't have dialogue or faces before.

Like we don't know who they were or what they wanted out of life, what we lost. Anyway, then it just goes to a silent page of fixer and catwoman looking shocked at the bomb as if like they're experiencing this profound moment with us. It is just raw Frank Miller therapy, just fucking amateur, artless imagery, fucking freshman painting from like the class's saddest,

least promising student. It's just fucking trash. And there's it. It's just like, I don't know. The next page I have this notes about the art and forgive me, but this actually is my air of expertise. But like there's this drawing that's just like, it's so messy, it's hard to tell what he's going for.

It's like an abstract expression is smear of car shapes and squiggles. And then there's like a giant red high heel platform. But it's like the only thing that's not to scale. It's like, it's like a collage, but the only thing that's not the drawing is this big shoe. So maybe this is a comic book universe that had a 90 foot drag queen superhero that got exploded.

Or it's just a foot thing, but it's certainly not art is my point. Yeah. All the feet of color and all the women's feet. Yes. That's probably nothing to that. Probably not, probably not. Don't explore that anyone.

So Fixer now has like a moment to take a breath and look at all this, this giant shoe on top of this fucking weird collage. And he says, no, not on my watch. And Catwoman goes, not on my turf. Again, this is just Frank Miller writing as himself. Like this is him like, like watching the 9-Eleven coverage and being,

you know, I'll draw a fucking comic book at you so hard. This is how I served my country. I mean, he said that your quote he said earlier, this is how I served my country. He did. With this. Rather than join the Marines. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Like he would have joined the Marines. You could have joined the Marines when you were younger, you fucking asshole. You're not a guy that joins the Marines. It's who you are. And that's fine.

Lots of people are. But here's, they cut to Commissioner Gordon. After an artful, I would say an artful depiction of the entire war in the Middle East. Oh my God, yeah. Through like three pages of just like somebody's face, of like Bush's face. And then in the middle of it all drawn

with the most contempt is Michael Moore. Yes. Fucking Michael Moore. And then I guess some Muslims. Yeah, that Michael Moore was like a hairy potato with nine chins in a baseball hat. Most contempt for sure. He's a fucking jelly bean with a face.

It was wild. I mean, it's been so long since the Gulf War that I actually had to like rack my brain for it's like, cause they're also poorly drawn. So I'm like, who are these folks supposed to be? It's like, and I had to like run through my mental list of the ghouls who architected the response. But like Condoleezza Rice is there, Dick Cheney's there.

There's a few other folks. I think they're meant to be specific people, but I honestly cannot tell you who they are. I'm almost certain they're supposed to be. The George Bush I almost thought was Barack Obama. That's how bad a drawing it was. Yes. When it could be both of those things.

But on that page, there's a really mean-spirited caricature of Lewis Farrakhan, which is. Oh yeah. I was like, oh, Frank, what's going on here pal? Like he just fucking hates everything. You get the real, I hate fucking everything by from Frank Miller. And this is like an amateur political cartoon

in desperate need of labels. You're like, what, why are these people here? What are they doing? No comment. I don't need to explain. It's a black triangle with a thing at the end and George Bush. You get it.

Yeah. What are you saying here? But yes, now we meet their commissioner Gordon of Empire City, his name's Don Donigl, but he didn't have any bad ears. So Frank didn't have to redraw it. It's just commissioner Gordon. Don Donigl.

I'm Don Donigl. I'm a tough cop on a tear. You're a tough cop, you know, you get it. Then he continues with some more pictionary drawings of political leaders and concepts involved in the Gulf War, just smokestacks, bombs, Condoleezza rice, waterboarding, whatever, fucking you get it.

You were making this comic yourself at this point. You knew you didn't have like a page limit to fill out. What is this filler? It's amazing. It really does feel like you're deep in a pictionary try and like someone is just not getting it. They're trying to get them to get it. It's 9-11.

Just get it. Whoa, dude. Did you forget? The drawing, the drawing buildings falling down, like what the fuck? It's 9-11, you stupid bitch. In my mind. I don't know the passage of time here.

These drawings made me think like months have passed, maybe years. That's the thing. Yeah. I guess since this came out in 2011, I guess he's reminding us of how we got to this point or something. I don't know.

Yeah, maybe. You might be saying, see, I was at this for years. Yeah, this isn't the original, it's not meant to be the original 9-11 attack. It's meant to be the attack that happens 10 years after 9-11, which those crafty Muslims have been planning for 10 years. This orchestrated attack of terror

across our great city that's going to make 9-11 look like, you know, I don't know. But the joke's on them because somebody else has been preparing for 10 years. It's Frank Miller and it's this comic book. You're welcome, America. Been preparing with two bottles of whiskey a day. So I have a quote.

Hold on, maybe you're doing the quote. What's your quote? I might be. It starts with, on my life. Yep. There's been something wrong, something missing. Do you want to continue from there? A sense that everything I'm seeing around me

isn't entirely true. This whole world is a mask and the world reveals itself. I'm at peace. I'm at war. Amazing. So this is the nonsense. 9-11 took that mask off. Yes.

Yep. This is what I was talking about earlier. This is a paranoid racist who thinks they were always right because a bad thing happened and their paranoid racism predicted it. Like it's almost written that way. Yeah, he says it word for word. What I was referring to earlier was this quote

where he's just like, I always felt this way and now I can take the mask off. Like, yeah, that's like a hood, maybe? Are you talking about some kind of hood? Yeah. And this is how it like perpetuates itself. It's like, the bad thing happens and that sucks. But then you're like, I was right to hate these people.

Aren't I smart for my irrational hate? And it's just, okay, Frank. I think the thing that I hate most about this book, and there's so many things to hate, is that retroactively, it makes all the very good things that he did seem incredibly suspect in retrospect. Yeah, it was a real shadow.

Yeah, like was he good on accident? Did other people like it to make it good? Or it's like, you know, there's clearly, fascist overtones to Batman in Dark Knight Returns. Right. But I felt like he tried to, in the text, he deliberately put that on Superman and Ronald Reagan.

Yes. And I thought like, okay, so he kind of gets what fascism is and he's... Yeah. And he also creates a Gotham city that is so cartoonishly lost that this really is, like the only reasonable response is to go this far. And if you look at it in that context,

it's like, okay, like in that context, which he has very carefully set up, you know, this doesn't read like a, like a January 6th recruiting tool. But you look at this book, and then he says shit like that. Yeah. And you're like, well, fuck,

was he literally saying this in Dark Knight? Like, am I wrong for loving that comic now? Like, it like, was I tricking? All the stuff I thought was sarcasm and silliness. It's like, oh no. Oh shit. I have another quote here where he, they're like jumping through the air and he goes,

with a wild laugh, she lets go of my cape. She flies. I hope I'm not in love with her. I've never fallen in love. I never want to fall in love. I must never fall in love. Never. This fucking guy's missing nine pints of blood

in two balls of sea. On his way to a fully vengeance war. And he's like, I must remember my code of not loving. The votes on a whole page room just going, oh, shit, I might love. I'll never, I'll never fall in love again. Brian Adams said that and I really took it to heart. And again, this makes no sense

unless we know it's supposed to be Batman because like we know nothing about the fixer at all. Yeah. So anyway, a suicide bomber's vest doesn't work and a crowd beats him up, which is just so clearly Frank Miller's ass cake fantasy. And then they put the guy in a chopper and they're like talking to Batman.

They're like, hey, yeah, we got the guy in a chopper. And he's like, don't, don't they have psychwinder missiles? They'll kill your chopper. They know where he is. So they all have trackers suddenly. Anyway, the fixer saw this coming with his paranoia as well and a stinger missile shoots the helicopter in the middle of the conversation.

And he goes, stinger missiles. And no regard for human life. None for the valiant medics struggling to save their comrade and none for their comrade himself. And then there's little memorial pictures for the doctors we lost in the helicopter crash. Never seen before. And then the very next panel, the first line of dialogue

is fixer saying, let's get us some killing done. Rock, wait, I want you to stop here and remember their names, these nameless fictional paramedics. Honor them, earn their sacrifice. I like that he put the terrorist in there too. Remember, he might have been a terrorist, but the son of a bitch didn't deserve

to be killed by terrorists. And tubes in his nose and shit. Not on like his happiest day. We're not like, oh, this is when the terrorist is 10 years old playing in the yard. It's like, no, this is when he died in a helicopter with tubes in his nose. But all the doctors got like their internship pictures

and like their high school yearbook pictures and stuff. Anyway, the tone is stupidest. It's weird. It's gonna get stupider. Yes, it's this honoring of the dead mixed with the cranky Batman fucking. And it's 1,000% not what I was picturing when I heard Frank Miller wanted to do

a classic propaganda comic. Because this is Jack Chick propaganda, not Captain America propaganda. And honestly, if it was a Jack Chick tract, I would have loved it even more. But it's not even that. Doesn't even rise to that level. It is God versus Allah, not America versus Saudi Arabia

or wherever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, next, let's get some killing done. Let's remember the honorable dead and then let's add to their ranks. It's just some fucking barely not broken English. Like if I was playing in 90s, like beat them up arcade game and said, let's get some killing done.

I'd say, yes, perfect. We engage in post-modern diplomacy. I didn't hate that. I fucking hated it. Jesus Christ, that was bad. Oh, it's like someone making fun of Frank Miller again. He jumps in, he's headshotting two guys and breaking another guy's neck with a kick.

And he's like, we engage in post-modern diplomacy. You're like, OK. You like that? You goddamn humanities majors. Yeah, you're a real tough guy, Frank. Yeah, nailed it. That's a fucking Iron Eagle 6 joke at best. Not this barrage Iron Eagle 6.

Sorry, Lou Gossett, Jr. Maybe was he still doing it? I don't know. Lou Gossett, Jr., Jr. at that point. So Batman goes, we give them exactly what they want, minus the innocent victims, because they want to die. That's part of their ideology. He says that several times at the end. He says, these goddamn bastards are in love with death.

And then he's going to shuck you, listeners. But after he kills all those people, we get little terrible drawings of all of them to remember them. To remember their memorial. Also, he does say it's worth saying his bug's modding One of the bombers runs at him and yells, G-Hodd. And he says, Gazoon tight.

Yeah, dude. It's awful, but like more of that, please. Like take that moment and multiply that. And you've got yourself a comic, Frank Miller. Not a good one, but not a tragedy like this. We would still have to put content warnings. So it's a relevant spot in history. But we would still be able to show it, I guess.

Yeah. And then the fixer says, we got to leave one of them alive to talk. And store brand Catwoman says, spoil sport. And he's like, we'll have to torture him. And then all of a sudden she's like, oh, torture. Okay, I'm down with that. Yeah, it's okay to let them live

as long as you're going to torture them. Little memorial box. In all this torture talk, there's still like these little calm high school photo pictures of the dead terrorists in the same style as Innocent Americans. And it just, it feels like clumsy, obvious art. Like he's still making this desperate attempt at art.

But I don't have any idea what he's saying because this guy fucking can't be serious. Like, I don't know, I'm just so fucking frustrated by it. There's a part here during the torture where he goes, so Mohammed, pardon me for guessing your name, but you've got to admit the odds are pretty good. It's Mohammed. What's the plan?

Like, what is that other than racism? Like the like knee-jerk racism from like, like a truck driver, like it's just like... Yeah. Anyway, they break his spine and he talks. Then they explode him. They explode him anyway. After Catwoman tells the terrorist,

he's really a gentle soul. It's just that when he gets riled up, he's been known to hurt people, which I think is how Frank Miller is maybe trying to explain himself. You know, I'm really a gentle soul. I'm not normally racist unless like, the situation calls for it, like a torture.

Like, you know. I'm just riled, I'm just a little riled up. Just a little riled up right now. Yeah. I'm only racist when I meet people who aren't white. Do you get what I mean? I'm only racist when it's relevant. And it doesn't, it's not intolerance.

It's riling. I'm riled. Yes, I'm riled up. I love, because when they explode him, she says, Yeesh, that's a lot of chunks of terrorist. And then Batman goes, at least we know they're the same species. So like, wow.

We're all alike when we're inside out. Did you got a fucking baby right this, Frank Miller? You dumb fucking idiot. Some more random drawings. It's like the definition of othering someone too. Yes. Up until then, there was a question about whether these people are even human.

Yes. Yeah. But like, oh look, they have intestines like us. You could fuck them and make a baby. So legally they're the same species. So, so four random drawings. I think I spotted set up Palin with 80s bangs, maybe. Yep.

Putin, I couldn't figure out who the Jewish fellow was on this page, but anyway. Now we see like the first direct parallels besides how our insides look the same when we explode. They show people watching transformers and the people in the crowd are saying epic, keyhole and awesome. Then it shows a group of Muslims stoning a woman to death

and they're screaming, infidel, slut, whore. So you see how like there's some parallels between our society. Yeah, it's basically the same thing. This is how, you know, our societies get their kicks. Right. Yeah. Transformers is just like stoning a woman to death.

I don't know if I have always said that. Yeah, I think that's what the reviews said when that movie came out. That was the skill of the evers. We give it two whore stoned to death down. Next, they blow up the Statue of Liberty or like the Batman version of it. And Hillary Clinton is super stunned by this,

but Ahmadinejad seems to really like it. Maybe, I think he just drew the first Ahmadinejad drawing he found. Anyway, as propaganda, this is just voiceless. This is a sketchbook for someone to one day draw political cartoons for their high school paper. It is nothing. And the caricature of Hillary Clinton

is just the most mean-spirited thing in the book maybe, which is, I know setting a very high bar, but because on the same page, there's caricatures of Obama and Biden, which look very flattering, actually. And then, yeah. The Obama one? I think the Obama one, yeah, I mean, like.

I would have trouble describing that without sounding racist. No, but I mean, it's like, everyone, like every other time he's drawing someone on this page, he makes them look like a monster. Like, and there is so much bile and hatred in his caricature of Hillary Clinton specifically. Like, he seems to hate her

as much as he hates the terrorists. Yeah, like he is drawing terrorists ripping apart noble American paramedics that we just met. Yeah. And yet his contempt is for like fucking Michael Moore, fucking humanities majors, goddamn Hillary Clinton. Yeah, yeah. That's the real problem.

Yep. And I guess his hate comes from like, they don't hate Al Qaeda as much as him. Like, I feel like he, I don't know if he's like a conservative, but he's like, those guys have the right idea. Kill anyone who's not part of your in-group. And like, everyone else is like, oh, they're so accepting.

They want to like hug Al Qaeda, you know what I mean? I feel like that's like what the issue is with left the leftists. Anyway, they now meet Batman's superhero foes. And it is, instead of like meeting an analog to the Justice League, it's just two Asian ninja babes and a Jewish, the question. Yep.

It's just a dude of the fucking fedora and a Star of David cover his entire face. I had Rorschach, but you only see Judaism. Right. So maybe I'm the intolerant one because I saw the Star of David. What do you see in the Rorschach test? Jews.

So Brockway, you said earlier that, you know, the cat woman analog is the only kind of woman that Frank Miller can draw. And I was gonna correct you. It's like, actually he can draw sexy Asian ninja babes too. And so he makes up for it by putting two of them on this page. Exactly.

He's like, you know what else? I can draw a sexy ninja Asian babe. You know what? I'll just do it a couple of times. So really, I'll really show people I can draw something else. No lines for them though. No.

Yeah, they don't say anything. And they're not much of a threat. And so the cat woman has to be like, oh, I think they're gonna kill me. And like, cause just to like let the reader know, hey, no, these girls are dangerous. Normally Frank Miller would spend a, you know, five or six pages like, beautiful, deadly, me ho.

So deadly, nothing can stop her if she wants you dead. You know, whatever. I remember Sin City. I don't remember. Perfect, perfectly written. Thank you. That was pretty bad shit. Yep.

So here we are. We learn from God, what is it? Like a 24 panel spread of dialogue. Like the, finally there's words in this comic. It's just a car ride of Batman, just fucking nagging cat woman. Yeah. And she's like, he's like,

I got a plan to kill the police commissioner. And she's like, what are you? What are you serious? She's like, no, no, he's a bad guy. Like nothing has been established so far in the comic to like, we're just taking Batman's word for it. They're like, this character we haven't introduced, I gotta go kill him, but it's okay.

And she's like, hold up. Share her words. I can't believe this. And his response to that are, go on, get out. Go home and watch it on TV. Shut up and get in line, damn you. Shut up and get in line, damn you. That's fantastic.

But we learned that the Jewish question guy was, he's like an Israeli Batman. He's a little too intense for Masab. Those are the fixer's words. And then we hear, anyway, he always knew this would happen. He always knew. So again, Frank Miller is saying that paranoid Islamophobia is the smartest thing you can have to prepare.

But even if you're Batman in this fictional extra Batman universe, it won't help. So I guess he's saying, maybe don't be a terrified racist. It doesn't help even when it should. I think he's trying to say the opposite, but accidentally saying that. So in a way, like this is good propaganda. Yeah, maybe.

If you turn it upside down and then read it backwards. If you ignore the intent and go with the meaning. Yeah. Yeah. So then I, it's a love story all along. I don't know if anyone saw that coming, but he is falling in love with Catwoman. And they go to a mosque to stop the super bomb.

And- Which is where all of the terrorists are, are in the city's only mosque. Yes. And so I think Catwoman wonders out loud. Why don't they, like, why don't they surveilling them with choppers? They know that the fucking Muslims are here.

And the fixer, like a fucking Fox news grandpa is like, we're not allowed to surveil them cause dad be profiling. Just fucking let us be racist. Jesus, all this fucking red tape. Yeah. So they send in Catwoman and the plan is to send her in and hide her face. He's like, they deliberately mentioned hiding her face.

So she can say, shouldn't be hard for a woman to hide her face, not in this crowd. So I feel like Frank Miller knew seven things about Muslims. One, the fixer used all of them, got six of them wrong, but like- But this one.

Are we really going to skip over the line where he says, we don't have, we can't have choppers on them that's profiling. So we watch them with satellites from space. And she's, and they have lasers and she says, you're telling me you're going to blast a mosque with a laser from outer space. It's good writing.

Wrote that, wrote that down. But then the fixer's response is actually pretty great. It might be the only good line on the entire thing is, I don't know, I'm exploring options. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's that good bugs bunny shit. Like again, it would still be a crime, but you're more fun crime than this one.

Yeah. So in the mosque, there's like a secret, like Indiana Jones temple, like going to the center of the earth. Built by a race of mad men. Oh my God. Race of mad men. I really was hoping he meant like space aliens there,

but he might literally be talking about Muslims. I don't know what he's trying to do there. He says, the old city built by long forgotten ancients. Archeologists have only been able to shake their heads, bewildered by its ornaments, its architecture. So this is a, it's like a Jack Kirby style secret city, under the empire city. Like, I don't know.

When it never comes up again, they never even talk about it again. He just says this city was built by mad men. Anyway, that's where they have the bomb. They're using it as like a garage. Right. The garage from fucking Lovecraft. It's the ancient cosmic horror garage is what it is.

Maybe like the one note that Frank got on this is like, Frank, that's not really what the inside of a mosque looks like. He's like, it's an ancient city built by fucking mad men. Probably right. Like why is the mosque 17 stories below the center of the earth? He's like, they're not all like that. They don't live like mole people. And why do they have more giant rock monster statues?

I don't think they worship a rock monster. They don't. Oh, shit, I have a, I got it. Can I do some revisions before we go live? There's a great story on one of the walls. Yes. And again, maybe this was the Batcave and he did some serious rewrites to it.

I bet it is. I bet that's what this was supposed to be. Like this is Wayne Manor or something like that. Right. Yeah. So God, anyway, the quote I wanted to read was, they look at murder like they're giving a mitzvah. They get the rocks off giving their own death

a big wet French kiss, but they're still scared of girls. And then she kills a guy and says, give my regards to the 72 black eyed virgins, you son of a bitch. So this is one of the things Frank Miller knows about the Muslims is they get the ladies when they die. Well, the rest of that quote before between those two things is when she lifts up her burqa

to show them her thigh, she says, I give the boys a nanosecond of fishnet shock as if that stuns any Muslim into an action. Oh my God. And then that's what lets her get away is they. Yeah. It's like showing us close to a vampire. Yeah.

Yes, yes. They're not scared of the allure of women. I'm sorry, they're scared of the allure of women, not like the empowerment of women. Right. Is what she's saying there. Yeah. This reminds me of 40s and 50s comics,

very specifically because I did an article where I documented every single Justice League member doing and saying racist shit, right? Because that's just like the normal thing they did. And Wonder Woman's racism was exactly like this. She'd call people slurs, of course, but she'd also specifically mock their culture. Like she'd grab a Japanese soldier and she'd be like,

oh, you like to bow? Oh, go ahead and bow. And then she would like take their head and bash it into something. So Frank Miller is doing that, like a beat for beat 60 year old comic book racism he's doing with like... That's his mission statement, he got there.

That's true, yes. It took him 110 pages, but he got there. Like that, I guess that's what I found less forgivable is that like, sure we had like bad words for the people we were at war with and we hated them and that's hard to look back on. But it was something about like taking something about their culture and like deliberately

mocking them over it. And that just felt like, why'd you have to do that, Wonder Woman? Like anyway, so she gets captured. Like her fighting does not go well. And then here comes a super boss, like mega crime guy who like runs not the Muslims, but like the world and the Muslims are just like useful idiots

for his secret plan to something. It's so wild. I mean, at this point, they might as well just be Hydra. Like it's so cartoonishly like James Bond villain. Yep, it really takes all the teeth out of whatever he was trying to do, which was never clear and he wasn't doing it. But it all said, but this just really filed the edges

off of whatever that was, whatever he was trying to build out there is now just like a limp pile on the garage floor. He's like, oh, well, I guess it was probably the secret society. This is also like, again, for something that had been tinkered by like an A-list writer like this, it's so fucking bad because it's like,

I will not mock you or hurt you. You know what, I'm gonna mock you and hurt you. It's just, he's just waffling back and forth this mastermind and he's like, I'm gonna strip you nude for the beheading video. Oh, it's also, it's worth mentioning that what they diffused Catwoman by tying her up with a specific kind of knot that many people

into the bondage scene will recognize that puts your tits out, that ornamental tit, the ornamental tit knot is the one he uses. And that's how she spends the rest of the entire climax of this comic book. The one female character is bound in an actual bondage knots on the floor. There's one more female character.

Two, if you count how she's there twice. No, I don't. They don't have lines or do anything. But I cannot emphasize enough that, according to Frank Miller, Muslims are the ones who treat women terribly. And, you know. Right.

They tied her in these goddamn erotic knots that I love so much. Yeah. Sons of bitches. It does look like one of the few panels that he actually labored over. There's a lot of a suspicious amount of detail. There's knots and ropes, buddy.

Yep. And a weird amount of color on just the feet and nothing else. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like on top of everything else, this is just an unselfaware horniness. I think maybe he forgot to jerk off for 10 years.

I think he was so mad about 9-11 and that he... Drunk, he couldn't jerk off. Couldn't jerk off for 10 years. And that explains half of this comic. Yeah, yeah. Great. So Fixer murders his way into Saver. He blows everybody up.

He buy weapons the entire place. And there's a fucking insane choice where it just zooms in on Catwoman's face while she slowly observes a man like vomiting blood to death, just describing every detail of watching him melt. And that's six panels of that. And then like we're done. Four full paragraphs.

I counted. Just doing nothing except for this fucking terrorist. He gouges out his own eyes. He digs into his brain and Catwoman's just like, wow. Oh, man. This is really something. Yeah. I've, phew, I do a lot of crime.

I've never seen anything quite like this. It's still going, huh? Yeah. Somebody must be really mad at this guy. Whatever God created this terrible world I live in must fucking hate that guy. Then six weeks later, like what are we still doing here? Why is it six weeks later?

And I want to read this quote. It says six weeks. And what does Captain Dan Donagall? You remember he is a hard man, a tough cop. What does he have to show for it? A noisy, busy, cranky city turned all quiet and scary polite, a cough that comes out of nowhere, no telling when, making the most body proud health nut

sound like a chain smoker, a bed gone lonely, children's toys turning up in strange places, and the same sounds, the same smells, every damn night. No wonder they call it terror. The end. What were you trying to say with that? What? And for a comic that has no problem

like just cutting to other shit for little memorials, it is just this drunk ass like cop sitting in his bed all fucking sad and tired. And like, no, there's not like shots of families like missing their children who got exploded by the razor blade bomb. It's just him. It's just his perspective on those families

finding their dead kids toys. That's how I took that line. But again, I have no idea. The most emphasis and the ending line is the same smells every damn night. No wonder they call it terror. That's what real terror is. No smell variety.

Yeah, smell monotony. Like, what, I think you were going for something like maybe it smells like explosion. Muscle, I guess. I don't know what you're saying. It is also like maybe the most honest page in the entire thing where I mean, this entire book is obviously it's a 10 year post traumatic stress freakout.

And it's understandably, Frank Miller was at, basically he was close enough to the site of the attacks that he was caught up in the dust and the debris when the buildings came down. So like he was clearly traumatized and then went 10 years without dealing with it in any productive way. And I mean, this is like, I feel like this is the one page

where he's trying to lay out, this is why I had to make this. I am messed up and I'm hurting. And this happened, I keep seeing and smelling and hearing the same things over and over and over and I can't get out of it. And this could have been the start of something. If this was the first page in the book

and then he had kind of explored that, that would have been a way better and healthier way to deal with all of this. But that's not the route he chose. It does seem like this would be great therapeutic craft time and something you would turn into like your group therapist at the end of the stay. You would turn this in and they would read it and say,

okay, well, now we have a place to start. Exactly. At the end, it's respectfully dedicated to Theo Van Gogh who was the great grandson of Vincent's brother. He made a short film about how Muslims treat women badly and was then murdered by a maniac. So I mean, that's a very sad story, but it's also like a good example of Frank Miller

finding an isolated incident of like terrible act of terror and like shining a light on it as if like, hey, now this is the world. Art was so important to their family and you did this in his memory. I hope somebody else did something in his memory because if it's just this, they're gonna fucking, they're gonna haunt you.

The Van Goghs are gonna haunt you into the grave for this. You son of a bitch. You goddamn son of a bitch. You rotten son of a bitch. Let's see, last week, I recorded a podcast about the death of Gwen Stacy. This week, I recorded a podcast about this thing. Like I'm like this close to just giving up comics forever.

Listen to the moral by the month. Yeah, it's a good show. We work hard at it and we've been doing it for like four years now. Don't start at the beginning. Those episodes are not very good. Jump in anywhere you see a name that you recognize that you, and just go backwards and forwards.

It's like jumping into Marvel comics. Unless you're an insane person like us, you're never gonna read every single Marvel comics. So just pick a place to start. There's three amazing Sean Baby episodes on there. So I would recommend one of those. Three of them. Yeah.

Plus it sounds like you have to listen to the Harlan Ellison one to like catch all the references later. Yeah. And if you're, if you're just starting listening to us, to the dog zone, don't start with this one. Yeah. You made a mistake.

You made a terrible mistake. Like Frank Miller on every page of this. 1-9-100, Frankfurt. 1-9-100, Frankfurt. Into podcast clouds. Und mit Maximale im Schau. Dog Frankfurt podcast. Correct.

Yeah. Trapped is nicht trapped ist nicht ohne. Shit die in die Hunde zau. Die oder eine Stunde. Komm schon, du kippst die Nummer. 1-9-100. 1-9-100, Frankfurt. 1-9-100, New York.

1-9-100, Frankfurt. 1-9-100. 1-9-100, Frankfurt. 1-9-100, New York. Yeah. 9000. There's nothing so tragic as when the young die before the old. Here at Hot Dog Space Camp, we know that all too well.

A moment of silence, please, for the late Hot Dog Space Class of 2023. Three finger Louis. Aaron Crossden. Adrien H. just wanted to see the stars. Fuck. We told her that's not how it works, but she was a dreamer. Maiden Mouette.

Alpha scientist Javo. UnAndy. Armando Nava worked hard, hearted harder, and they say, died the hardest. Badger. Benjamin Sironen. Bim Talzer. Brandon Garloff.

Brian Saylor was the first to suggest they steal a real rocket, but we're trying not to place blame here. Brienne Whitney. Rockway loves the meat hilly. Still does. Berry Tumac. Cerell was the one who actually stole the rocket,

and it's his fault. Chad. Chance McDermott. Prisprow. Curious Gilaire just wanted to smell space. Devon the rogue supreme. Dean Costello. Donald Finney will never forget your tragic last words.

Ghost rod, the whip! Eric Spalding. Fancy shot. Jellaho deserved better than to be torn apart by space apes, but he did bring those apes up there. Greg Cunningham. Ham Bone. Haraka.

Harvey Penguini's parents are suing the school. We understand they're hurt, but exploded by asteroid is a pretty classic act of God. Hot fart. Jabral Aden died how he lived on the moon. Jeff Horaski. We've lost every one of our precious Johns. John Dean's family asked us to say,

may he rest in the peace he hated in life. John Hector McFarlane's family asked us to say, may he rest in war. John McCammon's family asked us to say, may the bastard find no rest. John Minkoff's family chased us off their property with a thresher. Johnny, no fun, was ironically too much fun.

It turns out space is not the ultimate bomb cooler. Joseph Searls will never forget your tragic last words, which were just your own name yelled from a saddle tied to a booster rocket. Now, it may not hurt as badly as losing the Johns, but we lost all of our Joshes too. Josh Fabian, we hope you finally found Alf. Joshua Alf Graves, if only the two of you had met in life.

Josh S, we hardly knew ye. Nobody could even find a picture. Leading theories say you were an urban legend. Ken Paisley, K&M, M. Jahi Chapelle, Mack Miserable. Matt Riley, when you enrolled, you told us you wanted to die naked on a comet. We laughed at the time. Max Baroi, Michael Lair, Michael Wells.

Now, the school is suing Mickey Lohman's family. For defamation, we are not a school full of buttholes who teach kids that rockets point down. Mike Stiles, Mojoo, N.D., Neil Bailey. Neil Schaefer will miss your laughter most of all. It went like this. War, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war. Like a horny walrus choking on a smaller walrus

wilds, crazy stuff. Neko 104, Nick Ralston, Ozzy Olin. Patrick Herbst, you asked in every class what would happen if you stuck it in the lunar rover. What was the answer, Patrick? Rachel, Rainbarkus, Rhiannon, Sarkovsky. Sean Chase is the one who started the deadly rumor that huffing space got you high.

Spotty reception. Supernaught had a theory that, in zero gravity, a fart could propel you forever. Still going as far as we know. Ted H. Thomas Kovatsos. Timmy Lehi overdosed on freeze-dried ice cream. You can only eat four of those in a lifetime, you know. Toasty God, Tom Sikula, Tommy G.,

Wayland Russell, Yassarian. Yannis Ionitis, you were our best, our brightest. The live feed showed you weren't that way, too. Dr. Awkward, all of your instructors said it was impossible to do a kickflip in space. They said you'd never land it without gravity. I guess? I guess?

I guess the joke's on them because you're kickflipping forever now.