Terrorist Claims BATMAN Inspired Him To Act. Frank Miller Broods

Frank Miller is going to be pissed. A convicted terrorist referenced Batman in his explanations, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out it’s probably Dickhead Batman that Miller created many moons ago.

Comics Alliance:

American citizen, Massachusetts resident, and now  convicted terrorist Tarek Mehanna  was sentenced to  17 and a half years  in prison yesterday by U.S. District Court Judge George A. O’Toole. In Mehanna’s  statement to the court during his sentencing, he made several bold declarations about his beliefs, including that he first began to establish the personal values that would later inspire him to support al-Qaeda from  reading comics  and connecting with characters like  Batman.

Mehanna was convicted of seven counts in all, three of which related to providing false statements to FBI agents, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country (specifically against U.S. forces in Iraq), and finally, conspiracy to provide material to support al-Qaeda.

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Still a relatively young man at the age of 29, Mehanna likely read several of the same comics many of us did during the 1990s, and although he mentions several political figures, books, and activists that he believes would approve of his actions, it’s worth noting that he specifically mentions comic books as being the birth of his inspiration to conspire against American forces:

“When I was six, I began putting together a massive collection of comic books.  Batman implanted a concept in my mind, introduced me to a paradigm as to how the world is set up: that there are oppressors, there are the oppressed, and there are those who step up to defend the oppressed.”

While Mehanna didn’t specifically mention which  Batman  comic inspired him the most, there would be a  certain perverse irony  if it happened to be Frank Miller’s  Dark Knight Returns,  considering the creator’s  controversial anti-Islam views. Tongue-in-cheek comments aside, Mehanna’s case is worthy of consideration on the grounds of artistic inspiration and also free speech.

Frank Miller is punching a stuffed pillow of an Occupy Wall Street protester.