Driving him batty: T-shirts taunt ‘killer’

Crazy-eyed accused “Dark Knight” killer James Holmes yesterday was hit with 142 criminal counts that could lead to his execution — as several victims and relatives taunted him by wearing Batman shirts to court.

The shackled Holmes, his fading faux-red hair combed forward, glanced briefly around the packed Colorado courtroom looking chillingly indifferent as he was formally charged.

In his first public words since the slaughter at a midnight movie premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises,” Holmes, 24, mumbled a barely audible “Yeah” when Judge William Sylvester asked if he agreed with his lawyers’ request to delay his next preliminary hearing in Arapahoe County Court.

Otherwise, the former University of Colorado Denver neuroscience doctoral candidate simply rocked back in his chair, stared into space, clenched his jaw and contorted his face as he occasionally conferred with his lawyers.

He was slapped with 24 counts of murder — two for each person he allegedly killed — and 116 counts of attempted murder, again, double the number of those hurt in the theater slaughter. Holmes was also charged with one count of explosives possession and a one-count “sentence enhancer” of committing a crime of violence.

Prosecutors still have about two months to decide whether to go for the death penalty. The least Holmes would get is life without parole if convicted.

Relatives of victims glared at the suspect throughout the hour-long proceeding.

One victim, her hand bandaged, joined friends of slain Andrew “Sully” Sullivan in wearing Batman T-shirts. Another victim, legs wrapped, came in a wheelchair.

Ian Sullivan, no relation to Sully and the father of dead Veronica Moser Sullivan, 6, leaned forward in his court seat, barely able to contain his rage as he stared at Holmes. He said Holmes should be tried as a terrorist.

“[Holmes] had a persona of evilness to him,” said Mary Ellen Hanson, the aunt of Veronica’s mom, Ashley Moser, who was paralyzed in the shooting.

Doctors hope Moser will regain the use of her hands.

“I have a lot of anger . . . It was really important for me to come see him,” Hanson said. “I wanted to get a sense of him. I do not believe he’s insane. He seemed really alert and aware of his surroundings.” She said funeral plans for Veronica are on hold until Moser gets out of the hospital.

The two sets of murder charges against Holmes, who told cops he was the “Joker’’ after the slaughter, include one for murder after deliberation and one for murder with extreme indifference.

If a jury acquitted him under one type of murder charge, they might still convict him under the second, legal experts said.

The same holds for the two sets of attempted-murder charges.