Spain's latest answer to a rock star isn't one for smashing guitars or snorting illegal drugs

- and he'd just as soon chase down his fans as be chased by them.

"Mouse," a 1,213 lb. black-and-white bull who resides in Sueca, Spain, is now the nation's most feared and famous beast, thanks to his reputation as a human skewer on hooves.

The bull got his unlikely moniker because he intially seemed to be anything but a fighter - as a young calf, he was tortured by several local youths and even gored by another bull.

But now, the beast's reputation has done a complete 180. The fighting bull most recently took the life of a 29-year-old victim in Xativa on Aug. 14, and prior to that, a 56-year-old man back in 2006. In addition, he's seriously injured five other people over the years.

So it's any wonder that the bull still receives a rock star's welcome every time he trots around the farm town of Sueca. The crowd stands at attention and cheers for him when he charges into the bull ring and "the eerie strains of the soundtrack to 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'" blare from the loudspeakers, according to the Associated Press.

The reason for all the hoopla?

A strange fascination with the risks involved with bull-run culture.

"We go to entertain people so they'll have fun, but unfortunately they are fighting bulls, and there is always a percentage of risk," said Gregorio de Jesus, Mouse's owner.

De Jesus, 42, says he is forced to field as many as 60 calls a day from reporters about his beloved Mouse.

The raging bull may be nearing his retirement, which is even more reason for fans to gather by his holding pen or see him in action in the arena.

Critics will be glad to see the rock-star rabble-rouser go, however.

"Mouse is the proof that the bull runs are barbaric and medieval," Leonardo Anselmi of PROU, an animal rights group, said.

"It's excessive and cruel violence. The culprits are the politicians who allow the bull runs