Beyond The Panels #15: Grant Morrison, Shaman Of The Superheroes
Grant Morrison is one of the best selling, most acclaimed, and prolific mainstream comics writers of all time. These are all facts. He has worked on Batman, All-Star Superman, New X-Men, JLA, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Batman and Robin, Batman Inc., and others, including creator owned work (The Invisibles, The Filth, We3, among others) and company wide event books (Final Crisis and DC One Million). He helped revolutionize the industry, bringing a new sensibility to comics- one that was hallucinogenic and widescreen. He was the industry's rock star in the 90s and is now the elder statesman.
He's my favorite comic writer ever.
When you talk about Grant Morrison, the majority of responses you're going to get are either, "Oh my God, I fucking love him, he's the best," or "Yeah, I hate that guy." His work is extremely polarizing- it does a lot of the things superhero comics have always done, but is often complicated and "weird". His most straight forward work, like JLA or All-Star Superman, is crowd pleasing superhero goodness (JLA, as I've discussed previously, is one of the greatest team books of all time and All-Star Superman is probably the greatest Superman comic of all time, capturing every era of the character and making it all modern and full of heart), while his more difficult work, like Animal Man or Doom Patrol or his creator owned stuff like The Invisibles or The Filth, deal with the nature of reality, the tragedies of living, control and freedom, and all kinds of other heady notions.
You can tell a Grant Morrison comic immediately upon reading it- even his straight forward work has a madcap sensibility, an idea somewhere in it that's a little out there. His characters are perfectly characterized. He takes fictional universe and makes a coherent set of rules out of their years of chaos. He takes continuity that no one remembers or that has been left behind and called old fashioned and breaths new life into it. There's a magic to his writing, a palpable magic you can feel. The only other writer I can think of who has similar abilities is Neil Gaiman, but it works in a completely different way- Neil's magic feels old fashioned, full of animal sacrifice and old power, yet familiar and soft. Grant's magic feels new, full of sigils and New Age significance, yet sharp edged and newly formed. You can very easily in both, yet with Neil's magic there's a sense of implicit order to the proceeding that renders it familiar. With Grant's magic, it feels new and chaotic, as if a million blobs of potentiality have come together, many of them non complimentary, to create something new.
My own experience with Morrison began with JLA in the mid to late 90s and stayed there for a while. I liked what he was doing, but I wasn't a huge DC person at the time, so I didn't really search out his other stuff and, honestly, at the time it probably wouldn't have interested too much- I wasn't ready for the mind fucking my world view would take from Morrison's earlier DC work. I hadn't even read The Sandman yet, was still in my comfortable world of superheroes (beyond Preacher, which was still a superhero book in a lot of ways), although looking back I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed The Invisibles immensely. Still, it wasn't until Morrison went to Marvel and landed a little book called New X-Men that I would really begin to pay attention.
If you didn't get it from my last post, the X-Men are one of my favorite comic properties of them all and my first comics love- without the X-Men, I doubt I'd be all that into comics right now. Morrison on the X-Men was a revelation- it's definitely one of his more straight forward works, but it also blends into a lot of what he'd been trying to do with some of his creator owned work- it was all about evolution and change and a dawn of a new culture and a new humanity.While at Marvel, he also did Marvel Boy, which... look it's about an alternate universe Kree supersoldier explorer whose ship is dragged to our universe to be gutted for tech and he is put in the collection of a multiversal raider named Dr Midus. If that description doesn't make you want to read it, maybe you're reading the wrong blog?
Those two books got me into Morrison again in a big way and at MegaCon in 2004 (possibly 2003), I bought volumes one, two, and four of The Invisibles. I was fucking hooked. I had my local comic store order me the third volume and all the subsequent ones, but that book hit me right in my sweet spot. I've talked about it before here, but it bears more talking about- The Invisibles is a book for anyone who liked the X-Files. It's a book for anyone who has ever had any kind of spiritual belief about anything. It's a book for anyone who thought the whole system was horrible and made by the few to enslave the many. It's a book for people who like drugs and people who don't like drugs.It feels like the 90s in the best possible way. It's violent and profane and horrible- there are parts that will make your skin crawl. It's also wonderful and beautiful and life affirming- there are things in there that will make you cry. It's everything you could want in a comic and it'll teach you things.
From there, I devoured all the Morrison I could. I got the trades for Animal Man and Doom Patrol. I picked up his Vertigo work when he came back to DC- We3, Vimanarama, and Sea Guy. I picked up his Seven Soldiers of Victory minis. His Batman stuff. And, of course, All-Star Superman.
All-Star Superman is the one comic I would want everyone in the world to read. All-Star Superman is the comic that if you don't like Superman, it will make you like Superman. If you don't get Superman, it will help you get Superman. It's also one of the most powerful and moving comics of them all. Lex Luthor sabotages the first manned mission to sun and Superman goes and saves them.... which was all part of Lex's plan. Superman overdoses on solar radiation, becoming more powerful and intelligent, yet being so full of energy that it's killing him. All of that happens in the first half of the first issue. From there, it gets crazier and better, with Superman revealing his identity to Lois, time traveling suitors for Lois's hand, a day in the life of Jimmy Olsen, an attack by Bizzaro World, a trip to the past, a visit from two Kryptonian astronauts and so much more. However, all of that is just preamble to the most important moment in the Superman mythos, which came in #10. Here it is-
Those four panels right there are what Superman is all about. He doesn't save the world because it's his responsibility. He doesn't do it because he has to. He does it for us. He believes in us. In that issue, he's going around, taking care of a thousand problems, but he still has time to stop and save one girl from making the last mistake she'll ever make. It's beautiful and powerful and it gets me teary eyed every time.
For me, it's those moments, the way they feel, that makes Morrison's work so powerful. His work exudes hope. It doesn't skimp on the pain and horror, because that would be a lie- our world is full of pain and horror. However, there's always hope, around the corner, in the next panel, ten pages away, or in the next issue. The monsters don't get to win and the villains in the shadows get shown that they have as much to fear of us as we do of them. Morrison's view of superheroes is utopian- that they're modern day gods, our Pantheon, and they represent the best of us and that resonates with me. It's the truth. Superman is our Hercules. Wolverine our Odysseus. Batman our Achilles. Robotman our Hector.
Morrison's work shows me that, "It's just us, in here together, and we're all we have." (Lex Luthor, All-Star Superman #12). Sure, I believe in a God, but he's out there. We're in here and the whole point of the thing is that we're the ones who make it what it is. We can be the heroes. We can all be Superman. Sure, we can't fly or lift planets, but we can be there for others. We can fight injustice and stand up for what's right. We can all be super. It's in all of us, because we put it on the pages. We just have to be it. You can find in a million different things in his work that resonate with you and speak to you, but in the end, that's the most important one- any of us can be a hero if we just choose to be. It's all up to us.
If you had to ask me to recommend some Morrison stuff, I'd say all of it. I've pretty much included all the Morrison stuff you should read in this post, but I forgot a few- Flex Mentallo, Arkham Asylum A Serious House On Serious Earth The Multiversity, and Kill Your Boyfriend (good luck finding that one- it's a mid 90s Vertigo one shot and the only reason I found it is because I worked at a comic store and I was going through a dollar box and there it was). His book Supergods is also worth picking up- he takes you through the history of the comic industry, giving you his view of the whole thing and also telling the story of his career and who he is. It's fan-fucking-tastic. I haven't read every Morrison comic yet (I've not gotten to the second volume of Sea Guy or Joe The Barbarian and I've never read Kid Eternity or Zenith), but that's good. It means there's still more for me to discover, just like there is for you. However, a warning- the farther down the Morrison rabbit hole you go, the weirder is going to get. Prepare your mind for it, because it's going to challenge and change you. Be ready for four dimensional thinking and recursive logic loops. Be ready for hallucinogenic chaos.
Be ready for some of the greatest stories ever told.
Next Issue: From my favorite writer to one of my least favorite, next issue is all about Brian Micheal Bendis. Why don't I like him? Well, the only way to find out is to come back next time here at....
Beyond The Panels!!!!!!!!!
He's my favorite comic writer ever.
When you talk about Grant Morrison, the majority of responses you're going to get are either, "Oh my God, I fucking love him, he's the best," or "Yeah, I hate that guy." His work is extremely polarizing- it does a lot of the things superhero comics have always done, but is often complicated and "weird". His most straight forward work, like JLA or All-Star Superman, is crowd pleasing superhero goodness (JLA, as I've discussed previously, is one of the greatest team books of all time and All-Star Superman is probably the greatest Superman comic of all time, capturing every era of the character and making it all modern and full of heart), while his more difficult work, like Animal Man or Doom Patrol or his creator owned stuff like The Invisibles or The Filth, deal with the nature of reality, the tragedies of living, control and freedom, and all kinds of other heady notions.
You can tell a Grant Morrison comic immediately upon reading it- even his straight forward work has a madcap sensibility, an idea somewhere in it that's a little out there. His characters are perfectly characterized. He takes fictional universe and makes a coherent set of rules out of their years of chaos. He takes continuity that no one remembers or that has been left behind and called old fashioned and breaths new life into it. There's a magic to his writing, a palpable magic you can feel. The only other writer I can think of who has similar abilities is Neil Gaiman, but it works in a completely different way- Neil's magic feels old fashioned, full of animal sacrifice and old power, yet familiar and soft. Grant's magic feels new, full of sigils and New Age significance, yet sharp edged and newly formed. You can very easily in both, yet with Neil's magic there's a sense of implicit order to the proceeding that renders it familiar. With Grant's magic, it feels new and chaotic, as if a million blobs of potentiality have come together, many of them non complimentary, to create something new.
My own experience with Morrison began with JLA in the mid to late 90s and stayed there for a while. I liked what he was doing, but I wasn't a huge DC person at the time, so I didn't really search out his other stuff and, honestly, at the time it probably wouldn't have interested too much- I wasn't ready for the mind fucking my world view would take from Morrison's earlier DC work. I hadn't even read The Sandman yet, was still in my comfortable world of superheroes (beyond Preacher, which was still a superhero book in a lot of ways), although looking back I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed The Invisibles immensely. Still, it wasn't until Morrison went to Marvel and landed a little book called New X-Men that I would really begin to pay attention.
If you didn't get it from my last post, the X-Men are one of my favorite comic properties of them all and my first comics love- without the X-Men, I doubt I'd be all that into comics right now. Morrison on the X-Men was a revelation- it's definitely one of his more straight forward works, but it also blends into a lot of what he'd been trying to do with some of his creator owned work- it was all about evolution and change and a dawn of a new culture and a new humanity.While at Marvel, he also did Marvel Boy, which... look it's about an alternate universe Kree supersoldier explorer whose ship is dragged to our universe to be gutted for tech and he is put in the collection of a multiversal raider named Dr Midus. If that description doesn't make you want to read it, maybe you're reading the wrong blog?
Those two books got me into Morrison again in a big way and at MegaCon in 2004 (possibly 2003), I bought volumes one, two, and four of The Invisibles. I was fucking hooked. I had my local comic store order me the third volume and all the subsequent ones, but that book hit me right in my sweet spot. I've talked about it before here, but it bears more talking about- The Invisibles is a book for anyone who liked the X-Files. It's a book for anyone who has ever had any kind of spiritual belief about anything. It's a book for anyone who thought the whole system was horrible and made by the few to enslave the many. It's a book for people who like drugs and people who don't like drugs.It feels like the 90s in the best possible way. It's violent and profane and horrible- there are parts that will make your skin crawl. It's also wonderful and beautiful and life affirming- there are things in there that will make you cry. It's everything you could want in a comic and it'll teach you things.
From there, I devoured all the Morrison I could. I got the trades for Animal Man and Doom Patrol. I picked up his Vertigo work when he came back to DC- We3, Vimanarama, and Sea Guy. I picked up his Seven Soldiers of Victory minis. His Batman stuff. And, of course, All-Star Superman.
All-Star Superman is the one comic I would want everyone in the world to read. All-Star Superman is the comic that if you don't like Superman, it will make you like Superman. If you don't get Superman, it will help you get Superman. It's also one of the most powerful and moving comics of them all. Lex Luthor sabotages the first manned mission to sun and Superman goes and saves them.... which was all part of Lex's plan. Superman overdoses on solar radiation, becoming more powerful and intelligent, yet being so full of energy that it's killing him. All of that happens in the first half of the first issue. From there, it gets crazier and better, with Superman revealing his identity to Lois, time traveling suitors for Lois's hand, a day in the life of Jimmy Olsen, an attack by Bizzaro World, a trip to the past, a visit from two Kryptonian astronauts and so much more. However, all of that is just preamble to the most important moment in the Superman mythos, which came in #10. Here it is-
Those four panels right there are what Superman is all about. He doesn't save the world because it's his responsibility. He doesn't do it because he has to. He does it for us. He believes in us. In that issue, he's going around, taking care of a thousand problems, but he still has time to stop and save one girl from making the last mistake she'll ever make. It's beautiful and powerful and it gets me teary eyed every time.
For me, it's those moments, the way they feel, that makes Morrison's work so powerful. His work exudes hope. It doesn't skimp on the pain and horror, because that would be a lie- our world is full of pain and horror. However, there's always hope, around the corner, in the next panel, ten pages away, or in the next issue. The monsters don't get to win and the villains in the shadows get shown that they have as much to fear of us as we do of them. Morrison's view of superheroes is utopian- that they're modern day gods, our Pantheon, and they represent the best of us and that resonates with me. It's the truth. Superman is our Hercules. Wolverine our Odysseus. Batman our Achilles. Robotman our Hector.
Morrison's work shows me that, "It's just us, in here together, and we're all we have." (Lex Luthor, All-Star Superman #12). Sure, I believe in a God, but he's out there. We're in here and the whole point of the thing is that we're the ones who make it what it is. We can be the heroes. We can all be Superman. Sure, we can't fly or lift planets, but we can be there for others. We can fight injustice and stand up for what's right. We can all be super. It's in all of us, because we put it on the pages. We just have to be it. You can find in a million different things in his work that resonate with you and speak to you, but in the end, that's the most important one- any of us can be a hero if we just choose to be. It's all up to us.
If you had to ask me to recommend some Morrison stuff, I'd say all of it. I've pretty much included all the Morrison stuff you should read in this post, but I forgot a few- Flex Mentallo, Arkham Asylum A Serious House On Serious Earth The Multiversity, and Kill Your Boyfriend (good luck finding that one- it's a mid 90s Vertigo one shot and the only reason I found it is because I worked at a comic store and I was going through a dollar box and there it was). His book Supergods is also worth picking up- he takes you through the history of the comic industry, giving you his view of the whole thing and also telling the story of his career and who he is. It's fan-fucking-tastic. I haven't read every Morrison comic yet (I've not gotten to the second volume of Sea Guy or Joe The Barbarian and I've never read Kid Eternity or Zenith), but that's good. It means there's still more for me to discover, just like there is for you. However, a warning- the farther down the Morrison rabbit hole you go, the weirder is going to get. Prepare your mind for it, because it's going to challenge and change you. Be ready for four dimensional thinking and recursive logic loops. Be ready for hallucinogenic chaos.
Be ready for some of the greatest stories ever told.
Next Issue: From my favorite writer to one of my least favorite, next issue is all about Brian Micheal Bendis. Why don't I like him? Well, the only way to find out is to come back next time here at....
Beyond The Panels!!!!!!!!!
Comments
Post a Comment