Marval Movie

This is the quote that starts off Supergods (as well as a tribute to his wife) that Grant Morrison chooses to start off his book about the superheroes, from the comics to the screen to our very culture that seems to revolve around the bizarre creatures.  

Grant Morrison has been a successful comic book writer for over thirty years and now he has released a book  about his own thoughts, feeling and analysis on the superheroes.  Morrison is one of the most successful, as well as being one of the most controversial comic book writers in the industry so I cannot think of anyone better to give us a big say on the superheroes.  

I first came to know Morrison's work in Batman: Arkham Asylum one of the most surreal thought provoking graphic novels that I've read, its a great place to start in comics or just to prove to people that comics can be more than goofy, immature pieces for children, but sophisticated,  symbolic mature stories that can be more than intelligent.  Ever since I read that I've been reading whatever Grant Morrison that I can find, there are still pieces that I have not read but I've read most of his big works i.e. Flex Meantallo, All-Star Superman, New X-Men etc and am definitively a big Morrison fan.  Morrison offers not only great writing but a personality, he is great to see in interviews and listen too, I imagine that he would be great to have lunch with or have a drink with.  

The first handful of chapters of the book are an analysis, as well as his own personal view of the golden and silver age of comic books.  Morrison starts the book by deconstructing the cover of Action Comics number 1, the very fist appearance of Superman and the first superhero.  I always saw the cover as as a demonstration of Superman's strength (lifting a car with his bare hands) but Morrison gives us a deep look at the politics of that time and how it was really a defiance of the machine age that was taking over at that time.  

Morrison then goes on through the comic book timeline of how DC was the only giant in comic books and how they came out with Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash and so on.  Then he brings up the infamous crisis that was brought on by the "psychiatrist" Frederic Wertham, who released Seduction of Innocence, a book that claimed that all the problems of modern youth could be directly correlated to comic books and thus the industry took a huge hit and the only way to save them was to bring in the comics approval code which lead to the silver age.  Me and Morrison seem to have the same opinion of "Dr." Wertham and that is he was an old bastard that wanted to make a name for himself and saw a sasaran in comics. 

The silver age of comics is probably Morrison's favorite era of comics.  It was the easy going days, were the characters could have crazed adventure and imagination could sour to full throttle and have no regard for "reality" they were pieces of fantasy and his enthusiasm leaps off the words of the page and hits the reader in the face with it.  Whenever Morrison takes over a book he likes to take the characters back to their old original formula of the silver age, this is one of the reasons hes one of my favorite writers, he takes these characters that are more than sixty years old and can inject whole new life and dynamic into them. 

Later he brings up, of course, Marvel comics that came out with such hits like Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the X-Men and how they brought their superheroes a little more grounded and flawed than the DC heroes that were a little more true blue so to speak.  I love the way he explains it by saying that the DC characters are the archetypes of the Gods and the Marvel character are the Titans. This section also contains a great cover analysis with the first issue of Fantastic Four, I had always seen it as the four beating back a monster, it is what they do best.  But Morrison says that its an example of the new kala of superheroes beating back the fifties monster that were popular and whose time has now come an end. 

Next is what Morrison refers to as the "Dark Age".  This has classically been called the Bronze age but this suits it better, Bronze implies that its the weaker of them and the eras would only get worse, but dark suits the kind of work that came out during that time better.  This was the age of Dennis O'Neil, Frank Miller and Alan Moore, when comics were dark and the art style was more photo realistic and the stories were more politically focused.  I don't think this is Morrison's favorite era, it was the time that brought superheroes grounded and dark, they were written more like TV shows or movies rather than embracing the crazy feats of wonder that were accomplished in the silver age.    

One of the problems through the book is Morrison's clear, non too subtle biff with Alan Moore.  Its sticks out to me how much he clearly dislikes him and how he highlights all the flaws with his writing and his ego but it just highlights his own ego, its not Morrison at his best. But even with his obvious bitterness he delivers one of the best analyses of Watchmen that I could have imagined.      

When he starts on this kala it becomes more than a document piece and part memoir and part biography where Morrison recounts his own life and his career and of course his own contribution to comics.  These sections do contain a bit of ego but they are justified.  He did write the graphic novel that inspired the best selling comics book video game of all time and he did bring The Justice League back to one of the best selling books.  Morrison has been writing comics for a long time and is one of if not the best at it and I think that hes entitled to look back with a grin on his great body of work. 

The book is a genuine joy to read because Grant Morrison doesn't write as if hes giving a lecture in a University, he writes like hes talking to someone about a subject that he really loves and has known about all his life, and he channels that enthusiasm and love into the writing and the reader can feel for him and the wonderful art-form that is comic books. 

During his sequence of memoirs he takes us through his nightmare time as a student in an all boys boarding school, to Animal Man to Doom Patrol to The Invisibles and his alien abduction and we get a peak inside of the man with one of the most unique imaginations on the planet from his days as a shy straight edge kid growing up in Glasgow to the rave dancing LSD taking comic book rock star that he would become.  

I don't read many books over two hundred pages so this was quite a commitment with its length being four hundred and twenty pages long but I was willing to make the commitment, for it was a book about comics and written by Morrison.  But will the average reader give this book the same chance that I did? maybe another fellow Morrison enthusiast or merely just a comic enthusiast would give it a read but who else would give this book a chance? 

My whole life I've grown up with the Superheroes.  They changed my life, I owe them a dept for always being there, giving me a big brother when I never had one, showing me to have spirit when I was down in the dumps and that no matter how bad or hopeless things get there's always a way.  This is the century of heroes, they are working their way into our culture and maybe some day our reality.
 

Rating: 4 stars out of 4