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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 6, 2019 21:37:35 GMT -5
This thread's done a good job convincing me Grant Morrison's a pretentious, self-indulgent hack who churns out pretentious, self-indulgent tripe. Between him and Geoff Johns, it's no wonder I give modern DC a wide berth. Wow. I have found him pompous in his interviews and didn't think much of Supergods and his work is very hit and miss, for me. However, his work does occasionally intersect with my tastes and when it does, I usually enjoy it quite a lot (Zenith, Animal Man, All-Star Superman, Batman, Steed & Mrs Peel). With the others, there are usually elements I like quite a bit; but, the reading experience as a whole doesn't keep me around (Doom Patrol, Invisibles). I haven't read anything here that makes me think I missed anything earthshattering; but there are a few things here and there that interest me. One thing is has convinced me is that Morrison and Kirby had greatly different mindsets, as far as how I interpret the 4th World material and I don't care for what I have read of the handling of the New Gods. It just seems off, to me; but, then that has been par for the course for most of DC's handling of the material, post-Kirby. Morrison's interpretation and mine are somewhat different, which colors my reading of his handling of it. I still think Paul Levitz handled Darkseid the best, though Byrne was effective with him, as was Starlin. Beyond that, most don't seem to know how to handle the other characters, apart from Mister Miracle and his cast. MM was the most "superhero," and also represented a family, which added layers to it. new Gods was more conceptual and philosophical, which makes it hard to use them, without recycling the same plots or just making them generic superheroes. |
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Post by Duragizer on Mar 6, 2019 23:41:53 GMT -5
This thread's done a good job convincing me Grant Morrison's a pretentious, self-indulgent hack who churns out pretentious, self-indulgent tripe. Between him and Geoff Johns, it's no wonder I give modern DC a wide berth. Wow. I have found him pompous in his interviews and didn't think much of Supergods and his work is very hit and miss, for me. However, his work does occasionally intersect with my tastes and when it does, I usually enjoy it quite a lot (Zenith, Animal Man, All-Star Superman, Batman, Steed & Mrs Peel). With the others, there are usually elements I like quite a bit; but, the reading experience as a whole doesn't keep me around (Doom Patrol, Invisibles). I'm probably being too harsh towards Morrison. Maybe if I didn't so thoroughly hate deconstruction and blind Silver Age nostalgia, I'd be more appreciative of Morrison as a writer. But frankly, I'd dance a merry jig if he, Johns, Bendis, et al. were banned from writing mainstream superhero comics ever again. |
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Post by rberman on Mar 7, 2019 7:21:15 GMT -5
Wow. I have found him pompous in his interviews and didn't think much of Supergods and his work is very hit and miss, for me. However, his work does occasionally intersect with my tastes and when it does, I usually enjoy it quite a lot (Zenith, Animal Man, All-Star Superman, Batman, Steed & Mrs Peel). With the others, there are usually elements I like quite a bit; but, the reading experience as a whole doesn't keep me around (Doom Patrol, Invisibles). I'm probably being too harsh towards Morrison. Maybe if I didn't so thoroughly hate deconstruction and blind Silver Age nostalgia, I'd be more appreciative of Morrison as a writer. But frankly, I'd dance a merry jig if he, Johns, Bendis, et al. were banned from writing mainstream superhero comics ever again. This is a significant series in that it hits on key Morrison themes while also being his tribute to the original Crisis. But the presence of so many characters makes it difficult to digest, and it's not the series I would give someone to make the case for Morrison as a valuable or important writer. |
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Post by rberman on Mar 7, 2019 18:31:16 GMT -5
Batman #682-683 “The Butler Did It” and “The Butler Did It Again”  Art: Lee Garbett pencils, Trevor Scott inks, Guy Major colors. Alex Ross covers. The Story: A series of vignettes takes us through Batman’s life, from the night a bat flew through his open window (or smashed through his windowpane in this version) through his recruitments of various Robins, his original red roadster progressing through the Batmobile with the bat-head on the front grille, the swordfight with Ra’s Al Ghul, A Death in the Family, The Killing Joke, Knightfall, and so on. Then we see an alternate world in which his parents lived and he became a surgeon. It’s all a hallucination. The real Batman is a prisoner of Darkseid whose mind is being probed by an amorphous creature called Lump so that Batman's genius can be used to give intellect to a clone army in the service of Anti-Life. Batman’s willpower is too strong; Lump lacks the mental fortitude to survive the onslaught of all of Batman’s accumulated psychic pain, and the clone army is rendered useless.   My Two Cents: Ah yes, this is more of the typical Morrisonian storytelling structure, full of jump cuts and requiring deep knowledge of all the stories to which he is alluding. But once you know that it’s a dream sequence and doesn’t have to make a coherent narrative, it’s easy to settle back and just watch the images flow.  
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Post by Cheswick on Mar 7, 2019 21:33:13 GMT -5
Interesting, because when I read the JLA 70s post concerning him, I thought, "Ahh, so that's Libra." What makes you think it's not the same character? That character was scattered to the cosmos in his Wein appearance. Perhaps there's an intervening story in which he reconstituted? He has the same schtick and costume. It is the same Libra. He returned in a story in Final Crisis Secret Files, written by Len Wein. The story also told his origin and revealed what happened to him between his returning and the events of Final Crisis. |
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Post by rberman on Mar 7, 2019 22:20:03 GMT -5
That character was scattered to the cosmos in his Wein appearance. Perhaps there's an intervening story in which he reconstituted? He has the same schtick and costume. It is the same Libra. He returned in a story in Final Crisis Secret Files, written by Len Wein. The story also told his origin and revealed what happened to him between his returning and the events of Final Crisis. Len Wein, eh? How appropriate! I knew there was a lot of ancillary material related to the Final Crisis event, but the only one I plan to cover is the Legion story. |
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Post by rberman on Mar 8, 2019 19:22:10 GMT -5
Final Crisis #6 “How to Murder the Earth” (December 2008) Art: Pencils by J.G. Jones, Carlos Pacheco, Jesus Merino, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Marco Rudy. Ink by Marco Rudy. Color by Alex Sinclair. P.1-3: In the 31st century, Braniac 5 shows Superman a ”Miracle Machine” that can turn thoughts into reality; it’s too dangerous to use, because no one can control their thoughts well enough. Its shape is the outline of Kamandi’s drawing.  P.6-17: In Blüdhaven, the battle rages on and on. Captain Marvel, Jr. uses the magic lightning to transform himself and Mary Marvel back to their depowered selves; this breaks Darkseid’s grip on Mary.  Mister Miracle shows how to protect against Anti-Life by painting a New Genisis glyph on your face; it looks like one of Kirby’s famous face-surrounding masks from Fourth World books.  P.4-5, 18-19: The JLA satellite comes under attack. Tattooed Man manifests the shape of the protective New Genesis glyph, allowing him to resist the conformity-inducing helmet placed on his head.  P.20-21: S.H.A.D.E. wants The Question to lead the Global Peace Agency (a Kirby-era society) to establish a colony on an unnamed parallel universe, with transportation help from Brother Eye (a Kirby-era satellite) and two versions of The Atom. This “Black Gambit” is very similar to the Flex Mentallo story in which the Legion of Legions sent shrinking heroes Nanoman and Minimiss to go find another dimension, escaping the impending doom of their own universe.  P.22-23: Dr. Sivana and Lex Luthor betray Libra, who flees rather than face destruction.  P.24-29: The Black Racer is still chasing Barry Allen to carry out his death sentence as seen in COIE. The three Flashes plan to lead Black Racer to Darkseid. Batman shoots Darkseid with the god-killing bullet which slew Orion, just as Darkseid’s Omega Sanction strikes Batman dead.  p.30-34: Nix Uotan and Metron survey scenes of heroes everywhere. The Green Lanterns have still not arrived on Earth. Superman returns from his mission “Beyond 3-D” (via the 31st century) and carries the skeleton of Batman out of Command-D.  My Comment: Big fight scene, pretty straightforward. Also lots of chess imagery: Castle, Checkmate, Black Gambit, and so on. "Global Peace Agency" would probably be the ironic name of some fascist group under normal circumstances, but since it's Kirby, it gets a pass.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 9, 2019 1:41:01 GMT -5
General Thoughts: Some people have found Final Crisis hard to follow. The narrative seems straightforward enough, without being as super-compressed as some of Morrison’s work that gives you only a sliver of each scene and expects you to know how the rest goes. But it is demanding in various ways: (1) It has a large cast of characters, so previous familiarity is very helpful; (2) It alludes to events deep in DC Bronze Age and Silver Age continuity, as well as the recent Countdown series. (3) It would have helped if scene changes and new characters received introductory captions. Got the tpb out of the library, figured this was worth rereading. Finished issue 1. I really did not know what was going on at the last page. I thought it was the Tattooed Man again but he lost his tattoos? Why was he looking at his hands? I don't know who Nix Uatoan is. Some nice scenes - I liked all the dialog in the Luthor scene, although I had trouble recognizing the Martian Manhunter, which robbed his "death" of a lot of it's effectiveness, and why the hell would you have a death of the Martian Manhunter story from Lex Luthor's perspective, anyway? All the Kirby stuff worked well for me. Morrison's Mister Miracle was my favorite reading of Kirby - I really like the second coming of the fallen New Gods - it ties into the idea that the 4th World stuff was a post-ragnorok sequel to Thor. Still, not much of an actual narrative, there. Like, you're right, the Superfriends are introduced to just sit. It's not even a scene, nothing happens and no characters are defined. The whole "sliver of a scene" narrarivistic pointalism completely fell flat for me. It's so much more effective to tell COMPLETE little stories that suggest and mirror the themes of the wider narrative. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 9, 2019 1:43:05 GMT -5
Oh waiwaiwaiwaiwait. That was the Monitor? I.... ok.
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Post by rberman on Mar 9, 2019 7:16:37 GMT -5
Oh waiwaiwaiwaiwait. That was the Monitor? I.... ok. Right. As I understand it (again, not having read Infinite Crisis, 52, or Countdown to Final Crisis), Nix Uotan was the Monitor in charge of Earth 51, the Kirbyverse of Kamandi which was destroyed in the battle between Monarch (evil Captain Atom) and the Monitors. For some reason the other monitors treat this as Nix's fault, so they have banished him from the Monitor dimension to become a character in the story instead of one of the editors of the story. This idea of comic book makers becoming comic book characters is one of Grant Morrison's favorite recurring plot/theme elements. And even as a character, Nix can't resist the urge to be a creator, i.e. to draw comic books, not realizing that the people he draws really do exist on other Earths. I agree with you that it would have been more effective for each issue to have larger sections of one or two stories rather than slivers of five stories, especially given the decompression of large modern panels. I'll have to go back and see how the original COIE handled this, but I don't think it tried to juggle as many balls conceptually or thematically; it was more seeing the same wave of destruction consuming various Earths (and time periods, somehow) simultaneously. |
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Post by rberman on Mar 9, 2019 16:10:08 GMT -5
Final Crisis #7 “New Heaven, New Earth” (March 2009) Art: Pencils by Doug Mahnke. Ink by Tom Nguyen, Drew Geraci, Norm Rapmund, Rodney Ramos, Christian Alamy, Walden Wong, Marc Irwin. Color by Alex Sinclair, Tony Avina, Pete Pantazis. P.1-4: The Question takes the Ultima Thule to collect Superman versions from various dimensions. Her current stop is an Earth populated by minorities, to pick up a black Superman for her Global Peace Agency. His day job is President of the United States. The next time we see him, in Action Comics, he will have a name: Calvin Ellis (a variant on Kal El), and he will look much more like Barak Obama than he does this time around. He and Nubia (this world’s Wonder Woman) give each other the side-eye, thinking that The Question’s complaint about people who “all look like you guys” is a racist remark, but really it’s about how the same costumes recur on every world.  P.5-7: Frankenstein stands on the balcony of a Watchtower which is floating in interdimensional Bleed with a motley crew of heroes from many earths. They build a rocket to send from their doomed outpost; inside is not a baby Kryptonian but rather a Story, specifically an issue of the Daily Planet. JLA robots attack the Watchtower as the rocket shoots away into the void.  P.8-12: Darkseid taunts Superman with his victory of converting Earth’s populace to Anti-Life. But Darkseid has been shot by Batman with the god-killing bullet, and Wally West and Barry Allen are leading the Dark Racer at the speed of death, right into the path of Darkseid.  P.13-23: Superman sits in Metron’s chair as the heroes (aided by Sivanna and Luthor) regroup and build the Miracle Machine seen by Superman in the 31st century last issue; only it can calculate the Life Equation to free humanity. The Ray writes the protective New Genesis life glyph across the surface of the Earth. Order is restored across the Multiverse.  The Nazi Superman mourns over his dead Supergirl, COIE-style. Dan Turpin throws off his helmet, freed from Darkseid’s influence. Luthor leads an army of villains to mop up the remains of the Apokolips forces, freeing the heroes like Wonder Woman who were still under Anti-Life’s sway.   Lois refers to being “back from the fridge,” i.e. death; see previous “Women in Refrigerators” discussions. This is all a story recounted to a group of children by Supergirl and Wonder Woman.  P.24-25: Darkseid’s disembodied spirit taunts Superman that the Miracle Machine is only “a cargo cult Mother Box,” implying that it’s an artifact of a higher civilization whose true nature Superman cannot divine. Nevertheless, Superman activates the Miracle Machine by singing a wordless tune whose vibrations bring the Multiverse back into harmony and generates “Element X,” the creative spark of Story; it looks a lot like the Whirlagog, the reality-bending Rock of Ages from Morrisons’ run on JLA. Element X is a Kirbyism; it's what fuels Metron's chair, for instance, as seen in the Metron image below from Swamp Thing. I have to say, I didn’t like “And then we built a machine that saved us” as the climax of Len Wein’s “Seven Soldiers” story in JLA #100-102, or in the Solaris story from Morrison in DC One Million, and I don’t like it now either. “Superman saves the universe by singing” is at least novel.   P.26-29: Mandrakk the Vampire Monitor manifests one more time to threaten Superman; Supergirl is his captive, and Ultraman is his vampire thrall. Just in time, the Global Peace Agency arrives with dozens of alternate Supermen including Sunshine Superman, the hippy afroed hero Morrison introduced back in Animal Man.
  P.30-35: Nix Uotan the Superjudge finally makes his presence known, facing his father Mandrakk with the support of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew, the Forever People, the Pax Dei angels, Super Young Team, the Green Lantern Corps, and a kitchen sink. OK, not the kitchen sink but all the rest. By the way, Pig Iron (the purple pig beside Captain Carrot) is drawn half his usual size. Captain Carrot will return in Morrison's Multiversity. P.36-39: The Ray finishes carving the protective New Genesis glyph is carved in light on the face of the Earth, similar to how the name of the Thunderbolt was written in the sky in Morrison’s JLA story “Crisis Times Five.” The Multiverse returns to happiness. “Future Kirbyworld” (Earth-51) is restored, with the New Gods watching over it from New Genesis. Nix Uotan asks the Monitors (DC executives) to stop messing with the universe, but he gets no promises. One Monitor even wants to end The Story, calling it “toxic.” Nooo, don't stop making comic books!  P.40-42: Nix tells his girlfriend Weeja Dell that “the Final Crisis is ours.” Is he speaking of his relationship with her, or of the Monitors’ world-tending more generally? The world of the monitors fades out, and Nix awakens in his bed on Earth-Prime. This fits with the creator/creation ambiguity of Flex Mentallo; Nix is part of the story dreaming another part of the story which is happening in a higher reality. Is Weeja now incarnated within the world of Story as well? P.43-45: An aged cave-dweller, the keeper of Story, wears the New Genesis life glyph on his face and draws the shape of the Miracle Machine on a cave wall before lying down to a peaceful death. Batman is here, transported by Darkseid’s Final Sanction. He lays his utility belt across the old man’s chest and draws a bat glyph on the wall, joining the grand tradition of creative souls. I have no idea how this symbolism plays itself out in the Batman stories which followed. Did he really have to get resurrected after Darkseid’s Final Sanction? R.I.P., Batman. So... that's the end of Morrison's part in the Final Crisis event! Lots of other titles had their interaction with the event, and I may cover the Legion's role in the near future, but some other projects will come first.
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Post by rberman on Mar 23, 2019 18:50:22 GMT -5
I never got around to sharing Grant Morrison's thoughts about what he was trying to accomplish here amidst all the super-fights:
This seems like a mix of things he tried and got right (Turpin descending into Dark Side), things he tried that didn't come across as he intended (Mandrakk the cosmic vampire as the metaphor of blank page rejecting bad story), and things he shouldn't have tried in the first place (telling an incoherent story to show that bad stories are bad). Newsflash: We already know bad stories are bad. The way to show bad stories are bad is to tell a good, connected story that makes the badness of bad stories evident simply by comparison.
Also, Final Crisis does not at all come across as "a showcase for Kirby's New Gods characters." Orion is dead before the story begins. The good New Gods are M.I.A. for the duration. Of the bad guys, only Darkseid gets meaningful time. Granny Goodness is seen only through the Green Lantern story, which is not really about her even though she is said to be its motive force. Mister Miracle appears sporadically throughout the story, but it's the human legacy character Shiloh Norman from Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle rather than Scott Free, whose "swapped babies" story with Orion was one of the major elements of Kirby's story. The Tattooed Man gets a bigger role than Metron does. Etc.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 24, 2019 4:29:14 GMT -5
I think the idea was that people would get together on the internet and try to make sense of it?
That was... not a good idea.
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Post by rberman on Feb 1, 2020 13:05:20 GMT -5
Reading further, it seems that Morrison did not tell the whole tale about Final Crisis in Supergods. One thing that always bugged me about this story was that the first several issues were about Darkseid corrupting the DC universe into total BDSM evil. Then suddenly the last few issues pull back the curtain to reveal Mandrakk the evil Monitor as the true puppet master whom Superman must defeat with the power of idealism. The connection between Darkseid and Mandrakk seemed tenuous at best. Now I think I understand, though some of you probably won't like it. Morrison said in Supergods that Mandrakk is "a nihilistic cosmic vampire whose only dream was to drain the multiverse dry of story material, then lie bloated beneath a dead sun, dying." Morrison is talking about Alan Moore. Morrison hates Watchmen thematically because its superheroes are worse than regular people, ranging from jaded to craven to sadistic to apathetic to ruthless. Morrison thinks Moore sucked the life out of superhero comics and gave birth to the grim and gritty 1990s. OK, that's partially true. The first part of Final Crisis therefore is Morrison playing "what if," allowing the Dark Side to make the grimmest, grittiest version of the DCU imaginable. Full-on Alan Moore (as Morrison sees Moore), only to be rescued by the power of Jack Kirby's heroic New Gods ideals, written across the very face of the planet. Then the curtain pulls back, and Morrison (incarnated within the story as Nix Uotan) faces off against Moore (Mandrakk). At the pivotal moment comes this exchange between them:  How is Nix the son of Mandrakk? Two ways. First, Morrison is tweaking Moore by admitting how often Morrison copied Moore's ideas. Morrison is Moore's creative son, although Morrison is quick to point out that he published sporadic work in obscure Scottish magazines before Moore was known. But second, "Morrison" literally means "Son of Moore/Morris/Maurice." "You made me to save the world from you" means that Morrison intends to take the tools, tropes, and vocabulary that Moore brought to comic books, and use them to tell heroic tales. |
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Post by earl on Feb 1, 2020 15:13:41 GMT -5
That's pretty fun, if true. There is long standing beef between Morrison with Moore and Michael Moorcock. Morrison has also used quite a few ideas out of Philip K. Dick's books too.
Eh...don't mind it myself. His comics are often pretty wacky but their oblique nature does tend to lend to them being fairly re-readable.
Thing is that Morrison's comics are all one big story to an extent. The Invisible's parallels pretty much his whole DC work, they are fighting the 'same fight' in a sense. That's how I read it.
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