Tagged: Grant Morrison

MINDY NEWELL: SuperGod – Thus Spake Zarathustra

I came home from work on Friday to find a package had arrived from Amazon. It was Supergods, by Grant Morrison. I had first heard about the book while reading the Rolling Stone interview with Morrison, which I mentioned last week. Between that interview and all the hoo-hah about Action Comics Vol. 2 #1, both my own reaction and those in the media, I had to read it.

(The debate continues, by the way. Today, Sunday, National Pubic Radio – NPR – devoted a segment of its “Studio 60” program to the reboot, with two interviews: the first with a comic book shop owner in Brooklyn, and the second with Jill Pantozzi, who herself is a redhead and in a wheelchair. Jill wrote an absolutely brilliant and terrific Op-Ed piece for Newsarama about the transformation of Oracle back into Batgirl, entitled Oracle Is Stronger Than Batgirl Will Ever Be. You should check it out.)

Anyway, back to Supergods. The subtitle is “What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, And A Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human.” I’ve only read the introduction, and browsed through it, and already I’m enthralled.

Now granted (no pun intended – or maybe it was), Morrison is not the first to write about the mythology, the übergeist – I think I just made up that one from a combination of Yiddish and German – the collective consciousness of humans creating heroes to reflect themselves, their darkness and their light, their trial and tribulations. If you didn’t have to read it in college, you learned about Joseph Campbell and The Hero With A Thousand Faces from George Lucas through a little thing called Star Wars. But as one of the preeminent contemporary writers of superheroes, I can’t wait to really sit down and read it.

I think about God a lot. When I was a little girl, I had this recurring dream. I was somewhere in the middle of a field. It looked like the field in “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth, complete with the farmhouse at the top of the hill. Of course it was a dream, so it was a totally warped “Christina’s World.” I was standing there, and it was blue skies and sun. All of a sudden the sky was black with clouds. There was an absolutely huuuuge clap of thunder and a lightning bolt, and suddenly God was standing before me. Well, all I could see was the bottom of his long, black Supreme Court Justice robe. I craned my head up and back and up and back and the robe went up and up and up beyond the sky. Then God bent over, and I could see His face, and it wasn’t happy. His long white hair and beard mixed with the grasses of the field, and He looked at me with stern black eyes, and just shook his finger at me as if to say, “You’re a bad, bad girl, Mindy.”

I don’t know why I dreamed that dream. Probably got punished by my mother or my father for something I did that I don’t remember. Talk about Jewish guilt!

God and theology continued to fascinate me as I grew up. I didn’t go to Hebrew school, wasn’t bas-mitzvahed, and I got kicked out of Communion class for asking the rabbi how the Jews could be so sure that Jesus wasn’t the Son of God, and saying that maybe we just screwed it up. (I asked a lot of questions that the rabbi didn’t like, like the time I asked him if Jonathan and David were maybe more than “just friends.”) But I read all the stories from the Old Testament that my brother brought home, and I read bits and pieces of The New Testament. I devoured movies like The Robe and Quo Vadis, and brought the books home from the library. My favorite though was, and still is, Ben-Hur.

There’s a line in Ben-Hur towards the end, when Esther and Judah Ben-Hur are taking his mother and sister from the Valley of Lepers to see Jesus. Judah’s mother is afraid, and Esther says, “No need. The world is more than we know.”

I know it was only a line in a movie, but I think the writer got it right.

Like Grant Morrison’s Animal Man, maybe the world was created by God because he’s a writer, and that’s what writers do, create, and we’re just the four-color two-dimensional characters in his comic book. Like Alan Moore’s Promethea, maybe we create the world out of our collective consciousness. Like Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, the world is nothing but a dream set in motion by Morpheus.

Maybe there’s an obelisk on the Moon, just waiting to be discovered.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

MINDY NEWELL: Comics Are For Kids?

There’s a great interview with Grant Morrison on the website of Rolling Stone magazine.  The reason I bring it up is that I’ve been thinking about last week’s column.  The more I thought about Action Comics #1, written by Morrison, the more I really liked it.

But I’m an adult.

I’ve been a fan of Grant’s since his debut on this side of the pond as the writer of Animal Man back in the 80s. It was a book that I adored. But Animal Man was under the Vertigo imprint, whose aim was to bring a sophisticated, i.e. adult, audience and slant into the comics industry – at which it incredibly succeeded, of course. In fact, if I remember right, the “hook” for the entire line of Vertigo books was sophisticated horror.

But I’m an adult.

And the Vertigo books aren’t for kids.

I grew up during the Silver Age of comics. When Lois was constantly getting into jams thanks to her penchant of trying to discover Superman’s secret identity. When Jimmy was constantly being exposed to some weird amulet that turned him into Elasti-Lad or a giant turtle or a bearded man. When Perry smoked cigars and yelled “Great Caesar’s Ghost” all the time. When Supergirl was alive and acted as her cousin’s secret weapon. When Superboy was a teenage Clark Kent living in Smallville and had a secret passageway and robots to cover his “tuchas” when he was away on a mission and his parents were alive and Lana Lang was his sweetheart. When Kandor was in a bottle.  When the Legion of Super-Heroes travelled through time in a bubble. When the “editor’s note” would inform me that the sun was 93,000,000 miles away from Earth.

Okay, it was a more innocent age. Well, not really. There was the Cold War and the U-2 incident and the Korean War and the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis and Barry Goldwater and the John Birch Society and “advisory troops” in a country named Vietnam. The Suez Canal crisis.

It was the Mad Men age.

And then we all grew up to be Mad Men.

The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The assassination of Martin Luthor King. The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Women’s rights. The Black Panthers. Newark, New Jersey in flames. The Weatherman. The Vietnam War. Tricky Dick. The Chicago Democratic Convention. Dan Rather being manhandled and dragged off the floor of the convention center. Cops in riot gear beating up college students. The Pentagon Papers. Pot. Hash. Timothy Leary. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Tune in. Turn on. Drop out.

The thing is, I think all those people marching and rioting and fighting and reacting to what was wrong in the world, what they did, what we did, was because we were raised on the ideals of what America was supposed to be about, what we really did believe, growing up, America was about.

I look around now, and I wonder, why aren’t people out on the street marching in the hundreds of thousands protesting? Angry people march. Angry people riot. Angry people force change.

Six out of 10 children are living in poverty in this country. In fucking America, man! Why aren’t their parents out there marching? We were lied into Iraq more blatantly than we were ever lied to about Vietnam. Why the fuck aren’t we out there marching? We’re building infrastructures and schools in Afghanistan while our own bridges and roads are collapsing and our school buildings are rotting. Why the fuck are we not out there marching? Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, the Koch brothers and about 10 other Wall Street operators are speculating in oil prices. Why the fuck aren’t we out there marching? The President lets the Republicans walk all over him and the Republicans can’t stand that the black guy in the White House isn’t the valet. Why the fuck are we not out there marching?

What has changed?

I don’t know. I honestly don’t.

But I’m sad, and I’m scared. Really scared.

Superman used to be written for kids. As was Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, and Supergirl, and Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Grant is a great writer. Grant is a brilliant writer.

Grant is not a writer for kids.

And Action Comics #1 isn’t for kids.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

MIKE GOLD: Superman’s Return To Superman

Looking back at the past week’s columns here on ComicMix, I’ve noticed a lot of folks are kind of upset about DC’s New 52. Perhaps upset isn’t the right word. Perhaps “untrusting” is more appropriate.

This has been mirrored in the various conversations I’ve had with folks in the past week – fans, pros, casual readers, advertising executives, media moguls, relatives, and the rest of the usual folks who clutter my life and cut into my valued reading time. Nobody seemed very happy about The New 52; some thought it insane. Most were checking it out, and simple curiosity will inflate sales figures for a while. Then these books will live or die on their strengths and weaknesses, as it should be, and in DC’s ability to maintain a publicity campaign that isn’t catering strictly to the established Comic Book Donut Shop.

I can’t say I’ve read all of the first week’s output, nor am I likely to. I’m not overwhelmed by the concept – been there, done that, right down to the “52” bit. But some of the stuff I’ve read was pretty good, and I thought I should peep up about it.

Heading that list is Action Comics volume 2 number 1. I picked this one up because I’m a huge fan of artist Rags Morales; I’ve been such since he first walked into DC’s offices and I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to work with him a few times. His Superman did not disappoint, not in the least. It has an energy and a determination that lends itself well to this incarnation.

Writer Grant Morrison, on the other hand, has had a mixed career at DC. I loved – and I mean “stop reading this and go buy it” loved – Zenith, his series for 2000AD. Some of his DC work has been really good, some not so much, and a little bit of it incomprehensible. But he’s always worth the effort.

Dismissing the parts of The New 52 that are little more than stupid marketing tricks – relaunches are never as good as simply doing it better – Grant and Rags used an interesting starting point for the new adventures of the ol’ Man of Steel. They used as their starting point the original mid-1930s Superman. They placed that character into our contemporary environment, and presumably are going on from there. This is not the new, angry, ballsy, tits to the wind Superman. This is the original angry, ballsy, tits to the wind Superman. And I think it’s good stuff.

I say “I think” because this issue of Action Comics is exactly like the other New 52 issues I’ve read in that it is a very quick read, light on story and burdened with all the problems of introducing a new series. I would have appreciated at least twice as much “story” in this story, although it has more than Justice League #1, which would give your average single day’s newspaper comic strip a run for its money.

This rather significant element aside, what we got wasn’t as much of a reboot as a restoration. This is a good thing.

I promised myself I wouldn’t comment on the more contemporary atrocity that is one of the new Superman costumes, but clearly I lied to me. Yeah, dumping the external red shorts is okay; they were stupid. A nod to their design source, the circus strongman. But by wearing blue jeans and a swell contemporary belt and a short sleeved shirt, the new stuff makes Superman’s cape look ridiculous.  It looks like a bib worn backwards. But Superman without his cape is like the American flag without the stars, and no matter how silly capes look and how they destroy verisimilitude Superman’s cape is part of the deal. Maybe they can fuss with it a bit.

Superman is the crux of the DC Universe, and DC has to make him work for the 21st Century in order to make The New 52 work. This first issue came maybe two-thirds of the way there.

That’s pretty good. Better than I expected.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

MINDY NEWELL: American Reinvention

Today, as I write this, is September 11, 2011.

Ten years.

The World Trade Center. The Pentagon. Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I’m watching the memorial services.

Tom Brokaw, David Gregory on NBC and MSNBC. Anderson Cooper and Candy Crowley on CNN. President Obama with Michelle and President George W. Bush with Laura. Mayor Bloomberg. Rudy Giuliani. Vice President Biden.

Breaking news: a truck bomb has killed at least 50 American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The ticker on CNN now reads: Global Terror Evolves. Al Qaeda under attack but keeps changing as Peter Bergen says: “Ten years out, terrorism remains, but is very different.”

Yesterday I read the “debut” issue of Action Comics #1. The one with Superman in a t-shirt, jeans, and Timberland boots.

It’s a different look for him.

He’s different.

The story opens as Superman breaks into a corporate (corporate = evil) meeting and manhandles the CEO (CEO = malevolence). The police (hired mercenaries?) rush in. They order Superman to put down the CEO. His answer, in the last panel on page three: “Just as soon as he makes a full confession. To someone who still believes the law works for the same for rich and poor alike…”

I turn the page.

Two-page spread, splash panel. Superman is standing on the edge of the roof, holding the CEO up with one hand, threatening to drop him. His eyes are burning, glowing red. He’s firing up his heat vision, eyes burning and glowing red. The CEO is screaming for someone to save him. The cops have their weaponry aimed at him. It’s a stand off. And Superman finishes his thought:

“…because that ain’t Superman!!!!”

It sure ain’t.

I could write a thesis on how American culture has changed since the last ten years. But better men and women, better writers and thinkers have done that already, so I won’t.

But I will say that I believe there is a disease that is rampant in this country. It’s a highly contagious disease that causes its victims to change facts. In America its sufferers believe that the United States and its government has always “played fair.” That the original colonists never slaughtered the native culture they found here or that 100 years later the U.S. Cavalry didn’t lace blankets with smallpox to kill the “Indians” of the Great Plains. That those who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States. That slavery itself was a fair and equitable system in which master and slave worked for the common good. That President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a scion of one of the wealthiest families in America, was a socialist. That Eisenhower was a tool of the communists. That the Civil Rights Act was propagated and staunchly defended by Southern Republicans and fought with tooth-and-nail by the Democrats. That the World Trade Center was brought down by controlled demolition explosions and that a missile hit the Pentagon was launched by “elements” inside the Bush administration. That Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. That Obama isn’t an American.

This is the culture of America today, September 11, 2011. It’s a suspicious and cynical culture that would rather dream nostalgic dreams of a past that wasn’t than to work together to shape those dreams into reality.

But is it so different from the culture that shaped two kids from Cleveland in 1932, two kids who believed in “the American Dream” of truth and justice for all, and created an avenging crusader a “superman” who beat up mobsters and wife beaters, profiteers and lynch mobs? That culture supposedly welcomed immigrants, and then barred them from communities and colleges and jobs. It was a culture that restricted voting and allowed segregation. The Superman created in 1932 and who debuted to the world in 1938 was a result of the suppressed anger of two Jewish boys who saw the inequities and untruths in the American reality, but still believed in the American dream.

Ronald Reagan, for all his faults, was right when he spoke of America as that “great shining city on a hill.” America, the idea of America, is still, will always be, in my not-so-humble opinion, the quest, the Arthurian legend, come to life.

My question is, and my worry is, how can the kids reading Grant Morrison’s 2011 version of Superman still believe in that quest, those ideals, that American dream that the hero has always represented when he clearly states, That Ain’t Superman?

Ten years later.

No.

It’s not.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

JOHN OSTRANDER: Superman – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

This is an amazing Superman. Not totally invulnerable, can only leap mover tall buildings and not fly, defying authority, fighting criminals and corrupt politicians, on the side of the little guy – really amazing stories. What? Grant Morrison’s Superman? No, I’m not talking about that. I haven’t read his new version although I’m sure it’ll be good; Morrison wrote All-Star Superman, one of my favorite run of Superman stories.

No, I’m talking about the original run of Superman stories, by the creators – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. I read them in one of the DC Archive books and I was floored when I read them. This was not the Superman I grew up on; he was actually a lot more interesting.

In one story, he gets a bad guy to talk by throwing him off the roof of a building, catching him, and then throwing him off again. He keeps doing this as he worries about whether or not he might have butterfingers. In another story, there’s a series of slums that are public housing and the buildings are in terrible shape. Supes’ solution? He pisses off the authorities to the point where they try to bomb him. He’s running in and out of the slum buildings that wind up flattened so that the authorities have no choice but to build new ones. And he’s laughing while he does it. The man’s a maniac – a Supermaniac.

In another story, an innocent man is about to be executed. Supes gets proof he’s innocent and goes to the governor. It’s almost midnight and the governor is in his pajamas and robe. There’s a storm and the phone lines go out. No way they can contact the prison in time. Supes grabs the governor and hurtles through the night, running and leaping at high speed to get the governor there in time to pardon the guy.

In another, Superman deals with a wife-beater and gives the jackass a taste of his own medicine.

Is the art a little primitive by today’s standards? Perhaps. Are the stories a little simple by today’s standards? Maybe – but they move like a speeding bullet. Superman at the start was very much a character of his time, born in the Depression, where the public’s confidence in their political institutions were low, where crime seemed rampant, and the little guy/gal seemed to have no-one on his/her side. Superman wasn’t bound by the courts or the law; he was an outlaw for justice.

Sound like today? Oh yeah. A Superman that hearkens back to his roots might be just what we need. I don’t know if that’s what Grant Morrison is doing but, from interviews he’s given and fro9m what I read in articles, it sounds to me as if he read those old stories, too, and has gleaned from them a basic, more primal Superman. Yesterday’s Man of Tomorrow written for today? I could get into that.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

MARC ALAN FISHMAN: “This is not MY _______!”

So, there I was, doing what I suppose I do far too often… scouring Facebook for status updates. A quick refresh, and there was an update from a friend saying how “This is not my Bucky Barnes.” He was referencing a purchase he’d recently made of a golden age Bucky figure, and how he hated the new Winter Soldier-era Barnes figure. Suffice to say, after seeing his umpteenth remark how a modern interpretation of one of the classic comic book heroes he loved so dearly rubs his rhubarb the wrong way, I had enough.

Call it being cantankerous in my own “Hey, I know you think I’m too young to form a real opinion, but screw you, I can anyways” way… but I’d like to say that this kind of general malaise towards interpretation and experimentation grinds my gears to a screeching halt. In short? Quit your bitchin’ gramps. It’s 2011. Your childhood memories remain intact, in spite of your fear that they won’t.

It’s this common thread amongst the older comic book fans that I truly find offensive. Maybe that’s not the right word. I’m not implying it’s anyone here on ComicMix mind you, but the conglomerate of silver/golden-age dick-chuggers who poop their pampers anytime anything changes in the fictitious worlds of their youth, drags us all down. We’re all entitled to our opinion, mind you, and I don’t deny anyone their right to express that opinion. See folks, I’m young, under-appreciated, and don’t know shit-about-nothing; But I’m taking this time to start a large debate. Mind you no one will answer my call, but I’ve never not had fun at screaming into the black abyss of the internet before.

This notion, that the creators of today can’t reinterpret a character because it’s not their version of the character, is a waste of breath. Ed Brubaker’s retcon of Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier was an amazing feat. He took a character that was long gone, and brought him back in a story that got real attention from new fans. Here was this relic of another era, repurposed for modern times, done with a deft hand. His origin remained intact. He never took away from the character who he was. Yes, he turned a once chipper, bright-eyed innocent kid (who had no problem murdering Nazis with guns) into a cold and ruthless killer.

(more…)

ComicMix Cinema: “Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods”

ComicMix Cinema: “Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods”

  • News
  • August 14, 2011

What better way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon than watching one of those guys from the land where it rains all the time?

This 80-minute feature produced by Respect Films and Sequart contains interviews with Morrison, along with various folks he’s worked with and inspired throughout a thirty year career writing everything from All-Star Superman to Zenith, and just might give insight for what he’s going to do when he reboots Action Comics next month. (Not included is the story of how I saved Grant’s first Doom Patrol story from being completely incomprehensible.)

Enjoy.

Grant Morrison Examines ‘All-Star Superman’ Page-to-Screen Transition

  • News
  • March 8, 2011

All Star SupermanRenowned comics writer Grant Morrison has found a lot to like in the transfer from page-to-screen of his Eisner Award-winning All-Star Superman, the critically-acclaimed, hot-selling new entry in the ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies available now from Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation and Warner Home Video.

In All-Star Superman, the Man of Steel rescues an ill-fated mission to the Sun (sabotaged by Lex Luthor) and, in the process, is oversaturated by radiation – which accelerates his cell degeneration. Sensing even he will be unable to cheat death, Superman ventures into new realms – finally revealing his secret to Lois, confronting Lex Luthor’s perspective of humanity, and attempting to ensure Earth’s safety before his own impending end with one final, selfless act.

All-Star Superman is now available from Warner Home Video as a Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack and 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, as well as single disc DVD. The film will is also available On Demand and for Download.

Morrison had a few moments to chat from his home in Scotland last week about the all-new film based on his landmark comics series, and the late Dwayne McDuffie’s impressive job in re-imagining Morrison’s words into animated glory.

Question: Did you have, and did you want, creative input into the script?

Grant Morrison: Once I knew someone else was going to do it, I kind of wanted to let it happen and not interfere. I’m always excited to see how others translate things from page to screen. I didn’t even know Dwayne (McDuffie) was involved at first, but I’m so glad he did it. I was happy to see what the story might look like from someone else’s perspective and he did a fantastic job.

(more…)

Review: ‘All-Star Superman’

All-Star SupermanDC Comics’ All-Star imprint was intended to bring their top talents together with their top characters to produce stories that followed the core concepts of the iconic heroes and villains so the comics would appeal to mainstream audiences. The two titles that made it out, featuring Batman and Superman utterly failed on that account and their irregular publishing schedules meant the audience the books were aimed at couldn’t get into the needed buying rhythm.

[[[All-Star Superman]]] by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely thrilled the core audience with their retro-futuristic take on the characters and settings, winning acclaim and awards. Now, the 12 issue storyline has been neatly compressed into a 76 minute animated feature, out this week from Warner Home Video. Obviously, every bit and piece, every favorite moment, couldn’t possibly be included in Dwayne McDuffie’s script, but he does a fine job boiling the story down to its essence. In short, Lex Luthor has manipulated events from afar, forcing Superman to save a spacecraft that left him over-saturated with solar energy which has increased his amazing array of powers but is also slowly killing him.

(more…)

DC Unveils White Lantern Batman

DC Unveils White Lantern Batman

  • News
  • August 17, 2010

So, this afternoon, we decided to check in at DC’s blog, the Source, and what would we find? Why a few Brightest Day solicits for November. Given how much we love spoilers, we couldn’t click fast enough. And what were we greeted with? Why a David Finch painting of what appears to White Lantern Batman. We couldn’t help ourselves kids, so… here’s a few fleeting thoughts:

  • Gotham City’s criminal underbelly quivers with fear as Marvel’s Murdering Bat-Wannabe Moon Knight moves to town.
  • Upon returning to the Bat-Cave, Alfred will quip “I’ll go fetch more bleach from the store, Master Bruce.”
  • Well, Bruce has been a Green Lantern (for an Elseworlds tale, and like 3 panels in GL), a Yellow Lantern (for a panel), and a Black Lantern (for several panels!)… why not continue to try on another Lantern costumes for a minute or two?
  • The utility belt will now contain Mint Mentos, Peppermint Tic-Tacs, and another incredibly large gas powered zip line launcher than can’t possibly fit on the belt.
  • We’re pretty sure this is Bruce, cause last time we checked, Dick Grayson’s forearm veins weren’t thick enough to show through kevlar-lined gloves like Bruce’s do. Bruce uses shake weights.
  • After seeing this costume change, all Robins breathe a sigh of relief, because finally they won’t be the easy one to spot in the shadows.
  • In case you were wondering… White Lantern Batman can still beat Superman, if he so chooses.
  • Upon seeing the White Lantern Batman, the Joker will become confused, and cause a real faux-pas by robbing the 2nd National Bank of Gotham in blackface.
  • Given that we’re pretty good at deciphering solicit text now… it’s safe to assume White Lantern Batman will be seen in a single panel, and then we’ll have to move on to the next story in Brightest Day, which is subsequently also 1 panel. Hey, give DC a break, it’s not easy juggling 17 C-listers in a book that prints every other week.
  • Mark Millar is already filing a lawsuit on behalf of “Nemesis”… but don’t worry, no one reads it.
  • White Lantern Batman will have the power to make you forget most of the weird crap Grant Morrison has come up with for the character in the last few years.
  • Subsequently, Grant Morrison will have a really cool way to ret-con the White Lantern Batman story in his 2017 run on Batman, tentatively titled “Batman Sorta Dies Again, because we need to sell more Bat-books this month.”

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks