Courtesy of randomhouse.com
Acclaimed comic book writer Grant Morrison explores familiar territory in his first nonfiction book Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God From Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human. Morrison draws on a lifetime love for comics and twenty five years of insider knowledge of the industry in Supergods which benefits from his appreciation for superheroes and comic books which, at its best, is an exciting discussion on the history, philosophy, and appeal of the most famous comic book heroes of the last seventy years. However, Morrison’s ambitions tend to get the best of him and Supergods feels too large and unwieldy for anyone but the most dedicated Grant Morrison fans to fully enjoy.
Morrison comes out of the box with a fine start by discussing the first two heroes listed in any discussion of comic books, Superman and Batman. Throughout the book, Morrison is at his best when he sticks to the aim set out in the subtitle, that being a discussion of superheroes and how they interact with human society. Superman and Batman, being the oldest, most successful, and most lasting heroes in the pantheon, provide fertile ground for this discussion and reappear often throughout the book as they grow and change and how they relate to each new generation. Morrison demonstrates a rich reading life in discussing the “sun god” and his dark counterpart, bringing into the discussion Greek and Roman mythology, various world religions, psychologists, philosophers, history, and pop culture. His writing retains a comic book writer’s dynamic; the prose is dramatic and exciting, reminding the reader what it is about these heroes that remains such a draw. If not always convincing it is always interesting to explore the primal draws that transcend societies, placing them in the tradition of Hercules and Apollo and their stories in discussions with Freud and Jung.
As the book continues, the narrative thread begins to fray. Outlining the history of comics depends on following the trends that catch on in different ages. Like a pointillist painting, these trends make sense when taken in as a broad whole but become more chaotic when one looks closer. Morrison keeps enough distance to discern a shift in colors, but close enough where the distinctions get fuzzy and hard to separate. Starting in the Silver Age keeping track of dates and trends start to become exhausting and futile—the writers and artists on Superman are going a different way than those on the Flash, and Marvel is doing something completely different than what they are doing at DC. This is the case when he speaks of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga or the Silver Age Captain Marvel and their spectacular space adventures in the seventies even after Green Lantern/ Green Arrow kicked off the Dark Ages in 1970, or when he speaks of the adventures of 1950’s Superman in terms of LSD culture that would not exist in any notable way until the next decade.
In addition, the Silver Age introduces some confusing elements to the book—specifically autobiographical information on Grant Morrison—which will eventually grow to overwhelm the world of superheroes promised on the dust jacket. Grant Morrison—as the subject—enters the book in the middle of the introduction to his favorite superhero the Flash. This is easy enough to accept as the personal touch is what makes Morrison’s description of the heroes so exciting and, as a fan and writer he is bound to be part of the discussion and to appear in the narrative at some point anyway. Discussion of his childhood seems to break from the topic but can be excused as a case study, a look at a fan’s personal emotions to the subject. As the book continues into the seventies and eighties, Morrison reveals more and more personal information only tangentially having anything to do with comics or heroes. Finally, in the nineties, the reader is taken on a wild ride through Morrison’s personal life and specifically a religious experience that took him to another dimension and back with the new ability to “’see’ 5-D perspective” only briefly returning to how each experience affected him, and thus his writing, heroes, et cetera. The religious experience, his female alter ego, his experiments in drugs and world travel are all big parts of the Grant Morrison story, but to someone who picked up a book about superheroes they are confusing digressions.
The more Supergods delves into autobiography, the less room for superheroes, which is unfortunate because by the 1990’s Morrison was an established writer and working with the major players in the industry. All of a sudden there is a torrent of names, of series, of writers and artists, and of executives. We meet Jeff Koons, Frank Quitely, Mark Waid, Alex Ross, Howard Porter, Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch, and so on, in quick succession, some of them come up repeatedly (Frank Quitely), some get lengthy treatment along with their work (Mark Millar, Alex Ross) but most names you will not see again after you turn the page. So who will reappear in twenty pages and who will disappear? There is no way to really know, but to just accept it at face value and move on.
How much a reader enjoys Grant Morrison’s Supergods ultimately comes down to level of interest one has in three different subjects, superheroes, comic books, and Grant Morrison. A casual reader will enjoy some of the better passages but will be turned off by the frequent and lengthy digressions, confused by the parade of unfamiliar names, characters, and titles, and over all find it a chore to get through all four hundred pages. This is more directed at the comic book fan who, at least fairly well acquainted with the background information, can understand Morrison’s references and get beyond the facts to the ideas proffered by the author. Fans familiar with Morrison’s work get extra points for actually caring about his transformations and reasons for writing Doom Patrol, Seaguy, or Flex Mentallo, Man of Muscle Mystery, Supergods is as much about the name on the cover as it is about the title. There are two potentially good books here—one about superheroes, one about Grant Morrison—that unfortunately became confused into each other for the worse.
6 Golden Eggs
