Supergods by Grant Morrison

Previously published in the Herald magazine. 

There are many who feel that Scottish comic book writer Grant Morrison himself is as important as any of the heroes he writes about. Grant Morrison himself definitely thinks so. Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero is an attentive look at iconic superheros through the ages, their importance to culture as potent archetypes who represent our changing world. He begins by outlining the development of superheroes – ‘long underwear characters’ - with the inventors of Superman, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siege,l and the path to Action Comics #1. From here, Morrison intelligently, excitedly traces the evolution of comics– including, but not restricted to: Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash , Marvel Comics, Stan Lee …and all the way up to Alan Moore and Frank Miller. Morrison does not ignore the early models, like the first superheroine, Ma Hunkle, who was a ‘raw-faced middle aged housewife … who wore a blanket cape and a pan on her head … no powers, a DIY outfit and a strictly local beat’. Supergods remains aggressive in its examination of possibly the best known representation of humanity’s own desires and despairs: the comic book hero who has always been a god in a cape dealing with ‘the unexpected, the impossible, the illogical’.

Morrison’s writing itself is ferocious, relentless, proudly self-aware - his ‘dark Batman story Arkham Asylum…was deliberately elliptical, European, and provocative’, his juvenilia was a ‘half-formed brain splatter of a story’, his first art school rejection letter ‘arrived as a cold manila fist that closed around [his] fragile hopes’. There is something strangely attractive in the violence of his language. Talking of Captain America, Morrison writes, ‘every cover featured a brand new tableau of imminent superatrocity: A girl, her blouse ripped to ribbons, writhes on a medieval torture rack while a leering hunchback, preferably sporting swastika tattoos, threatens her cleavage with a glowing poker’. His writing is so effortlessly aggressive, but there’s no denying that each word is a giant thrust of Grant Morrison-ness.

Morrison does not hold back on his opinions, regardless of the respect a writer or comic may traditionally demand from the industry. He is clear about what he likes (the Flash, Marvel superheroes who ‘tussled not only with monsters and mad scientists but also with relatable personal issues’, Nolan’s Batman as a ‘hero for a world of darkness’); disdainful about his dislikes (Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman’s earnestness as a young man, Alicia Silverstone’s ‘baby fattish’ Batgirl, the disappointing Superman vs. Muhammad Ali).

The problem begins when Supergods begins to sprawl chaotically into Morrison’s own methods to reach optimum creativity. It is here that Morrison literally begins to lose the plot and narrative spreads over worlds and words, ideas and ideals and even pop star Robbie Williams’ desire to lean ‘chaos magic’ from Morrison. This sprawl begins with his first hallucinatory experience at sampling a ‘fistful of psilocybin mushrooms’, and carries on to a truly insane trip inKathmandu where Morrison ingests hashish and finds his ‘SHAZAM!’ He then proceeds to dozens of (hilarious) self-indulgent pages about ‘magical experiments’ conducted in a drag outfit consisting of black vinyl, six inch heels, show girl make-up, and a blond wig as he traffics ‘freely with angelic forces … Lovecraftian entities’.  A ‘teenage girlfriend’ is mentioned, and while this phrasing may be for effect, it sours the entertainment value of his drug based delusions, making them disturbing and slightly sinister.

Morrison’s references are uncountable in this giant homage to his own genius, and to comic books. He writes himself into his work, ‘part human, part fiction, a Gnostic superhero in PVC, shades and shaved head’ and on any single page, his references are as diverse as the Berlin wall, the Silver Age, modern geek culture, Zen, Margaret Thatcher, The Watchmen, the Wall of Sound, and ‘glasnost and perestroika’. And yet, while talking of the best known comics/music collaboration in pop culture, that between star writer Neil Gaiman and the very literary singer/songwriter Tori Amos, Morrison incorrectly names the song Tear in your Hand as Tear in your Heart. This may seem like nitpicking, but in a book that is so confident in making references outside of its main subject; this does come across as careless.

Grant Morrison is cool. You know he’s cool, he knows he’s cool and yet he still wants to remind you how cool he really is. He ‘fixed’ the Justice League of America, he revamped the X-Men, he added stirred up some very slow burning embers into roaring fires – he seems to have an uncanny ability to make reviewers write like he does. As fun a read as Supergods is, there remains a question at the end: what was the point again?