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Posts tagged Grant Morrison
Looking Up In The Sky With My Mind’s Eye
Sep 20th
A panel from All-Star Superman, with pencils by Frank Quitely and colors by Jamie Grant.
I feel as if I forgot about Superman until I came across Grant Morrison’s interpretation in his All-Star series that debuted in 2005. It crystalized what I loved about this character the first time I saw him racing against a train in Richard Donner’s “Superman: The Movie.” What made the character resonate for me in both was that Morrison and Donner didn’t necessarily reinvent the character. Rather they identified elements that were important about him and explored them. I’m not referring to his powers, which are magnificent of course, but they’re not enough to sustain an emotional journey of a character through a story. It was the character’s humanity. Donner focuses on how Clark Kent grew up and became Superman, while Grant Morrison tells the story of what the Man of Tomorrow does with the last days of his life.
Superman: The Movie (Extended Edition) and Superman II: The Donner Cut
When you watch Superman I and Superman II (The Donner Cut), you may find a superhero comic book movie on the surface, but underneath is the engine of a coming of age story. There’s a moment in the first Superman movie when young Clark Kent is talking with his father after he’s just finished beating a rival schoolmate back to his farm by outrunning a train. He expresses to his father that he’s frustrated because he can do things like kick a football seemingly into orbit. Yet he has to hide his abilities, and stand the ridicule and humiliation of his rival as he drives away with a girl he liked. He’s still that same kid who wants to show off all of the wonderful things he can do when he’s standing before his other father, Jor-El, telling him about the feats he did in his first night as Superman. Jor-El tells him he understands how good it felt to do this, and acknowledges his son’s vanity. He doesn’t judge him for it. Clark doesn’t yet understand consequences, though. When faced with the possibility of a life without Lois Lane after trying to stop two rockets, he turns back time. He can fix anything, that Superman can.
Yet again Clark is still that same kid from Smallville when he’s standing before Jor-El in the Donner Cut of Superman II, complaining about the unfairness of not being able to have what he wants. He doesn’t wish to be alone, another essential human quality Donner focuses on that drives Clark’s choices. A life with the companionship of Lois Lane is possible now, if only he weren’t Superman. Yet he’s warned that there will be consequences if he gives up being Superman.
(SPOILER ALERT, in case you’ve never seen Donner’s Cut)
He discovers those consequences when he returns, powerless, to his fortress to beg his father to restore his powers, which his father does. At a price. If you’ve never seen the Superman movies, you must know that crystals are a key component of his Fortress of Solitude. All of the knowledge of his civilization is stored in these crystals, including the artificial duplicate of Jor-el he speaks with. Jor-el tells his son that restoring his powers will wipe out the remaining energy in the main crystal, rendering it inert. They will never speak again, and Clark will have essentially lost his connection to a second father. There is a poignant scene towards the end, the one in which I feel demonstrates the complete arc of Clark’s growth. He stands looking at the Fortress of Solitude from a distance, with Lois Lane behind him. Without saying a single word he destroys the Fortress of Solitude. It’s a lifeless structure, and he lets go of it. Is it an act of acceptance and letting go, therefore a sign of maturity? I think so.
There is one warning I have to give you about the Donner cut, though. For those who aren’t familiar with the film and its history, a lot of key scenes were never filmed. This included an ending to the movie. When faced with the option of using the ending filmed by Donner’s replacement Richard Lester or simply recycling the ending from the first movie where Superman turns back time again, the latter was chosen. Yes, it does betray the thematic arc of the story. Therefore, I prefer to leave the movie at an earlier scene. It’s one where Superman has brought Lois back to her apartment, and she stands crying because she knows they can’t be together. And she also knows who he is and it will break her heart to see him every day at work but never be able to reach out to him. She asks if she got the man she wanted, and he affirms it. Then they part ways. I say I prefer to leave the movie at this point rather than continue on to the next sequence because what are our heroes and the lessons they learn if they can simply wipe away the lesson as if it never happened?
(End SPOILER)
All-Star Superman
Superman saves the day one more time only to discover that doing so has killed him. What you find in the stories that follow this discovery is an introspective Superman, taking the measure of his life and focusing on what is important to him. There are so many things to settle, decides The Man of Steel. There is his affection for Lois Lane. There is the question that haunts him: what will happen to the human race without a Superman? How can he save the day from beyond the grave? He asks himself what a world without a Superman would be like? (And I might add that it’s an inpspired approach he takes to find out the answer to this in the latter half of the series, made possible by the realms of speculative fiction.)
In trying to find the next Superman he turns to Lex Luthor, telling him in the guise of Clark Kent that Superman and him could have done great things together. In trying to reach out to his greatest enemy, a man who can cure cancer with a cell phone and a safety pin, he finds it’s not Luthor that is his greatest foe. It is Luthor’s ego.
Yet there has to be a way. “There’s always a way,” as he reminds himself numerous times throughout the series. Even when he finds himself powerless and trapped on a planet, slowly being crushed by the heightened gravity around him and trying to find a way to communicate with a race that doesn’t quite speak his language, he still tells himself there’s a way. Even when his final hours are approaching and he reflects on how much he’s accomplished and yet how much more he has to do, there’s still away.
All-Star Superman is essentially Everyman meets Superman. Grant Morrison’s choice to have Superman face his mortality and decide what he values in his life also allows us to have a set of stories that incapsulate why the character has been around for so many decades. I found some of these stories moving, such as the one that explores an episode with his father, Jonathan Kent, from Superman’s days in Smallville when he was Superboy.
After looking up
I think about all of this and come to wonder if perhaps it’s not Superman that is my first love? Perhaps it’s the hero’s quest and coming of age, as I look at other stories I’ve come to love over the years. I think about Huckleberry Finn torn between what he feels is right and what he’s been told is right when it comes to the matter of rescuing the slave Jim and learning to make up his own mind. Or Gilgamesh, seeking out the secrets of immortality after the death of his friend, Ekindu. Perhaps it’s myth? Maybe it’s all of it. Superman was first, though.
Of Gods and Men of Tomorrow (Abridged): Thoughts on DC Comics’ FINAL CRISIS
Jul 17th
Cover artwork for Final Crisis #4
Grant Morrison should not be constrained. He called Final Crisis his ‘magnum opus,’ and if you stand back and simply look at the story, you would have to agree that was his intention. A story about the fight for either existence or non-existence. There is time travel. There is inter-dimensional travel. There are gods and deicide and even the sky cracking in limbo. However, the story reads like an abridged edition of an epic I wanted to enjoy. Even with the series being printed with extra pages per issue, character development is still rushed. Morrison cuts from scene to scene very quickly, which is something that can be used to affect a reader when working with a smaller cast. This is not a small cast, though. The DC Universe is replete with characters, each with their own complex and interwoven mythologies. I’ll admit I’m more of a casual fan of the DC Universe and, therefore, many of the character references didn’t register with me. Yet it’s not the history of these characters that I need to be familiar with, as far as who they fought in what issue and so forth. Morrison is also known for inserting mind-bending concepts into his work. It’s a difficult balance to strike between character and plot development, as well as finding room for concepts such as “quantum superposition used defensively.”
There is an issue that focuses on the “Tattooed Man” and “Black Lightning.” The former is a “villain” and the latter is a “superhero.” There are chases and action in the issue, yet the main focus is the interaction between these two characters and their views on themselves and on one another. The Tattooed Man holds a prejudice against superheroes. He’s been wrongly incarcerated. He reflects on this and his treatment by the superhero community. “Black Lightning” confronts these views and the narrative focuses on two men with different points of view trying to communicate with one another. The action doesn’t always upstage them. The series is at its best when the characters aren’t upstaged by the plot and the action and the need to fit all of this in a set number pages, and instead are allowed to breathe. Then they are allowed to affect us.
There were times where I wanted more of this. I wanted to be more invested in these characters and, therefore, be able to fully experience and enjoy all of Grant Morrison’s work. Perhaps there’s an expanded edition out there? That’s wishful thinking, I know. I also know Grant Morrison is capable of delivering this kind of experience to a reader. His run on X-Men was over thirty issues. His All Star Superman series about what the last son of Krypton decides to do with the last year of his life affected me in a way I didn’t expect. It made me remember who Superman was and why I cared about what happened to him when I was a kid. Final Crisis could have used more room for a man like Grant Morrison, with so much coming out of his mind.
3/5 - Might be worth a try...
Review: Batman and Robin
Jun 17th
I am a fan of Grant Morrison’s work. I thought his run on X-Men a few years back was exceptional. In essence, he took a book that was becoming somewhat derivative of itself and turned everything on its head, he made something old, new again. I did not, however, care for his recent run on Batman in the least bit. Batman R.I.P. was a story line that just simply didn’t resonate with me. It seemed contrived to some extent like it was simply going through the paces to get Batman dead. The Aftermath however is something completely different.