REVIEW: Supergods

Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us about Being Human.

Written by Grant Morrison

First published in 2012

Supergods

·         The whole of the work is Grant Morrison’s summary of the Golden Age, Silver Age, Dark Age and Renaissance of American comics, with his personal history and life-changing experiences interlaced with the narrative starting with the Silver Age/Dark Age.

·         A minor detail is that Grant Morrison overlooked that Mary Marvel mistakenly says “Captain Marvel” like Captain Marvel Jr. to become a hero, when she also says “Shazam” like Billy Batson except it’s to invoke goddesses for powers instead of gods like Captain Marvel.

·         A lot of American comics’ writers seem to be British by the influences that Grant Morrison states helped shaped American comics by the Dark Age.

·         He includes his details on his interpersonal relationship with the characters Animal Man and Superman, who are real people to him that happen to live in the DC Universe.

·         Periodically, Morrison includes pictures to tell his commentary, like the cover of Action #1 which he commentates on how people may react to seeing Superman for the first time during the early days of the Golden Age.

·         Jack Kirby is a consistent influence to Grant Morrison given his constant praise of Kirby’s creations showing up in his commentary or how cosmic comic events are constantly linked to Kirby by Morrison.

·         Morrison also happens to be responsible for a good number of Final Crisis and Countdown, which I happen to not very much, which he sees as art which I mostly vary in agreement save for the end of Final Crisis and the characters fighting the blank of the screen, ie their Armageddon.

·         Morrison also includes “real life superhero” phenomenon of real people in his final statements of both the original and paperback versions of Supergods. He uses this as justification that heroes are amongst us and how the line between fantastic heroic flare and real life is blurring. However, given my own knowledge of real life superheroes I don’t completely agree with this as real life superheroes do not necessarily help real causes as much.

·         Morrison includes a good number of Mark Millar titles to talk of the Dark Age and Renaissance where heroes are seen in a negative light. This may have been due to their previous friendship which let Morrison view his work more.

·         Despite talking of a good number about American comics, Morrison left out Will Eisner’s The Spirit in his book, who I see just as influential as Jack Kirby in using comics as an art medium.

·         The paperback book included commentary on Astro City and the Reeve’s Superman movie that were left out in the original print. Both were really good though I knew all the information of them already.

·         Overall, Morrison’s book Supergods was very informative of the history and culture of Comics. I would compare it to be the Sophie’s World of the Comic world, where as we go down the life of Morrison ‘s quest to becoming the known comics writer he is today do we also learn of the complete history of American comics and how it changed the more than half a century American hero comics have been around.

Bibliography

Morrison, Grant. Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us about Being Human. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2012. Print.

REVIEW: We3

We3

Written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Frank Quitely

First published in 2004

We3

·         We3 centers around three pets who were turned into tools of war (I called them Cybermats from Doctor Who) with their wills in place. They are a bunny,  a cat and a dog (the dog being our focus for the story)

·         The beginning panels were minimalist in story telling (like the experimental comics that artists like Art Spiegelman work on) and conveyed the animalistic snapshots of conscious that the pets went through just doing things without dialogue.

·         The animals themselves have minimal cognitive processes though they do have a will that drove them in the story to leave the facility that is trying to kill them.

·         The fact that this series shows animals being used as military weapons could be a critique in itself about animal rights and the status of strays in the United States.

·         The only good humans in the comic are the Doctor who tested on them, who want to redeem her by getting the animals safe from the military, and the homeless guy who didn’t overreact to the dogs being weird and in fact was sympathetic that humans have been testing on them. The cat and the dog survive by the end to be in the care of the homeless man.

·         Despite the fact that we are supposed to sympathize with the animals, they do kill soldiers and people who want to get at them in the story. This may have been focused as being part of their conditioning as tools of war as opposed to their own sadistic sense of survival, as opposed to the humans who see them as game to shoot and kill for the sake of pay.

·         Had this series been in based in real life, PETA would have been all against the actions of the government using animals as drones of war, which is ironic given PETA’s own controversial stance on politics in the real world.

·         The animals show cunning by the end by getting rid of their armor and rigging it with bombs so as to blow up the soldiers getting at them. This is contrary to their animalistic tendencies and instincts that they had in the beginning of the series so this may convey growth of the characters.

·         The politician tried his best to cover up the bad things he has done to animals in the series, which ended up with him losing his credentials by the end.

·         The dog seems to be a strong moral character given his loyalty to innocent humans and those who don’t treat him horribly.

·         Overall, the story was okay for me. As I am used to Grant Morrison work redefining a concept, like All Star Superman, I was expecting to see a redefinition of how pets with mechanical powers could be seen. However, this was not the case with this work. However, it was an enjoyable read and I do recommend it to others.

Bibliography

Morrison, Grant, and Frank Quitely. WE3. New York: DC Comics, 2005. Print.