A bit of a no-brainer to make this post, eh?
Start with Animal Man 1-26 where he took a pretty ordinary character and gave us compelling stories, culminating with one of the most shocking and sad moments in comics. Then the great look at the aftermath and reaction that most people would likely have if that had happened to them. Definitely not your typical superhero fare.
Move forward several years to JLA. His handling of this super-team was second only to Keith Giffen's in the modern era. And it's not like the two are all that far apart in my mind. I just prefer the Giffen version. But Morrison again took some established, traditional, and (at the time) kinda boring characters and made them interesting and relevant again.
Then top it off with New X-Men.
If there was any comic book that I DIDN'T like, it was the X-Men. Never really read Uncanny X-Men, no interest in Ultimate X-Men. I'll politely pass on Wein/Cockrum, Claremont/Byrne, Claremont/any artist. Outside of the Stan Lee and Neal Adams issues, the X-books just didn't interest me.
And yet, there I was happily reading New X-Men and loving it. Some X-motifs were recast in new and interesting ways. Xavier walks. Scott Summers steps out - Cyclops/Jean Gray, Cyclops/White Witch. Cassandra Nova...Xavier has a sister?? And - best of all - no stupid crossovers with the other X-titles!
I knew it was good when I found out that my X-Men loving, Marvel Zombie buddy kept telling me that it wasn't the "real" X-Men. You know what? It should be the "real" X-Men! Or...perhaps not. Well - it was new and interesting to me. Maybe that explains why I was not upset by it as X-Men fans were.
Now Grant Morrison is writing Batman - and it's great! He starts with the "Son of Batman" story - a sequel to the excellent Mike W. Barr/Jerry Bingham "Son of the Demon" graphic novel (which really is a graphic novel!) - and keeps going from there. I really liked the Judd Winick run, and it remains to be seen how the Morrison run will stack up. If the past is any indication, it will stack up well indeed. He's off to a great start thus far.
Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention other Grant Morrison works such as Sebastian O, Skrull Kill Krew, Invisibles, Kid Eternity, Doom Patrol, Seven Soldiers of Victory, We3, Marvel Boy, Fantastic Four: 1234, Zenith (2000AD), Aztek and All-Star Superman (which is so much better than Frank Miller's All-Star Batman, it isn't even funny).
I'm sure there are some other Morrison works I'm omitting, but this is a pretty good list. So go out and find some Morrison issues. Amazingly, you'll be able to find some in the dollar boxes. You can get some really good stuff from these boxes.
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3 comments:
While admitting to being a bit of a neophyte on Grant Morrison, and also to liking the Batman stuff, I will take exception to the stuff about X-men.
It could be argued that what some would call "trite X-motifs" are actually established patterns of behavior from characters that many fans hae come to know and love. Scott being in love with Jean GrEy, not the White Queen, is the most telling example of that. So a new writer comes in and "shreds" some of the central facets of a group of characters and he is doing good work?
Xavier walking is not new and I can't even comment on the "twin sister." He should've just made it a clone.
If a fan of the book for years suddenly feels like it's not the "real" X-men, that probably says something.....like popular isn't always bad. Or good writing is breathing something new into a title without changing the basis of the characters. Or if you totally change a successful book you will probably lose the readers who made it sucessful, as he did with me.
I hate crossovers between books as much as any old school fan, but it probably hard to crossover books when one guys is writing about different characters than the rest of the writing team. If he wanted to create a new book, copy exactly the characters from X-men, place them into the situations that he did, and package them as the "Authoritative Ultimately Supreme Mutant People," he probably would've made a ton of money and not alientated X-men fans.
Or maybe I'm just bitter because I don't like the artwork that went along with most of the run...
Interesting points all. Thanks for making a comment. I did state that I am relatively unfamiliar with the bulk of X-history, so I will freely admit that my comments are based solely on my reading of the New X-Men version. (oh - and I did change the wording of "trite X-motifs" as I agree that was a bit out of bounds).
As for making Cassanra Nova a clone...as a fan of Spider-Man I cannot support that. Better to have revisionist history in my mind.
The artwork is an interesting thing. I don't care all that much for Quitely either. I remember reading that Morrison had issues with Marvel because of the art changes. That was funny to me, as Quitely was Morrison's chosen guy and he was (apparently) unable to meet the deadlines. I would have liked to see Trevor Hairsine on these issues, but he's as deadline bad as Quitely.
And I'm probably just a bitter Spider-Man fan who resented all the attention that the X-books got over the Spider-Man books.
Quietly is one of my least favorite artists...everyone looks like their skin has cellulite. I do seem to recall that Silvestri did three or four issues in there too, but it was set 150 years into the future and seemed totally incomprehensible. The Beast was the arch villan, for god sake. Really not sure what Morrison (if it was him)was doin' there, but I do remember liking that art.
On a kinder note, I think he is doing some great stuff with "Son of Batman." I am really hoping that the kid IS Batman's son and not some kind of scam. I seem to remember that "Son of the Demon" was "Elseworld"-esque for continuity purposes....Jerry Bingham was doing an awesome Neal Adams at that point....
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