Grant-Morrison

By this time, long-time readers of Comic POW! will know that I have been exploring pulp comic storytelling via Dynamite’s offerings. As the main deal-makers with many of the rights holders of the old pulp characters, Dynamite is leading the way in neo-pulp in comics. So far I’ve really been enjoying Gail Simone’s run on Red Sonja. However, of course she’d be able to do justice to strong female characters with her pedigree on Women in Fridges (the website) and lauded runs on Birds of Prey and Secret Six (among other titles). What would happen with a campy vamp (in both senses of the word) written by one of my favorite writers (Grant Morrison) and a writer that just as often rubs me the wrong way as the right way (Mark Millar) in which they teamed up on the script? They didn’t go in the same direction as Red Sonja in which she had a less ridiculous outfit within the comic, but that’s OK (while not the best possibility). What I didn’t like about the main story, and perhaps it’s an effect of the way the story was collected, is that it appeared quite disjointed. It went from Vampirella trying to save a mob boss from vampires to being accompanied by a wannabe vampire hunter. Additionally, if this girl can easily fight vampires after like a month of training - just how hard are these vampires to fight, anyway? Overall, it appears they just wanted to create an action romp and there’s nothing wrong with that, but with these guys as the writers I was expecting something groundbreaking in the mythos - especially with how interested in these types of things Grant Morrison tends to be. Instead we got the same tired refrain - the head vampire is Judas Iscariot.

Grant Morrison can be a tough read. His comics are almost always filled with metaphors, allusions, references, and Easter eggs. Sometimes this works masterfully like his run on Batman and Robin Vol 1. Sometimes it falls flat like his run on Action Comics Vol 2. Other times, like his run on Batman Vol 1 or Batman Inc Vols 1 and 2, it contains individual stories that are great, but fails to achieve a cohesive whole. I feel that Joe the Barbarian has most of Morrison’s best attributes and only a few of his weaknesses.

Continuing from a few weeks ago, here are a slew of comics Image Comics will be releasing in 2014. Nameless Nameless All Image released was the above image and that it will be written by Grant Morrison with art by Chris Burnham. However, I loved their work on Batman Incorporated, so I look forward to this. Nailbiter Nailbiter This series is neither my cup of tea nor do I recognize the creators, so I’m going to go with Image’s press release: ...

Superman has been the subject of countless papers and books exploring what is so compelling about this alien super hero. Interestingly, as comics have become more sophisticated, it’s become harder and harder to write a good Superman story that encompasses all that makes him great. Oh, I’d argue it’s not much harder to write a compelling origin story. Mark Waid’s Superman: Birthright, which I wrote about here, is a pretty good indication of what Superman’s appearance in our world might look like. Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics Vol 2 also gave us a good look at how Superman might work to use his working man convictions to do as Superman what the justice system was failing to do. But I think what makes Superman so hard to grow as a character is his ability to maintain his “blue boyscout” ethics in the face of all he deals with. It’s an accusation that would be easy to levy on Batman except that his writers have had a succession of boy (and girl) wonders in the Robin role to evolve Batman emotionally. (Even if it took until Batman and Robin Vol 2 for him to stop grieving his parents and start celebrating their legacy) In a nutshell, there’s no reason why Superman’s time growing up in Smallville should make him perpetually maintain those values. There are tons of people who move from the countryside to the big city. Very few of them maintain their small town views. Everything is changed, even just a little. We often use platitudes like Superman seeing the best in humanity and, therefore, being above the pettiness, but I find no reason why this should be the case. So what might it be like if Superman actually existed in the real world? Well, two different authors have explored that in two very different ways.

Even if you don’t read DC comics or are uninterested in the Batman family, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of Batman Incorporated. The fourteen-issue series, which wrapped up at the end of July, made big waves in late February when Damian Wayne, the most recent Robin, was killed. The series serves as Grant Morrison’s farewell to Batman comics, and unlike a lot of Batman fans, I say good riddance. ...

A fairly good week for my pull list. Lots of great comics rivaling The Defenders for this week’s POW! Most, if not all, of the links are out to Comic Vine. X-23 #18 Action Comics #4 - Grant Morrison goes back to a Golden Age (or is it a Silver Age?) story about Braniac bottling up various planets. In the original story it allowed Superman a way to go back home. We’ll see where Grant Morrison goes with it since he usually takes stuff from the old days and then gives it a twist. X-23 #18 - X-23’s attempts to keep the Richards kids continues to spiral out of control. We also get some great moments of emotional growth for X-23 that really make me sad that Marjorie Liu is losing this title. X-23’s remained emotionally stunted for years (decades?) in our real life timeline and Liu has really done great things with her! Amazing Spider-Man #675 - The Vulture arc ratchets up. I’m not 100% sure where things go from here, but it’s nice to see Spidey and Carlie able to work together in the service of fighting crime. X-Men Vol 3 #22 - The International action continues! Action!! A good guilty pleasure! X-Factor #228 ...