To say I love Grant Morrison is an understatement. I am a fanboy for Mr. Morrison in that sad way that makes me call him Mr. Morrison. Morrison’s Batman and Final Crisis #1 came out my first week buying weekly comics. It didn’t make diddly sense, but I knew I liked it.
There is an undercurrent to Grant Morrison’s work that is lost on most people, one that I will go into later in an article I’m working on. It concerns the conspiratorial line of research that oozes throughout his titles, especially specific works such as The Invisibles, The Filth, and lesser known works such as Dan Dare and St. Swithen’s Day. If you know what to look for, the crowning of the Moon Child, anointed to conquer the British throne in a Satanic ritual of lunar alignments and overworld emperors, can seem completely normal, almost passe in retrospect. The whole notion of the universe as a hologram, something that is snuck into a lot of his work (and something that will play a big part later when discussing Morrison’s strange life) actually relies on one untaped incident that only Terence McKenna saw. Nothing new here. It’s almost as if my whole life of reading off-beat alternative physics manuals, Nazi Occult history, and comic books led me right into the Grant Morrison Kool-Aid cup.
The crowning jewel of my comic book collection will be every Grant Morrison work in some type of official manner, original floppy issue is possible. The holy grail is of course Near Myths, a short-lived sci-fi magazine published in the late 70‘s that housed Morrison’s first work, which included art from the rockstar writer. I’ve only seen these on EBay three times, each time priced at an insane amount. This year the gates opened and I happened to find mismarked, original copies of these for the ‘ello!
Now you may say ”but Steve, why not just download it and read the scans?” and I actually have downloaded theses issues, but I never read them. There’s something about holding that original paper, the crispy brown, musky ink that flowed from the Leader’s mind. I damn near sacrificed a chicken to do a ritual and raise Morrison’s stolen soul (more on that later), but I’m a vegetarian, largely because of Morrison’s Animal Man (but not exclusively, I’m not a TOTAL fanboy like that).
The Near Myths stories are in four issues, #2-5. #2 has the five-page story “Time is a Four Letter Word. #3 started a seven-page Gideon Stargrave trilogy that was expanded to fourteen pages in #4. #5 had an eleven page story called “The Checkmate Man.” They are of varying degrees of semblence but each holds clues to the stories that would, dare I say it, explode from the mind of Morrison. Let’s take a look at each one individually.
Near Myths #2 - Time is a Four Letter Word
Before I started writing this I did a quick Google Search to see if anyone had reviewed these yet, all I found was some very petty jabbing and teasing. I don’t understand the revulsion at the first published work from who is one of the most experimental comic minds in history. I would like to think that, as comic book fans, we not only come back for the expressive art and unique, outsider science fiction plots, but we can spot ingenuity early on and appreciate it’s growth. ‘Time is a Four Lettered Word’ is a very fun exercise in spotting the future trends, themes, and all around Morrisoniness that would redefine the Justice League for the new millenium between acid trips.
The comic opens with a bare-chested Celtic woman posing in front of Stonehenge while a Native American warrior looks on. The hilarious, over-the-top combination of two indigenous peoples trampled by the British are a classic Morrison cue: shoving the past in your face with straight, blunt symbolism. The scene is filled with dialogue referring to “The Corn and the Mother”, Pagan history Morrison is all too familiar with. “I HAVE COME FROM CERNE ABBAS AND YNIS WYTRIN, FROM ABIRI AND THE GREEN PLAINS.” Sounds like our bald headed savior to me.
This first page is also notable for a very strange dialogue trick I can’t remember seeing outside of Morrison work, and that is a dialogue balloon fading out, only to rise in someone else’s mouth. Our Native American warrior’s explanation of the crisis in time fades out (I was convinced the old ink had faded), reappearing in a futuristic (for 1979) 1982, with a suave bartender explaining to a sexy harlett, in laughably revealing leather, that a chronal overspill is going to doom them all. The panels are wide and strong but also compressed for storytelling in the middle. The warrior’s hand explodes off the page as he points at the reader while the paneling on the right is jagged and off-center. Some page layouts are very reminiscent of the way J.H. Williams commands a page now, trying to toy with the reader’s expectation of where to look next, a way to juggle time between scenes to create a sense of immediacy.
If someone handed me this randomly, I believe I could spot this as a Morrison work from a mile away.
The comic continues in the same manner, characters popping out of nowhere, imposing their importance next to a growing cast. A tale of imploding existence across many timelines (where have we heard that before?) unravels and it is revealed our saviors traveling through time have collected too much energy and will destroy the present (yes, you read that right). The book is ambitious and compressed, but is it good?
When commenting on Detective Comics #27, Batman’s first appearance, Morrison said “I’ve read it a few times and I still don’t know what it’s really about.” I would say the same thing about ‘Time,’. It starts simple enough, time is breaking down, Native American warriors are at Stone Henge with topless women, I get that, but it tumbles to it’s end, bringing far too many concepts for five pages. I understand the twist at the end, but I can’t quite figure out who the woman in leather is, why the woman in the lake is as important as she appears to be, or how the build up of chronal energy occurred in the first place.
The art is ambitious, but a bit overdone. The paneling, with it’s diagonal lines and exploding character poses, seems unnecessary and distracting at best, confusing at worst. His characters show some basic emotion and his women, though locked in the era, have a certain sex-appeal, but it is Morrison’s backgrounds that really shine. Lush forests and dark, ritualistic sites between space look equally gorgeous and well worked. There is obviously a lot of thought and design put into these scenes and placing the characters in them. It is a bit of a shame we never had a chance to see this type of work go any further.
As a whole the first story is definitely entertaining if for nothing else than to experience how bizarre Morrison could make a story so early on. With every force of the pen, Morrison lunged for the brass ring. He didn’t quite make it, but for the writer he is, I don’t think there’s anything inherently “awful” about this in the least and I can think of a dozen high profile comics this year that are way worse.
Tomorrow we’ll go into Near Myths #3, the first story featuring future Invisibles player, Gideon Stargrave!
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