Grant Morrison: Supergods
Sep. 17th, 2011 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustI don't know why I expected Supergods to be abstract, mystical, demented: the subtitle, perhaps, which is "Our world in the age of the superhero" (the subtitle of the US edition is "Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us about Being Human", which is catchy but equally unhelpful); or maybe just that it's by Grant Morrison, who is capable of being all those things. I didn't determine never to read it, but nor did I rush out to buy a copy: fortunately ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
samarcand is made of sterner stuff, and he loaned me his.
It turns out to be not so much "Our world in the age of the superhero" as "The superhero is my age of the world", a history of superheroes run in parallel with an autobiography. Modestly, the acknowledgments describe the book as originating in the desire to pull together a number of interviews on the subject of superheroes, "enlivened by new material" - this could easily be a ragbag of celebrity journalism, but the double chronological narrative holds everything together in one neat structure. The autobiography could be summarised as: When Grant was a little boy he read comics; when he grew up, he wrote them; but by counterpoint phases in the development of superheroes and the phases of his own life, Morrison allows each to illuminate the other.
His analysis is perceptive, opinionated, persuasive - up to a point. More than once I thought: yes, this selection of examples support this thesis. But no doubt a different selection of examples would support a different thesis. It is the work of a creative writer, not a critic, let alone a historian - and it's all the more entertaining for that (which isn't to deny that it is sometimes very illuminating, too). It's also surprisingly generous, more concerned to identify the best writers and artists of each period, and what was good about the comics they produced, than to sneer at approaches which have gone out of fashion.
Then again, it can be hard to tell. I suspect that this assessment is not entirely favourable:
Towards the end the structure slackens a bit. It's easy to spot the main trends and important moments of fifty years ago, less easy to pick out which of the things that happened last week will continue to matter. At the same time, Morrison moves from one strand of his narrative to the other: no longer one of us, just another reader, he becomes a creator of supergods, shaping the natures he is describing to us. I wouldn't want him not to talk about his own work, but a certain amount of feedback results.
samarcand is made of sterner stuff, and he loaned me his.It turns out to be not so much "Our world in the age of the superhero" as "The superhero is my age of the world", a history of superheroes run in parallel with an autobiography. Modestly, the acknowledgments describe the book as originating in the desire to pull together a number of interviews on the subject of superheroes, "enlivened by new material" - this could easily be a ragbag of celebrity journalism, but the double chronological narrative holds everything together in one neat structure. The autobiography could be summarised as: When Grant was a little boy he read comics; when he grew up, he wrote them; but by counterpoint phases in the development of superheroes and the phases of his own life, Morrison allows each to illuminate the other.
His analysis is perceptive, opinionated, persuasive - up to a point. More than once I thought: yes, this selection of examples support this thesis. But no doubt a different selection of examples would support a different thesis. It is the work of a creative writer, not a critic, let alone a historian - and it's all the more entertaining for that (which isn't to deny that it is sometimes very illuminating, too). It's also surprisingly generous, more concerned to identify the best writers and artists of each period, and what was good about the comics they produced, than to sneer at approaches which have gone out of fashion.
Then again, it can be hard to tell. I suspect that this assessment is not entirely favourable:
Todd McFarlane's art was the sound of heavy metal rendered into jagged lines and claustrophobic verticals. Spawn's immense crackling cape echoed the crazed storm of webs surrounding McFarlane's stylized depiction of Spider-Man for Marvel. McFarlane pages offered full-size images, two-panel spreads. His writing strained like a team of rabid huskies against the leash of the English language.but the assassin's blade flashes so elegantly that the target is dead before it knows it is wounded. The writing is this good all the way through, a constant delight.
Towards the end the structure slackens a bit. It's easy to spot the main trends and important moments of fifty years ago, less easy to pick out which of the things that happened last week will continue to matter. At the same time, Morrison moves from one strand of his narrative to the other: no longer one of us, just another reader, he becomes a creator of supergods, shaping the natures he is describing to us. I wouldn't want him not to talk about his own work, but a certain amount of feedback results.
