Turn Off Your Mind... and Relax with Grant Morrison.

Turn Off Your Mind Relax And Float Down Stream....

(John Lennon 1966)

If there was ever a lyric which describes how you should be before picking up a comic written by Grant Morrison? let this be it…

I read lots of people swooning over his magnificent plot heavy long running issues and loyalty to the characters he writes.

To those people who:

Just. Can’t. See. It.

Or maybe more to the point, just don’t get it?

I am one of those swooners!! For many years now I have had a not so secret crush on Grant Morrison... so last weeks comic shop trip got me all excited as I reached up to the top shelf and pulled down Grant Morrison's recently released book.

Supergods:  Our World In The Age Of The Superhero.

This is more than Grant Morrison's history of superheroes.

The introduction sets the scene of a little boy growing up in Scotland on the edge of the MOD testing station with his anti-war parents.

Then the American armed forces arrived and brought with them a child’s answer to all his fears... the wonderous world of SUPERMAN!

The first part of the book reads very easily, well-researched, very passionate and a very funny look at the start and origin of the major superhero companies and what goes with them in today’s modern society.

After this I feel safe to say that it turns into an autobiography.

We are on Morrison’s trip, and it’s the evolution of superhero comics and how they entwine with Morrison's own evolution of the comics genre...  This book is Grants Morrison’s SECRET ORIGIN!!

The early part of the books superhero history is wonderful! It gives Batman co-creator Bill Finger the well worth due that he deserves and the chapters on Captain Marvel (the Fawcett SHAZAM!-powered original) and Wonder Woman are filled with Morrison insight that I personally thrive off!!

He deconstructs Joe Shuster's cover of the original Action Comics #1 and discusses the issue of creator ownership in the Golden Age very openly and finds a middle ground between the view of the Siegel and Shuster families and the bosses at DC Comics which have been in the news over the last few years.

When talking about Batman, he focuses on his own drug use, due to death-traps and mad scientist villains, a theme that played heavily through the first part of his Batman run…. It reads as a portal into Morrison’s mind.

When we move forward in time to the comic greats such as Denny O'Neil and Jim Starlin the narrative in the book kinda changes and it amalgamtes as you can no longer see the separation of those comic books and  Morrison’s life...

Of course Morrison was a huge reader of  Bronze Age comics.

The book then splits as he talks about Jim Starlin's Captain Marvel whilst being very open  about personal topics like his father's marital infidelity, living on benefits, breaking up with his girlfriend and being unable to find anyone to have sex with him whislt at an all-boys school.

We take a look at Iain Spence's Sekhmet Hypothesis, which sadly is nearly impossible to find online.

This theory is: 

That the eleven-year cycle of the sun's magnetic field influences cultural patterns in the form of a constantly swinging pendulum between "punk" and "hippie" extremes, uppers and downers, materialism and spirituality. 

 This kinda stuff is why I HEART GRANT MORRISON!!!

Now… wait for this:

This hypothesis aligns with Morrison's life…

His experience being straight-edge in the '80s, experimenting with every drug and experience in existence in the '90s, and now new, settled-down, corporate-cool Grant Morrison.

But if this is to be believed Grants solar cycle will be coming to an end this year, as we enter what he posits will be a new psychedelic age.

I hope he’s right… and I hope that even if he is taking a back seat?  he is still on this ride with us?

Towards the end of the book we reach the 90’s and 00’s. For myself, Grants books are one of the only silver linings within the big two comic publishers in this era and he does a very good job at side stepping his own work and contribution he made to this somewhat dreary era of an industry.

This is where we get entertaining and  he enlightens tales of friends and acquaintances. He voices bitterness and regret to the likes of Mark Millar and Alan Moore after Watchmen.

Fun tales of cons with drinking buddies Steve Yeowell and Chris Weston and a Bizzarro!!

Nuff said.

I’m not sure how well this book would stand up to a wider audience as it ties in so closely to his life but if you are a fan, casual reader or hold even a slight interest in the writer or the comics industry this book is a must!

I’ve read it once but feel I need to read it again as just like his comics I’m sure I’ve missed bits.