Book 1
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Frank Quitely, Ethan Van Sciver and Leinil Francis Yu
2011
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Book 2
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Ethan Van Sciver, Igor Kordey and Frank Quitely
2011
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Book 3
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Frank Quitely, Ethan Van Sciver and Igor Kordey
2011
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Book 4
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by John Paul Leon, Igor Kordey, Phil Jimenez and Ethan Van Sciver
2011
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Book 5
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Frank Quitely and Keron Grant
2011
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
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Book 6
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Phil Jimenez and Chris Bachalo
2011
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
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Book 7
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Phil Jimenez
2011
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
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Book 8
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Marc Silvestri
2011
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
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Yeah - I'd been waiting a long to read these babies.
It basically all began when I saw Joss Whedon's name on the front cover of a X-Men book (I'm guessing this was Vol 1 of his run on the X-Men - so what was that called: Gifted?). I mean - as a kid I guess that I always kinda liked the X-Men (didn't they have a cartoon or something? I seem to remember a cartoon...) but in terms of actually bothering to pick up a comic of them and read it from beginning to end? Yeah - not so much... But like I said - it said Joss Whedon - and although I wasn't really any sort of Joss Whedon fanboy - I thought what the hey - I may as well try it out - right? (And I'm guessing I was just about to go on a tea-break and didn't have anything else lined up to read... but I dunno for sure).
But yeah - it was good. It was fun and funny and exciting and well-written and beautifully drawn - and - well - yeah - just cool all round I guess: so I got the next volume and the next - and basically just read the whole series in about a week... (Have you read them? Well - you should: trust me on this)
Sometime after that - I can't remember how or where it was exactly that I found out (but I think I must have read it somewhere on the interwebs) that Whedon's X-Men run was preceded by this big infamous Grant Morrison run called (enticingly enough): The New X-Men. And it wasn't some little thing either - apparently while it was beginning published it was No. 1 in comic book sales charts (I didn't even know that comic books had sales charts - but what they hey) and -well - yeah - it was the place where Grant Morrison went from being that oddball Doom Patrol / Animal Man / The Invisibles strange guy with the cult following into - well - the Grant Morrison with the massive popular following [1] that everyone on the internet now seems to have it in for [2].
But - hell yeah - from the sounds of it: it seemed like it was the perfect reading experience: a series that I already loved from Whedon's go - mixed in with the craziness of Grant Morrison - but tied to something that wouldn't let him get too crazy (I don't really like Morrison when he gets too crazy). Plus - there was apparently lots of Frank Quitely mixed in there too - and that's always someone who seems to bring out the best in Grant Morrison's work - and makes his trips to the extremes that much more comprehensible (which - you know - is always to the good). In fact - if I had to describe what I was expecting from these books - I'd have to say - the same kind of thing that Grant and Frank managed on All Star Superman - a kinda supreme summing up of the whole X-Men legend in a grand, transcendental multi-layered story that managed to be both fun and intelligent, exciting and thoughtful, easy-going and experimental: All Star X-Men basically [3] - and yeah - for me at least - it was the final Grant Morrison epic that I hadn't yet got round to - it's like if you were a Stanley Kubrick fan and you'd never seen Lolita (that reminds me: I should watch Lolita): so it's not really like your expectations are high ("oooh man - I hope that this is gonna be good!") - it's more like you just assume that you're going to be great ("I mean - come on: obviously.") - I mean - you're dealing with the best of the best - right?
Well - yeah - right. Except (you knew there was gonna be an "except" right?) - I dunno. As much fun as I had reading all eight books - I must say by the time I reached the end I was feeling - well - I guess I felt a little let down. Don't get me wrong: there is some amazing stuff inside these books and especially (surprise surprise) all the stuff that Frank Quitely does [4] but all-in-all - I guess the build-up couldn't quite match the actuality: I guess if I had to try and sum up what I felt was lacking - it's almost as if (oh irony) Morrison doesn't really let himself off the reins and - well - doesn't go crazy enough [5].
I mean - yeah - it is pretty wild and crazy so - you know - it's not just superheroes - but alien superheroes, it's not just Sentinels - but Super Sentinels and (at the end) it's not just America - but Megamerica. And seeing how there's a pretty strong argument to make that The Invisibles - well let's say utilized that kinda misfit outsider team dynamic that the X-Men has always done so well (and - yeah - I'm guessing people already know the story about how the Doom Patrol was created at the same time as the X-Men [6]?)and so - yeah - I got a bit of a kick seeing the kind of things Morrison could get up to now he managed to get his grubby hands on the source rather than having to deal with offshoots: a bit like seeing someone graduate from writing fan-fiction to dealing with the real thing [7]: so yeah that was kinda cool (especially when it had Phil Jimenez doing the art - seeing how he did The Invisibles: Bloody Hell in America (oh: and a few storylines too I think...)). And I really liked Ethan Van Sciver - who had this whole groovy Chris Weston thing going on (I don't know how to properly describe - but it's almost like there's a - erm - jerkiness - in the figures - and I mean that in a good way: although I guess it doesn't sound like it...hmmm. It feels like I really need to start to develop my vocabulary when it comes to describing people's artwork - maybe I should read some art criticism books or something like that? I dunno). Plus I guess since we're talking abut artists: Book 8 is drawn by Marc Silvestri - which doesn't really mean anything to me - but I think he's like a big deal or something [8].
And - well - yeah: Morrison is always good with the nice little one-liners ("I know, it sometimes seems like everyone wants to be a persecuted minority these days.") and (ha) it's pretty funny seeing his preconceptions bubbling across the surface of his books [9].
But - hey - if you haven't had the joy yet: you really should. It's got Wolverine and his claws and Beast and action and adventure and all the rest of it: and it's very much a cut above nearly all the other superhero bumf [10] out there - sadly: it won't change your world or cure the blind nor heal the sick: but - hey - it's comics. You know - for kids.
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[1] MorrisonCon anyone?
[2] I think I've linked to this before somewhere - but what the hell: "It’s my fault, of course. I believed the hype. I believed in what Grant Morrison said and wrote, so I just set myself up for disappointment. Judging by this interview, what I should have done, were I not a weary cynic ready to burn down the temple (“the temple!”), was to assume that Morrison was just a cog in the machine and not take him so seriously, I guess. But the thing is, I’m not a weary cynic. I’m a fan. I’m a fan who followed Morrison’s writings in comics and elsewhere, looking for and generally receiving knowledge jewels or great laughs. I’m not a cynic or critic that’s just aching to throw a sacred cow on the rack. I’m disappointed that the persona this guy sold me was a smokescreen, and that the real guy is someone I disagree with on a lot of different things. I feel played, if anything. Later in the interview, Morrison says that he “still feel[s] the same way I do about the monarchy, the class system, about everything I’ve ever written, about everything I will write.” Word? We don’t believe you." And that's coming from the same writer who wrote that Grant Morrison's New X-Men was so good that it Ruined the X-Men: "Grant Morrison made the X-Men grown-up. He eschewed stereotypical supervillain stories until the tail end of his run, and even those stories were layered with a depth of character and nuance that kept them above generic megalomania."
[3] I guess in order to properly get that All Star Superman effect it would have to be a X-Men story that existed outside proper continuity - but having said that: Morrison has managed to pull off that kind of bug-eyed, widescreen craziness with his Batman run - so I guess the X-Men was sorta a trial run as he discovered all the ins-and-outs and worked out just how to make a monthly mainstream comic book work in the way that matched all his strengths as a writer.
[4] Special mention going to Book 2's Nuff Said wordless issue ("'Nuff Said" being a little experiment Marvel tried out across all their titles where the challenge was to see if the writers and artists could pull off a whole issue without the use of any word ballons - obviously Grant Morrison got a whiff of this concept and then preceded to turn in a trippy-dreamy-trip-through-someone's-mind-type-thing that ended up kinda reminding me at least of Jean Giraud (note to self: try and get some Moebius books for Islington).
[5] When I read Seaguy - I was flicking through some stuff online and checking out what people had said and I found a few references here and there (normally I would give you the links - but - hey - it's been a long day at work and I can't really be bothered to go search - so sorry: you're just going to have to take my word for it): but apparently the exuberant wackiness of Seaguy came about from the build-up of pressure of Marvel head office (or whatever) shooting down Morrison's more outré ideas for the New X-Men which - damn - just makes me think: what would an uncensored version of this series have looked like? (And does anyone know specifically what ideas didn't make the cut? Because - frankly - I kinda dying to find out...).
[6] Point: "The Doom Patrol, which debuted in comics three months before everybody's favorite, more marketable mutants. Unlike the X-Men, the Doom Patrollers were once normal people who suffered an accident that disfigured them but also gave them superpowers. Shunned by the world for just being plain ugly, the freaks were gathered by Doctor Caulder, a paraplegic, who thought that maybe the world wouldn't dislike them so much if they used their powers to save the normal people's asses from giant robots once in a while.If this sounds somewhat familiar to you, it's because the same thing as X-Men with the only difference that the smart guy in the wheelchair was bald in one and X-Men uses mutants as an allegory for minorities instead of people with elephantiasis or whatever the heck Doom Patrol was going for." / Counter-point: "As Don Markstein and others have stated previously, the production lag makes it highly unlikely that The Doom Patrol influenced the creation of the X-Men. Stan Lee would had to have been told about the concept well before My Greatest Adventures #80 hit the stands. (Plus, Doom Patrol/X-Men certainly isn’t the only coincidence in concept and timing: See The Red Tornado/The Vision and Man-Thing/Swamp Thing.)That point is certainly open to speculation — Doom Patrol co-creator Arnold Drake certainly thought Marvel had ripped off the idea — but it doesn’t amount to proof."
[7] Is there an example of that happening anywhere? The only one I can think of is in music with Judas Priest and Timothy S. "Ripper" Owens (he started out in a Judas Priest covers band - and then - ended up as the actual lead singer in Judas Priest: it's true - they even made a film about it with Mark Wahlberg).
[8] A quick google tells me that: "Silvestri began his career drawing issues for DC Comics and First Comics, but rose as a star at Marvel Comics, and is best known as one penciller of Uncanny X-Men between 1987 and 1990. He then spent two years pencilling its spin-off title Wolverine. In 1992, Silvestri became one of the original seven artists — along with Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Rob Liefeld, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane and Jim Valentino — to form the breakaway comics company Image Comics. He currently acts as the CEO for Top Cow Productions."
[9] I won't list all the instances of it: but let's just say that he definitely has a thing about stars (I'm guessing it's because they're so epic and stuff (and if you don't believe me: well - go and read All Star Superman) and - a big big thing about corporations (I thought that I would save that little insight until Islington got a copy of Batman Incorporated but what the hey): I kinda noticed it in the first few books of New X-Men and - well - let's just say it gets a lot more pronounced as it goes along... And it's something that strikes me as - well - a little bit funny especially seeing how the way he deals with multi-conglomerates-internationals (or whatever) has changed from The Invisibles (where there's that whole bit about the City of London resting built upon a lake of "blood and sweat and shit") and Marvel Boy (hell - just go and read Marvel Boy already) into something - well - a lot more benign - which coincidentally (?) - also follows his rise from King Mob aka Mr Counterculture into - well - a more of a corporate lackey (I mean - I've already linked to lots of anti-Morrison stuff already - but what they hey: here's Tucker Stone: "But wait: if DC Comics is a temple, what does that make Grant Morrison, MBE, as one of the authors of its infallible proclamations (i.e. that comic where Superman sings at a 3D space-vampire)? Is he a High Priest of the Temple, pontiff anointed first among equals? Do we bow? Or salute? If Morrison turns out to be both a knight and a priest, under the rules of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, does that technically make him a paladin? Does he get +3 on his saving throws if confronted by an advanced Dungeon or a slightly less advanced Dragon? If I have a gelatinous cube problem, hypothetically located at or about the scrotum region, could he recommend a good paladin or penicillin? And in this rarefied papal bureaucracy that Sir Morrison has ascended through, by virtue of having written Howard Porter comics, what does that make you or I, the lowly pox-ridden serfs who tithe every odd Wednesday? What is our lot in life, the templegoers, but worship, reverence, obedience?"
[10] "Bumf" Origin: 1885–90; short for bumfodder.
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Links: 4th Letter Article: Grant Morrison Ruined the X-Men, I Am NOT the Beastmaster Article: New X-Men: Fanboy Style / New X-Men: Here Comes Tomorrow, Graphic Content: Raymond Chandler's Twelve Notes on the Mystery Story: New X-Men - Murder at the Mansion (Part One) / (Part Two).
Further reading: X-Men: Astonishing X-Men, Transmetropolitan, Marvel Boy, Seven Soldiers of Victory, Superman: All Star Superman, Ultimate X-Men, The Invisibles, Batman: Batman Incorporated.
Profiles: Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely.
All comments welcome.
