I posted about Brad Meltzer’s Justice League recently, so I thought I’d go back and reread some of the Grant Morrison run on the title and see how that holds up.
The first volume, “New World Order” — in which the JLA fights a bunch of evil, shape-shifting super-powered Martians — is uneven. The big strike against it is the drawing. Even by mainstream standards, Howard Porter is a shockingly bad artist. I think he’s trying to be influenced by manga, maybe, but jeez, what a disaster. It looks like someone vomited slick primary colors all over a bunch of spastic mannikins. And that’s not even mentioning the layout; all overlapping panels, slapped down almost at random. Really, who gave this guy a job? Blech.
Grant Morrison’s script is a lot better than that, though it has its troubles too. Basically, there’s a certain amount of “hooooo-boy, the League is sure cool isn’t it?” which grows awfully tedious awfully quickly. In that vein, too, there’s a certain amount of telling-not-showing how awesome everyone is. Batman talks at one point about what a tactical genius the Martian Manhunter is, for example, but there’s not really anything in the comic — or indeed, in any comic I’ve seen — that backs that up. Flash mutters to himself about the need to come up with some super-clever tactic to defeat his super-fast, military genius opponent… but in the end he subdues the bad guy by running really fast and hitting him. Also the plot doesn’t entirely hang together. When did the Manhunter switch places with the bad guy, anyway? And why are none of the super-heroes affected by the Martian mind-control? And having character after character realize that they’re fighting Martians (who can be defeated with fire) is a little clunky. And the last scenes, in which the people of earth are inspired by Superman to fight the Martians by lighting pieces of paper and holding them over their heads and looking really serious, as if the entire world has been transformed into one multi-ethnic Rush concert…well, it’s not Morrison’s best moment, let’s say.
Still, it’s not all bad. Morrison is clearly having a ton of fun with the Batman-as-snarky-unstoppable-force, sneering at all the wimpy super-powered whiners around him. This reached a reductio ad absurdum in All Star Batman and Robin, of course, but when it’s played slightly more subtly, as here, it can be entertaining. The panel where Bats wanders in dragging a heap of Martians behind him as Green Lantern (the Kyle Rainer one) mutters, ”only four, Batman? you’re slowing down.” is probably my favorite bit in the book…followed closely by Aquaman declaring, “the sea is my responsibility!” and Wonder Woman immediately informing him that he’s a pompous blowhard.
The thing is, though, that they’re all kind of pompous blowhards. Morrison’s JLA is, by design, invincible — they’re more super than super, more cosmic than the cosmos, they’re just undefeatably, unstoppably awesome. The series is over-inflated; so pumped up it’s ready to pop. There’s certainly a kind of enjoyment in it; it’s fun to see sparks flying and non-stop action and bombastic titanicness. But you lose something too — it’s hard for the heroes to really seem all that heroic, basically. For example, Metamorpho (who I guess was in the previous incarnation of the team) sacrifice’s himself in a desperate effort to save Nuclon and some girl with ice powers; you get to really see him sweat doing it, too — in the way the Lee/Ditko/Romero Spider-Man would really sweat. He’s falling from outer space and trying to make teflon coating, but he can’t figure out how the polymer chains works. He seems like he doesn’t have all the answers, and it makes him extremely sympathetic.
Morrison’s core JLA team, on the other hand, is always not just triumphant but triumphal. Whether it’s Kyle nattering on about how amazing Wonder Woman is, or everybody talking about how great Superman is, the self-congratulation floats about as thickly as locker-room miasma. It’s this insular, clubhouse aura that is the bane of super-hero comics today; Morrison’s super-heroes are, basically, super-fans. You can see why this appeals to the real life super-fans, of course. And you can also see why everyone else on earth was indecently eager to side with the Martians.
You know, you should really read the JLA before the Morrison run started, when Nuklon (spelled with a K, do your research) and Metamorpho were on the team. You’ll understand how much good the Grant Morrison run is. It is a lot of that, good, that it is A LOT.
Oh for goodness sake. I really, really don’t care how Nuklon or Nuclon or Nuqlon is spelled. And I’m not grading on a curve, so the badness of the previous run isn’t likely to influence me.
I liked stuff about the Morrison run. It gets better, I think. I may blog about it next week. Or not; we’ll see how things go.
I found the Morrison run to be at its best when everyone shut up and just started smashing stuff and wrestling with angels. Characterization was pretty flat for most of the big names, and the plots were nonsensical at times, but Morrison was great at distracting readers with lots of shiny superhero craziness.
I also agree with the basic points in your post, especially Porter’s artwork. It eliminates any desire I might have to re-read this run.
I don’t know if JLA gets better as the series progresses, just bigger. The same basic formula used in New World Order is applied to progressively larger threats with each story arc in Morrison’s run. In each case, the JLA handles the problem with relative ease.
I can’t recall if Porter’s layouts settle down, but I think his likenesses became more consistent. Unlike a lot of super hero books, I never felt the art got in the way of telling the story. Hardly a ringing endorsement for Howard Porter, but for me, JLA is about the writing. Morrison has a gift for the high concept and is not above poking fun at the original source material. Also, there’s something satisfying about reading a story when it’s clear that the author had fun writing it.
Your point about the insular clubhouse aura feeling is interesting. I always thought that Morrison deliberately used that tone, along with some over-the-top dialog, as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the original Silver Age stories.
Bryan’s right about the clubhouse feeling being intentional. There’s a great bit in a later story where Aquaman warns Orion that he’s going to put in a formal complaint about that big mean dog of his. You wouldn’t think that the Justice League would have a human resources ombudsman, would you?
Just because it’s intentional doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a good idea, alas. That Aquaman quip was pretty funny though.
Morrison’s JLA was the comic that made me realize how monumentally stupid superhero comics are. For me, it felt like the whole thing was one big hand job by Morrison. It was all, “Look how cool Superman is! And Batman’s the coolest! I love him!” It lacked any and all characterization and pacing and was just a mess. Oddly enough, if it wasn’t for Millar basically mocking Morrison’s approach in every comic he’s ever written, I don’t think I would have ever come back to comics at all.
Kenny’s opinion illustrates one problem with today’s super hero comics. Taken at face value, JLA can be seen as a mess, with shallow characters and plots built on feet of clay. Only if you have read 40 years worth of JLA do you get a full sense of the history and irony that Morrison employs in JLA. I think this is one of Noah’s big beefs with DC and Marvel.
I still think the book was fun and worthwhile on its own merits, but I don’t know if a new comic book reader would enjoy JLA as much as I did. I remember chuckling when Morrison had the new Shaggy Man undergo a full body depilation because he was employed by the military. Would the uninitiated find that funny? I’m leaning towards probably not.
“Depilation”. That’s a great word.
This is the problem with all of Morrison’s work, post Animal Man, I would say (even the Invisibles to some degree). It always feels like he’s rushing from one thing to the next…No time is ever given to real characterization or in patiently setting up plot points. Such superhero comics don’t tend to be very deep intellectually or philosophically, it’s nice when someone spends the time to construct a coherent plot and to reveal something interesting psychologically about the characters. Yes, Morrison’s JLA was pretty “cool” (and the art never bothered me one way or the other), but you always felt like parts of the story were left out or forgotten in the pell-mell dash to get from point A to point B. The same happens in Morrison’s Batman run and even All-Star Superman. There is characterization and plot development in these stories, but you always feel like something important has been omitted because of time/space constraints. Why this would be when every storyline lasts forever is beyond me. I still like Morrison (and his JLA run), esp. the Rock of Ages story (which really didn’t make much sense), but Morrison has just become more and more of a fanboy over the years. Much of the fun of Animal Man was in his “not very super, ordinary Joe” status (and in the metacomics stuff, and in the discussion of animal rights issues…and in the critique of violence of any kind, etc.). When it’s just about being cool and “comic book history” with no interest in “real life” it all seems in the service of nothing in particular. I’m a big Grant Morrison fan in some ways, but some of it is the weakness of the competition.
I read the first couple issues of Meltzer’s JLA and couldn’t go on…That’s some really bad stuff there…and I kind of enjoyed Identity Crisis.
Actually, Morrison’s run on X-Men kind of escaped some of the traps he sets for himself in JLA. Characterization and plot are more coherent. The art varied from decent to horrible though
I haven’t read those comics since they came out, but
1) I thought Howard Porter’s art worked the same way Jim Mooney’s worked in the original Omega series. That sounds like a clever argument rather than a real point, I know, but I’ll stand behind it.
2) you have to remember the time it came out; Morrison was basically tugging the pre-millennium armageddon fear chain over and over and over and over and over again. And then he would thwart the armageddon with these cartoon icons over and over, etc. I think there’s some power to that.
3) you also have to remember the time in comics that this came out, when the comic book series weren’t solely event-oriented as much as they were just as invested in the details of their giant, sprawling, boring-ass soap operas. There’s an appealing don’t-give-a-shit attitude invested in the relentless hugeness of JLA, a Ramones-like return to basic beats and over the top idiocy. It even overwhelms the intrusions of that stupidity. Superman has electric powers? Okay — he’s still Superman! Batman being the strongest one there is played as both totally serious AND totally comedic. There’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s both stupid and awesome. Superhero comic books work best that way, JLA seems to say.
All the comics that have come sense seem to have taken the serious side of that stuff but not the funny side, to their detriment.
Hey Eric! I agree; pacing seems to be the big thing Morrison lost somewhere between his first couple of books and everything else.(Unless Seven Soldiers is better…? Though the bits I looked at still seemed rushed.)
Though I agree with Tom, too…there’s a lot of fun to be had in JLA. But…what do you think of Jeff Parker, Tom? It seems to me like he really manages to get a lot of the good stuff from Morrison’s JLA run (the silliness, the awesomeness of the stupidity, the witty dialogue) without the crappy pacing and the dumbfoolery….
I think the Ramones is definitely the wrong comparison, though. It’s much more classic over-the-top, decadent rock opera — Rush, or something. Which is why technical competence would be a really big plus. He needed a grandiose, all-the-trappings artist; P. Craig Russell would be perfect. But when your goofy over-the-top epic is so pedestrianly ugly…it’s really a problem.
Oh, and I wanted to tell you, Tom, that your comment on the 100 Bullets Beat thread was hysterical. You won.
Yeah, that Ramones thing doesn’t work — it’s not a description of the quality of the work I’m going for, but the reconnection to the feel of the past, but if you combined them I guess that makes Grant Morrison Jeff Lynne.
Actually, music comparisons suck when people who know music make them, let alone when I try. So let’s just slowly walk away before I start making Monte Video and Buccaneer jokes.
I haven’t read much of Parker’s work other than Agents of Atlas, but I thought that worked in a very different way than most of Morrison’s comics.
Getting mad at someone because they wrote a review you think is crappy seems weird and ungenerous to me, that’s all I wanted to say. If I wrote a review someone out there thought was retarded all that means is it must be Tuesday.