Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Super Gods

Author: Grant Morrison
Stars: 2
Review by: MandyApgar

After selling comics since '88 I can say that Morrison is a lot like James Cameron - every so often he comes up with something brilliant, but more so people just scratch their heads afterwards and wonder what the devil he was thinking. He's somewhat of a rogue curiosity in the field, a writer for Batman, X Men, and various other books including several series of his own creation and with many awards to his credit. So he can be good. This is not him being good however. The first half nearly of the book is an account of the early years of comics, focusing on the period of heavy censorship from child protection groups up to and around the 50s. It has been told often, and better, before. Mostly in "The 10 cent plague," which he mentions frequently. Read that instead. As Morrison being himself, he has a tendency to tell things as he sees it - which is to simply not present things that run counter to his viewpoint. It is not lying per se, but it isn't telling the truth. After the censorship period the book becomes mostly a biography of his career, self serving of course. He will spend pages and pages on his work and influences (the much better Alan Moore among them) but conveniently ignore his own problems. Like when he began writing New X Men almost 15 years ago and soon after became widely credited with almost wrecking the entire series. (Having one beloved character effectively commit suicide so her husband can be with his mistress without guilt, etc.) He mentions that he did the project and glosses over its poor reception, but that is all. No in depth analysis like his successes.
 

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