So, I've decided, in the interest of writing something every day, this blog needs a project. Something to keep me coming back every single day, and which will be interesting to me, if no one else. So, I've decided that, every day for the next 59 days, I'm going to be discussing, reviewing, and analyzing one issue of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles.
For those who don't know, The Invisibles is a comic series, published by Vertigo from 1994 until 1999. Morrison started on it after finishing his run on Doom Patrol (a team of crippled people, led by a crippled man, fighting crippled villains - Morrison didn't invent that premise, he just realized how weird it was), and it still probably stands as his magnum opus. Morrison is best known these days for playing in other people's sandbox - New X-Men, All-Star Superman, Final Crisis, Batman - finding new, weird, inventive spins on existing characters. The Invisibles is its own universe, and that means that it's a place where Grant can get really, really weird.
On the surface, The Invisibles is the story of good vs. evil, about finding enlightenment. At times, it mimics the structure of Campbell's Hero's Journey and magical initiation. Up on the surface, it's pulp - kick-ass bald men with guns and fetish masks shooting horrifying monsters that want to cut off your dick and rape your brain.
That's just the suit it's wearing, though, the mold it's been poured into. Quoting GM in the column at the back of the first issue:
"- a comic about everything: action, philosophy, paranoia, sex, magic, biography, travel, drugs, religion, UFOs... you can make your own list."
Disclaimer: I'm not a professional reviewer. I'm not even a particularly GOOD reviewer. But I love this book, and I wanted to examine why. These posts may be inaccurate, stupid, completely wrong. But here goes. Down the rabbithole.
...And so we return and begin again.
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