The Subtle Insanity of Grant Morrison’s Worlds

I’ve been reading a lot of Grant Morrison – All Star Superman, Doom Patrol and I’ll be working on reading everything else. Morrison has this great ability, almost comparable to Kirby, to just toss out these intensely understandable but dark ideas. I am currently reading through Doom Patrol and he’s had three otherworldly armies invade the planet with forces that man is not meant to deal with from the Scissor Men to the Cult of the Unwritten Book and probably more after that. (I know there are but I’ll avoid spoilers and I’m honestly in a rush to get an article for today.

 

But here is an example:

From Doom Patrol Volume 2 #32

In half a page you get two insane monsters, Whispering Jack and the Weeping Blades – and these don’t even fall far down the line of crazy – and they never show up again. This sort of creativity is fascinating to me. The ability to toss out concepts with depth, treat them lightly and then to keep on doing it over and over. If I remember correctly in Supergods, a lot of this came from drug inspiration and Morrison’s own nightmares and that is even more fascinating, what this might say about Morrison’s psyche. Or what he is on.

I think giving Morrison this unbound freedom is a fascinating concept and here it pays off so well.

Luke Herr

Luke is a writer and an aspiring professional comic writer who is also the editor in chief of Nerdcenaries. He currently is working on a graphic novel called Prison Spaceship.