Grant Morrison- what do you think?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Personally, I'm divided over what I've read of his stuff. I loved his JLA run (full-blown action, epic-level foes, total badass heroes, no angst...yes please!), thought his Animal Man was OK, and found his Doom Patrol run completely and totally incomprehensible, to the point where you read one story, set down the book and yell "WTF?!?" I think I thumbed through some of his X-men once, but I didn't know enough about the continuity to follow everything.

[Brianish]

He tends to outsmart himself on occasion, but he's one of the best minds in the business. His X-Men run was arguably the best ever. (Too bad it was almost immediately disrespected and neutered by the follow-up writers). It's also worth reading even if you don't know the continuity; most information you need is given. If nothing else, you can always count on him to be interesting.

[Shatteredtower]

I'm still most partial to his Doom Patrol run. It got a bit mind boggling in that last year, but then I was recovering from a two-month long illness-induced delirium at the time and not comfortable with more of the same.

Then I read the last four issues and had to go find a quiet place to cry. Reread the whole thing and suddenly it didn't feel quite so unapproachable as a whole.

Even so, my favourite parts are those last few issues, the two Brotherhood of Dada storylines, the story of the Red Shoes, Cliffs journey through the Underground, and the issue featuring the Brain and Monsieur Mallah.

Lines that still haunt me:

"I can't! Feel! Anything!"

"Give me the shoes."

"Dada! Dada! DADA!" (It's not why she's saying it. It's what it must have cost her to have to keep saying it, when you think about her history.)

"Let's go home."

I also found his Rhogan Josh an interesting experiment. I can't say I got it, but I hope they'll eventually let him try more like this.

I don't think Kid Eternity worked out too well for him, though. Arkham Asylum, on the other hand, I found a very good read.

[Invisible Queen]

How come The Invisibles isn't mentioned here? It's his best work, and most important. It's actually changed my entire way of thinking.

I read it before I read any of Morrison's other work, so it might have colored my view of his X-men and JLA et cetera. But I think it's unfair to compare him to any other writer. He does good characters and story and all that when he cares to, but his writing is more about presenting ideas, endlessly fascinating ideas.

To quote, "The Invisibles represents the first scrawled draft of a self-aware manifesto from the future in the form of a madcap spy-fi hypersigil comic book. It was written in states of trance, exhaustion, sickness, fever, intoxication, clarity and joy. Disguised as the seven volumes of The Invisibles series, it lives and breathes our air and looks out at us through the many eyes of those pages. It is alive, willingly captive and demands to be played with, to be stroked and petted and tormented with sticks. It brings power, taboo and strange knowledge."

Well, some of that is advertising fluff, but some of it I think is absolutely true.

[sealemon]

To me, his JLA run was the Avatar of Justice League-ness...everything good about the JLA. He truly brought that title back from the brink of death.

I'm not as familiar with his other work, but what I saw of X Men had me thinking "No WAY any of this is gonna stick...too out there for mainstream." Unfortunatly, I was right.

[Grod_The_Giant]

How come The Invisibles isn't mentioned here? It's his best work, and most important. It's actually changed my entire way of thinking.

that's him? <looks at Wikipedia> Oh, I guess it is. Never saw that before.

sealemon, I fully agree with you. He took a team of some of the most powerful characters in the DCU and wrote tons of amazing stories that were both exciting and challenging without resorting to emotional drama, and showed just how badass every character was, no matter what. I mean, the scene where Superman (in his much-disliked electrical form) moves the goddamed moon with his electromagnetic powers, then goes and wrestles an angel...priceless.

I must say, though, I picked up the ending of his Animal Man run today, and I didn't really like it. Killing the family, then bringing them back just by saying "and it is so, for I am the writer?" Boring.

[Gavin Sage]

The only solo writing of his I have read is his X-men run which I thoroughly loathe beyond the second arc or so. Although a good bit of that is the vomit inducing artwork though, but I think Morrison had a hand in that too somehow. Not all of it was bad, but things like Weapon Plus are a waste of time and bad retconning to boot (OMG Wolverine is Weapon 10 not X what a clever joke!) while showering love on that Mary Sue guy in white. And lets not even get into the Xorneto affair.

However otherwise I hear many many good things and was much a fan of 52 plus found the couple issues of All-Star Superman I read not bad at all.

[Elliot Kane]

Best writer in comics who is not Alan Moore, IMO. Not a lot to add to that, really :)

[Grod_The_Giant]

Best writer in comics who is not Alan Moore, IMO. Not a lot to add to that, really :)

I don't know, Mark Waid's pretty good too.

[Hushdawg]

I think...

Fifty-four Fourty or FIGHT!

[sealemon]

sealemon, I fully agree with you. He took a team of some of the most powerful characters in the DCU and wrote tons of amazing stories that were both exciting and challenging without resorting to emotional drama, and showed just how badass every character was, no matter what. I mean, the scene where Superman (in his much-disliked electrical form) moves the goddamed moon with his electromagnetic powers, then goes and wrestles an angel...priceless.

His Mageddon story arc is one of my favorite tales ever in comics.

the image of Superman inslaved to Mageddon is chilling. The way Batman berates Clark into not giving up is pure awesome. clark's response ("I HATE that voice, Bruce...but it's always there when I need it) summerizes perfectly the reason that Batman and Superman are the world's Finest Team.

And serisouly, has Aquaman been more badass under ANY other writer...EVER?

[Grod_The_Giant]

His Mageddon story arc is one of my favorite tales ever in comics.
Totally. It's what he was building up to for the entire run. His Orion was also, to my mind, perfect in his over-the-top angry dialog.


And serisouly, has Aquaman been more badass under ANY other writer...EVER?
no, and he'll probably never be again. "Well, I can access the part of your brain you evolved from you marine ancestors...and, just for a start, I can make you have a seizure."

[Invisible Queen]

As an aside, Aquaman's age of suckage may be at an end. Go here (http://kleinletters.com/CurrentProjects.html) and look at the third picture from the top. :)

[North]

I think Grant Morrison had one of the best runs ever on JLA. Truly amazing.\

But his Xmen run............. oy vey. Bleeecchhhh

[Elliot Kane]

I don't know, Mark Waid's pretty good too.

There are other good writers in comics, and Waid is certainly up there. Garth Ennis is also a great writer, as are Alan Davis, Joss Whedon, Mike Carey, Fabian Nicieza... There are a lot of good writers in comics.

But for me, Morrison is the closest to Moore, and IMO Moore is the greatest comic writer ever :) Ennis definitely runs Morrison close sometimes, but when it comes to scale AND depth in the same story, Morrison wins out.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I though Waid's Kingdom Come was a pretty good and believable future scenario. The guy who did most of the JSA series (Geoff Johns, I think) was pretty good as well. Nothing beats JLA, though.

[North]

Check out Joss Whedons run on Astonishing X-Men

Bill Willinghams Fables. All of it.

Pure goodness

[Somebloke]

I recall his JLA run. Just about the only time I ever picked up DC.

I stopped reading comics a while ago, but didn't he drag the X-men, kicking and screaming, into the real world?

[Finn Solomon]

I still don't think he should have ranked higher than Neil Gaiman in that poll for the best comic writer ever.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Gaiman's good, but he doesn't do much in the way of classic super-hero comics.

[Invisible Queen]

Maybe there isn't very much to do in the way of classic superhero comics?

I think it was Gaiman who said something about the intetesting thing about Superman isn't that he can crush a mountain with his bare hands, but how that makes him feel, and how sad that no writer ever goes there.

[Finn Solomon]

Gaiman's good, but he doesn't do much in the way of classic super-hero comics.

That can be easily answered in two words (well, one word and a date):

Marvel 1602. Blows anything else Marvel has completely out of the water.

[Gavin Sage]

Marvel 1602 is great fun but isn't quite classic superheroes (to its benefit) nor do I nessecarily think its the best Marvel has. Not to point of blowing others out of the water at least.

That all said Neil Gaiman is the best comic book writer around. Better then Morrison who I know occaisonally pulls some stinkers (New X-men is just ick)

[JohnADreams]

I like both Morrison and Gaiman but they have very different styles.

Morrison throws crazy ideas and madcap plots at you as fast as he can while explaining little, and if you've never heard of the concept he's talking about at the moment, too bad (I'm talking more Invisibles, Doom Patrol, Arkham Asylum here). Personally I like it, but I understand people who want more clarity.

Gaiman makes literary/mythological references all the time, plays with archetypes and does other cool stuff but even if you miss all of that pretentious sophisticated things the plot is easy to follow yet very powerful.

I don't like comparing writers, they're usually not trying to do the same thing with their stories. Personally I feel both Gaiman and Morrison are top of their game.

[Elliot Kane]

Gaiman is very good at what he does, but I'd like to see him do something that did NOT involve mythology. He does what he does incredibly well, but doesn't seem to have an enormous range.

Gaiman is certainly top ten, IMO, but i don't think he's as good as Morrison.

[Thimble]

I think Mr Morrison does truly fine bread-and-potatoes comics. And he does weird... four-dimensional is maybe a description for way everything links together... out-there comics.

I just got through Seven Soldiers of Victory. It was an experience. Reminded me a lot of his early work in 2000AD, actually - had that 'anything goes so long as it's dark' feel.

(There was a cryptic crossword giving away some of the plot. What kind of writer does that??)

[Closet_Skeleton]

(There was a cryptic crossword giving away some of the plot. What kind of writer does that??)

Usually an overindulgant one sadly.