Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

Published 2011 by Spiegle & Grau

Before I get to my own review of Grant Morrison's book, Supergods, I need to say that I have read another review of this book previously, and I found my thoughts on Morrison's work very similar to the reviewer.  To read this review, "Superheroes, Surveyed and Sized Up," by Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times (July 18, 2011), please click on the hot link.

When I finally got to it, I was very excited to dive into Morrison's book.  I had been meaning to read it for some time, but other things kept coming up.  So a few weeks ago, it reached the top of my stack and so I started to read.  I was intrigued by the subtitle, "What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human."  Clearly, this was to be no ordinary history of comic books - though it is that to some degree. Morrison is aiming much higher.  It seems like he is aspiring through this book to become to comics what Joseph Campbell was to myth.  But if that is his goal, he falls short - and not by a little bit, either.

First Appearance of Superman

Roughly, the first third of the book is a summary of the Golden Age of Comics up through the Bronze Age.  It is absolutely riveting.  As a storyteller, Morrison is esteemed company.  He has a way of drawing you in and conveying a sense of newness and urgent importance to something you may have already known - or thought you did.  Morrison's description of the cover of Action Comics #1 is amazing.  I thought I knew all about that cover - that it had nothing new to teach me.  But he deconstructs it, revealing layers of meaning that I had clearly missed.  I won't repeat his exegesis here, but it is certainly worth reading.

I just wish that the entire book had been written like this - a history of modern comics from 1938 to present day and how this medium's myth-making relates to the human condition.  Now that would have been something - that's the book he ought to have written, or tried to write and then found himself lost.

Grant Morrison

I started tuning out in his more biographical sections.  Not that I object to his retelling of the angst of his teen years in Scotland.  Some of it is quite interesting.  But the portions of the book related to his life after he makes his mark in the comic book industry are often very egotistical and self-absorbed.  I was disturbed by his very frank admission to drug experimentation as a means of furthering his creative force.  His recounting of a hallucinogenic, pharmaceutically-induced mystical experience at the foot of Kathmandu is especially tedious and self-involved.  I don't question the importance of his mind-altering pseudo-religious experience to him and his creative process.  As he relates it, it's obviously filled with meaning for him.  But not necessarily for the reader.  And furthermore, it comes across as almost pathetic as he recounts how he tries and fails numerous times to recreate that unique experience.

The last part of the book devolves into a partial history of the modern era in comics and, as the NYT reviewer noted, mere "shout-outs" to his friends and colleagues in the industry.  It could have been - should have been - so much more.

I'm still glad that I read it.  Can I recommend it to others?  It depends on what they are looking for in this book.  I will say this - it is insightful of how the artist's life influences and shapes his writing process.  To read this book is come to some sort of understanding of why Grant Morrison's comics are the way they are - for better and worse.

Peace Out!

Steve Rhodes