Grant Morrison: I still don't get it

[Mass Nerder]

I know I'll probably be band from the board for saying this but I was just wondering if anyone else felt this way. Everything he seems to write most people love but to be honest the only he's ever done that I truly loved was his revamp of JLA in the 90's. I didn't care that much for New X-Men, I hated All-Star Superman, I hate Batman RIP, Batman and Robin is "ah" at best and Final Crisis I hated but how can I be expected to like something when I had no idea what the hell was going on. So up until this point I've given him a chance because so many people rave about him. Also I guess the thing I really didn't like about All Star Superman was that it was just weird for the sake of being weird. I know most people will disagree and I respect everyone's opinion, I'm just giving mine and wondering if anyone else felt this way.
Also I would be very interested in reading Batman Inc. if it weren't him writing it. Well anyway, if anyone agrees please feel free to post why and if you disagree (and I know MANY of you do) please tell me why he is the genius you believe he is. Maybe I'm just over looking something.

 

[Majik1387]

While I don't consider him a genius, I found his New X-Men run pretty refreshing to the point that I started reading comics again. His other stuff, bleh.

 

[The Question]

I know I'll probably be band from the board for saying this but I was just wondering if anyone else felt this way. Everything he seems to write most people love but to be honest the only he's ever done that I truly loved was his revamp of JLA in the 90's. I didn't care that much for New X-Men, I hated All-Star Superman, I hate Batman RIP, Batman and Robin is "ah" at best and Final Crisis I hated but how can I be expected to like something when I had no idea what the hell was going on. So up until this point I've given him a chance because so many people rave about him. Also I guess the thing I really didn't like about All Star Superman was that it was just weird for the sake of being weird. I know most people will disagree and I respect everyone's opinion, I'm just giving mine and wondering if anyone else felt this way.
Also I would be very interested in reading Batman Inc. if it weren't him writing it. Well anyway, if anyone agrees please feel free to post why and if you disagree (and I know MANY of you do) please tell me why he is the genius you believe he is. Maybe I'm just over looking something.

I don't know about most people, but I'm not a fan of his for his mainstream stuff (although I do like some of it). I'm a fan of his for stuff like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, We3, The Invisibles, stuff like that.

Of his mainstream work, I am a fan of JLA, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth, parts of New X-Men, and I do enjoy All-Star Superman but not as much as everyone else (I find the idea of a work's theme being the impact a fictional character has on a fictional world to be too abstract to be a worthwhile theme, although some of the plot and characterization are quite good). But yeah, it's really his non-mainstream stuff that's the best.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Well, I consider him one of the best writers in the industry. Probably not number two, like I'm sure many do, but easily within the top 10, almost definitely within the top 5 on top of that.

However, I can understand how some people aren't into him, especially some of his later stuff. I don't look down on you for not 'getting it', so to speak.

 

[Mass Nerder]

I don't know about most people, but I'm not a fan of his for his mainstream stuff (although I do like some of it). I'm a fan of his for stuff like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, We3, The Invisibles, stuff like that.

Of his mainstream work, I am a fan of JLA, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth, parts of New X-Men, and I do enjoy All-Star Superman but not as much as everyone else (I find the idea of a work's theme being the impact a fictional character has on a fictional world to be too abstract to be a worthwhile theme, although some of the plot and characterization are quite good). But yeah, it's really his non-mainstream stuff that's the best.

Okay the only non main stream stuff of his I read was We3. While the concept is cool and creepy at the same time I just thought the book was, again, weird for the sake of being weird.
Despite everything I've said about him I would actually put his JLA run in my top ten books ever made. That's the Grant Morrison I know and love.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Well, to be fair, I really don't see how you could have done We3 without it being pretty damn weird. I mean, stray pets taken in and made into mechanized weapons? How do you do something like that 'normally'? By definition, that kind of has to be a fairly bizarre concept.

 

[The Batman]

No offense, but Its annoying any time someone goes "I dont get why everyone likes so and so and i dont!" Thats like me asking why some people are into fat chicks because i happen to like stick figures. People just have their tastes.

 

[CConn]

I think like a lot of creators Morrison is VERY good at what he does; being weird, crazy, inventive, etc. But that's a double edged sword. Because if you make things TOO weird and crazy (which he has done multiple times), the start turning into things that...well, just aren't that good.

That said, for me, he still has a pretty good track record. I loved JLA, Animal Man, Arkham Asylum, Batman and Robin, All Star Superman, New X-Men, etc. While really Final Crisis and Batman: RIP are the only things that I haven't been a big fan of from him.

 

[Tron Bonne]

I think like a lot of creators Morrison is VERY good at what he does; being weird, crazy, inventive, etc. But that's a double edged sword. Because if you make things TOO weird and crazy (which he has done multiple times), the start turning into things that...well, just aren't that good.

I think a lot of people agree with you. Most of his creator owned work that he goes off the chain with tend not to sell well at all. I tend to like those myself (The Invisibles, The Filth, etc.), but I can just imagine a lot of people's faces when they look over those pages:

Spoiler

Something to that degree, I imagine.

 

[SuperFerret]

I enjoy most of what I've read from Morrison, and he's actually been an influence on my writing, but I'm not going to say that he's faultless. He is one of my favorite writers though.

 

[Iron Man]

I'm not a huge fan of Morrison's. His work on Batman has been hit-or-miss for me (although mostly hits thus far), I found most of his run on New X-Men too silly or just too weird (the whole evil fetus twin thing still makes me frown to this day), and Final Crisis...well, I wasn't really a fan. Superman shattering Darkseid's spirit by pitching his voice to a certain tenor is one of the zaniest things I've ever read in comics, and not in a good way.

That said, I have enjoyed most of his Batman stuff, as I said, and I also love JLA and All-Star Superman to the extent that I almost automatically compare current JLA/Superman stories against them as a kind of quality control

 

[The Question]

Okay the only non main stream stuff of his I read was We3. While the concept is cool and creepy at the same time I just thought the book was, again, weird for the sake of being weird.
Despite everything I've said about him I would actually put his JLA run in my top ten books ever made. That's the Grant Morrison I know and love.

What was "weird" about it that wasn't necessary for the story to be told? And why was it a bad thing?

 

[fifthfiend]

Nerder, you're kind of right that some of Morrison's work absolutely is "weird for the sake of being weird". That's exactly the point of what he's doing, and what a lot of people enjoy about it. Lex Luthor building um... a sentient sonic doom-weapon out of spare parts he scrounged up around a prison is a weird idea done for no real reason other than that it's a weird, crazy idea, and that's why people enjoy it.

Other things in his comics are weird for the sake of whatever actual point he's legitimately trying to make by being weird, so it all sort of depends, and you're not really going to pick up on any of that as long as you're blanket-dismissing things for being weird.

THAT SAID personally there's a lot of Morrison's work I don't like and TBH I tend to like him less when he's weird for the sake of making a point about something so I'm not gonna fault anyone else for disliking him.

 

[Frankenmation]

I get why others don't like Morrison but I think he's great, personally. I might be a bit biased in the sense that I like the absurd and the ludicrously fantastic, so essentially his work is pretty much everything that I want in a comic.

Obviously, not everything that's he's done is great but that's the case with most writers anyways.

 

[The Sage]

Batman R.I.P. was okay to me, but now I think about it more when I link it to what's happening in Batman & Robin, just how each story is connected in the overall arc.

My favorite Morrison work is All-Star Superman, probably the best Superman story I've ever read.

 

[SuperFerret]

Animal Man is my favorite Morrison work, and what made me such a fan of his in the first place.

 

[yenaled]

I adore Grant Morrison.

If you think creativity and imagination are a bad thing then maybe don't read his comics. He's not perfect; Kid Eternity, Batman & Son, Return of Ras, his Spawn stuff, his WildCATS & The Authority reboots all aren't very good.

But Animal Man, Doom Patrol, DC 1,000,000,000, All Star Superman, Seaguy, We3, The Filth, Seven Soldiers of Victory, Batman RIP, Final Crisis, Batman & Robin, JLA, The Invisibles, Arkham Asylum, The Mystery Play, Flex Mentallo, Marvel Boy, Aztek, Joe the Barbarian, Sebastian O, Earth 2, New X-Men, The Flash & The New Adventures of Hitler... I probably could go on actually.

He's been a prolific writer for more than two decades in mainstream comics. If you don't get it, then yes you are missing something.

And this will come across as me being a bit of an arse but I don't really understand why people constantly ask to be talked into Grant Morrison, it doesn't happen with anything else I'm into but with Grant Morrison it's like you're constantly asked to talk people into reading his stuff. It's very odd.

 

[GlasgowBat]

Grant Morrison is, for me, the best writer in comics right now. I really love his stuff.

So, there you go.

 

[Frankenmation]

I adore Grant Morrison.

If you think creativity and imagination are a bad thing then maybe don't read his comics. He's not perfect; Kid Eternity, Batman & Son, Return of Ras, his Spawn stuff, his WildCATS & The Authority reboots all aren't very good.

But Animal Man, Doom Patrol, DC 1,000,000,000, All Star Superman, Seaguy, We3, The Filth, Seven Soldiers of Victory, Batman RIP, Final Crisis, Batman & Robin, JLA, The Invisibles, Arkham Asylum, The Mystery Play, Flex Mentallo, Marvel Boy, Aztek, Joe the Barbarian, Sebastian O, Earth 2, New X-Men, The Flash & The New Adventures of Hitler... I probably could go on actually.

He's been a prolific writer for more than two decades in mainstream comics. If you don't get it, then yes you are missing something.

And this will come across as me being a bit of an arse but I don't really understand why people constantly ask to be talked into Grant Morrison, it doesn't happen with anything else I'm into but with Grant Morrison it's like you're constantly asked to talk people into reading his stuff. It's very odd.

Best. Post. Evar.

 

[8Diagrams(WU)]

He has good ideas for sure. I think he may operate his storytelling on a level that just gets too confusing that it becomes difficult to follow. Batman RIP is only starting to make sense now.

 

[WompuM]

Here's my feelings on Morrison. It's not an easy read, at all. And this is part of the reason I like him so much. Every panel I don't understand has some root in DC Comics history. I appreciate this, immensely. He has such a knowledge and appreciation of continuity that he uses it to his advantage, hard. This is unlike Geoff Johns, who acknowledges continuity but twists it to fit his story to where the meaning of the original is lost.

Now, honestly, my favorite part of Morrison's works are the annotations. In such an age where all the info is so readily available through blogs, wikipedia, etc., there's no reason not to reasearch his stories and find out something about a character, say Batman, that you never knew before. It makes me a more knowledgeable, well read, comic reader.

 

[GlasgowBat]

^this is also true. Goes back to one of my favourite things about his writing; it operates on so many levels, there's always something there, underneath. Wether it's DC history, classical Greek literature, Folk tales, or obscure tarot card references such as we have now in ROBW.

A truly in-depth experience.

 

[Ipodman]

I love his All Star Superman and Batman and Robin... but the other stuff like Final Crisis, RIP, and the two issue missing RIP thing is just too confusing. Esp since im not that familiar with the DC universe anyway

 

[Paste Pot Pete]

I haven't been a big fan of Morrison's Batman run because, frankly, his writing makes me feel really, really stupid.

I'm pretty embarrassed to admit that, but it's better than just accusing him of being a hack writer, which I know he isn't. I just...don't get it. I still buy every issue, but I have to read it 3 times over to understand it.

At first it really pissed me off, and I assumed it must have been his fault. I mean, this has never happened to me before! I'm a reasonably smart, well-read guy. I've read Dostoevsky (for class, but still, heh). But Morrison...reads like Greek to me.

It's very frustrating, because Batman is my favorite character. I really want to read Batman, Inc when it starts, because I think it's a great concept, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit intimidated by it. And I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting my money, because I'm not getting all that I can out of reading a book that, more often than not, baffles me.

 

[Tron Bonne]

I haven't been a big fan of Morrison's Batman run because, frankly, his writing makes me feel really, really stupid.

I'm pretty embarrassed to admit that, but it's better than just accusing him of being a hack writer, which I know he isn't. I just...don't get it. I still buy every issue, but I have to read it 3 times over to understand it.

At first it really pissed me off, and I assumed it must have been his fault. I mean, this has never happened to me before! I'm a reasonably smart, well-read guy. I've read Dostoevsky (for class, but still, heh). But Morrison...reads like Greek to me.

It's very frustrating, because Batman is my favorite character. I really want to read Batman, Inc when it starts, because I think it's a great concept, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit intimidated by it. And I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting my money, because I'm not getting all that I can out of reading a book that, more often than not, baffles me.

Oh, well, that won't help you with following and adjusting to Morrison's writing much. These are probably the kind of guys that might be something more along the lines of how Morrison writes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_K_Dick