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Underground > Comic Books >

Morrison's best comic run?

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04:41 / 26.10.03

What do you guys think is Morrison's best monthly run? Here are the choices:
1. Animal Man
2. Doom Patrol
3. The Invisibles
4. JLA
5. New X-Men

Let me know if I forgot any. Pick away!

07:05 / 26.10.03

Animal Man.

For two reasons.

Coyote Gospel & Deus Ex Machina.

Haven't read 2. because it hasn't been collected and I'm too poor to hunt down the series.

Invisibles is a close second.

07:57 / 26.10.03

Skrull Kill Krew? Flash? Did he co-write both of these with his then Padawan Learner Mark Millar? Can't really think of any other runs he did right now.

08:00 / 26.10.03

Invisibles is my favorite but Animal Man is really good too, I just haven't been able to get all the issues or the trade yet.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:21 / 26.10.03

Zenith, dammit. Zenith.

09:25 / 26.10.03

what about DARE?

yawn - thing's buddy

10:05 / 26.10.03

zenith is STILL the benchmark.

A real modern classic.

nuff said.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

13:35 / 26.10.03

For me, as the old school fanboy, I would have to say my favorite monthly run of his was JLA. Invisibles was the Best, but art problems kept me from enjoying it as much as I want to, and it was hard to read at times, as it challenged the reader, the form and the nature of comic book storytelling itself.

JLA took all of the best stuff he'd done before, wrapped it in a pleasing super-hero wrapper and showed that Big Fight books don't have to be stupid. It was also amazingly entertaining. It came out at the same time as The Authority was trying to be the BIG BOOK, but really just ratcheting up the body count...JLA proved you could do big stories in someone else's playground without destroying it.

Besides, Morrison is the first person to understand the potential of Kirby's New Gods.

yawn - thing's buddy

14:33 / 26.10.03

if you were a REAL old school fanboy, you'd realise Zenith to be the true trainspotter's choice.

Ah mean, the Broons in a concentration camp for fucks sake.

Beat that, jimmy.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

14:45 / 26.10.03

Zenith?

I'm still waiting for it here in the US...I only ordered it TWO F$#@ING YEARS AGO!

Lousy no good distributors and music executives.

15:27 / 26.10.03

The problems with the Zenith trade are nothing to do with distribution - they are down to ownership rights.

The story , to the best of my knowledge, is this- new owners of 2000AD (where the strip first ran) thought they owned Zenith, but were unable to prove it with any contract proving their ownership when challenged. - in the meantime the owners of 2000AD had entered into a deal with UK graphic novel (re)publisher Titan to reprint Zentih - Titan printed and had solicited the book when the rights dispute came to light. The books are printed and pending a resolution of the rights dispute. But it seems 2000AD's owners are in no rush to sort the matter out seeing as it would cost them more money to do so and the plan was to produce reprint graphic ovels to generate extra income on the back of strips they already owned.

Matthew Fluxington

15:27 / 26.10.03

I only really like a few issues of Animal Man; The Invisibles was extremely inconsistent; and I didn't bother with JLA because it bored me and I don't want to read Justice League comics which do not include Blue Beetle, Max Lord, or Guy Gardner. I've never read Zenith because I am from the United States and we never got those here.

So it's down to New X-Men and Doom Patrol. I've really enjoyed NXM, but it's not nearly as clever, weird or fun as Doom Patrol. I have a strong emotional attachment to the three leads from Doom Patrol, and I don't feel anything like that with any of the NXM characters. The last issue of Grant's Doom Patrol is one of two comic books to ever make me cry.

Aside from Kill Yr Boyfriend, I think that Doom Patrol will always remain Grant's masterpiece. It's perfect, especially the final two years of it.

15:58 / 26.10.03

For me, its a tie between Doom Patrol and The Invisibles, with JLA (esp. "Rock of Ages" period) a close second, followed by Animal Man and New X-Men.

To be fair though, if Marvel Boy had continued, I would probably throw it in between JLA and Animal Man. (Haven't read Zenith yet, so can't comment on it.)

16:26 / 26.10.03

I'm surprised to be the first to say this, but definitely The Invisibles. Mind you, I haven't read Doom Patrol, or the end of Animal Man for that matter, but I'd be really shocked if either of those could top what is not only my favorite comic series, but probably my favorite piece of fiction, any medium. I'd never read a book that completely obliterated the line between fiction and reality like this one. It changed me in a way no other piece of fiction ever did. And it wasn't only the concepts, I absolutely loved the characters, and stories as well.

16:56 / 26.10.03

Zenith. Undoubtedly Zenith.

17:02 / 26.10.03

Invisibles closely followed by Zenith and Doom Patrol.
Doom Patrol was my teenage fave, and while I liked Zenith at the time, the whole process of reading was so disjointed I had no idea what was going on. On re-reading (the ONLY reason I'm loath to flog my 2000ads) it worked much better, but is not as well finished as Invisbles, despite the consistency of art.
DP, Zenith and Animal man were all great (and Dare was so good, I think I may have developed a worrying crush on Rian Hughes), but Invisibles was a big life-changing headfuck. So good. I just wish my never-really-got-to-be-a-proper-girlfriend's boyfriend would give them back....

19:52 / 26.10.03

(I am Pig!) Mighty Archie the Acid Angel! Mad! Mental! Crazy! On a fucking dinosaur!!! Zeniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith!

MASSIVE SPOILAGE

And nothing competes with the chill I got when I read the words

"We are, we were, we will be......the Lloigor!"(enjoy sexual Pig>)

Murray Hamhandler

21:26 / 26.10.03

I think I've read every major Morrison work that isn't exclusive to the UK, with the exception of the last third of his Animal Man run (I've bought the trade but haven't gotten around to reading it yet). Invisibles had the biggest and longest lasting impact on me during the time that I read it, but, as stated above, it was extremely inconsistent. It works better as a "spell" or a fringe primer or whatever than as a story. It's more fun to interpret than it is to read.

Doom Patrol is fun but a little too strange in parts. Which is strange, because I usually adore "too strange". I absolutely love the vast majority of it, though.

I think, for my money, that NXM is going to wind up being his crowning achievement. It's hard to tell at the moment, as I think it's all going to read much better as a single story, but I'm almost as invested in NXM as I was in the Invisibles. And it is, by far, a better story. Morrison is paying much more attention to narrative and character than he has w/any of his previous works that I've read, improving immensely upon what have been his weak points in the past and proving that he has the chops to blow most mainstream comics writers out of the water.

21:46 / 26.10.03

I have to qualify by saying I've not read the entirety of Zenith and Doom Patrol; fourth trade of the former, only and first trade of the latter. There's a couple ishes of JLA I've not enjoyed yet, too.

There are faults in each of the major works; Invisibles falls off, for me, at 'Entropy In The UK' and regains full momentum in 'Counting to None', unsurprisingly given the status of the project. Animal Man's first four issues are fairly run-of-the-mill or very weak Morrison, and there are a few incidental issues which don't serve terribly much purpose thereafter, but it and the aforementioned both build to brilliant climax/ces(?). The Ultramarines story in JLA is a bit of a (comparative) bore, too. Otherwise also largely phenomenal; I probably reread JLA the most - find it hard to sleep after binging on some Invisibles.

It depends for me on when I first really encountered the Grant; The Invisibles caught me at a formative time, when I was ensconced in post-modernism and shit doing my University t'ing - I'd read Zoids and 'Gothic', but wasn't particularly conscious of the writer's identity at the time, and was just getting really deep into Vertigo. It was an unbelievable pleasure to encounter such a literate and conceptually high-minded comicbook, or book, for that matter. The fact it was written by a man just from down the road a bit (I exaggerate a little, but anyway...) helped too.

The first ish I bought was, iirc, part 3 of 'Black Science II' - utterly bewildering and really compelling.

I fuckin luove The Invisibles!

21:51 / 26.10.03

If the last 6 issues of New X-Men are as good as they can conceivably be, then it may formally surpass the aforementioned, but I think it may fall a little ways short.

It has been great, though, and probably more consistent in quality than any of the other runs.

09:54 / 27.10.03

I'm sorry, I haven't read the entire Zenith run, but I've read a few of them. And I've read all the rest except for Skrull Kill Krew. I've even read Aztec, and the Steed and Peel mini-series.

And really, nothing surpasses Doom Patrol. For the type of Universe invented, the out of this world plotlines, and the way emotions seep into you unannounced, unidentified. You only notice you're crying or laughing minutes after you've put the comic down. Also because everything was perfect and Morrison had a perfect artist in Case and perfect cover artist in Biz. You know, I'll bet anyone that today, 2003, it wouldn't be possible to do another comic like that. No major publisher would allow for such creative freedom. Morrison could place literary and cinematic references side by side with sex, surrealism and some of the best villains I've ever seen. Who can forget The Shadowy Mr. Evans or the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E.?

And I think it's one of those long runs where you can feel Grant cared for the characters until the end. I mean, I love The Invisibles, I enjoyed JLA and NXM, but I can't help the feeling that half way through these series, our favorite bald writer dismisses them, his enthusiasm wanes, his plotlines suddenly wrapped up, loose ends swiftly tied up with minimum prejudice. I never got that feeling from DP.

(Sorry if this sounds way too "fan boy" and whiny)

- Mercury

11:16 / 27.10.03

would just like to say, ZENITH, no competition, art was sublime too and the stories a brilliant evocation of old UK comic sensibilities dragged kicking and screaming up to date, i mean can you really better 'rick astley with superpowers', hotspur, archie the robot and a whole cthulu-verse of wierdness

a lot of it may be lost on american readers tho as it is very parochial.
invisibes was too patchy for me for a comic that thought so highly of itself, nxm has had moments of brilliance and averageness in equal measure.

andrew

Regrettable Juvenilia

19:30 / 27.10.03

If we're defining run as 'series' then I'd have to say Zenith: not only because it has some of the best characters/ideas/'moments', but because it's consistent in a way that so much of Morrison's later work sadly isn't. My suspicion is that this has a lot to do with the structure of 2000AD stories - serialisation in relatively tiny parts means that you never get the feeling you're reading filler, or that the author is treading water, or that the pacing is off...

But if we can choose a smaller chunk of an overall work and call it a run, then I'd say the Counting To None bit of Invisibles Vol 2 is a close second... maybe Volume 2 as a whole.

Best single issue is still the final issue of Doom Patrol by a mile, best graphic novel - and probably his best work if I had to chose one to rescue from a burning building - Kill Your Boyfriend.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

22:40 / 27.10.03

[threadrot]

On the pub quiz machine touch-screen thing tonight:

"what C would you associate the name Grant Morrison with?"

Peice. Of. Piss.

[/threadrot]

Matthew Fluxington

22:45 / 27.10.03

Can anyone give me the quick answer as to why Zenith hasn't been issued as a collection in the United States?

02:56 / 28.10.03

Yeah. Legal bother.

Radiator: ??? There must've been options. Pub quiz machines allus have options.

02:58 / 28.10.03

Bollox. Comics.

Obviously.

Shit.

14:26 / 29.10.03

Surprised I haven't seen this before:

For me, the best, most consistent, most solid single work that Morrisson has written is Flex Mentallo, Man Of Muscle Mystery. All of GM's staggering love for comics, the humanness and frailness, the slender connections between our counter-Earth selves and the idealized selves we keep in our minds and wish or pretend we could be, all of the lust for four-colour power, for four-colour women, for strangeness for strangeness sake, all of the Earth de-shattering compassion is distilled into four issues of brilliance. In terms of pure consistent quality, Flex is the winnerest winner of all.

In terms of heart, I have to say that I vote with The Invisibles. It's too long. It's too short. The pacing is off. The focus is overly much on King Mob. And it's horribly, horribly a product of the specific times in which it was made, right down to the feeling that the needs of next month's editorial was driving the plotting, rather than that the story was being developed as itself. But the characters do what GM characters do best - come alive inside the book and make you care about them. They have life, they have energy and there are some real moments of human compassion and grandeur in there. Invisibles is one of three or four comics that really blew my mind and spun things on their axis and I love it for that.

If I get a third pick (and I'm not sure I get a second, really) then it's Zenith for being so far ahead of it's time, for being willing to harm, hurt and mutilate characters and for writing hundreds of characters all at once and making you care about at least dozens of them -- something I'm not sure any book has done since, not even GM's own efforts on eg. JLA. Don't tell me you feel nothing for Meta Maid or Vertex or Domino. And Peter St John is still the coolest character GM's created.

18:41 / 29.10.03

Doom Patrol, hands down. Skrull Kill Krew was the worst thing I ever read I think. That whole mad cow thing was kind of cool tho.

Poke it with a stick

09:46 / 30.10.03

I stil love Dare, just because I was a reader of the old relaunched Eagle (as opposed to the rather odd Dan Dare and Mekon with freckles of Starlord and 2000AD) and like everyone else, I wanted to see Thatcher get royally shafted.
I thought some of the UK folks might have mentioned Big Dave as well, though.
Having said all that - sod it, why be controversial - The Invisibles, Zenith and The Filth. In that order.

10:39 / 30.10.03

I'd have to agree with Houndini above, Flex, in terms of sheer concentrated quality. Even the jumpcuts, narrative fuckaround WORK adn add up to a coherent whole in a way that the others don't. Perhaps it's the focus on 4 issues. The art is stunning, and you can just feel that total fanboy love for the medium... and the last page of Vol 4 - it's the kind of thing I read to lift my spirits to make me go out and fight demons.

Then again, maybe Doom Patrol. I dont' recall an issue that I didn't enjoy, that was too I loved the weirdness, totally humour OD in some issues - "The Beard Hunter" and the Fantastic Four parody! I think The Invisbles had more effect on me while I was reading it, but as a work as a whole, it disappears up it's own arse at times and becomes too self consciously the sum of it's references. I agree with the comments above, the final issue of DP is total genius.

I can't remember Zenith well enough to comment having read it in 2000AD while a stroppy adolescent.

Jack The Bodiless

10:45 / 30.10.03

Zenith. Clearly. Best and most consistent thing he's ever done (%this is illustrated in the title, of course%). Also one of the first, which doesn't really reflect well on the slapheaded old twat, now does it?

Doom Patrol next, for all the reasons others have already stated. Magnificent, only let down by the (vast) number of times he has Cliff running around shouting "What? What's going on? What?" like some chrome-plated Arthur Dent. Yes, we get he's the everyman, Grant m'boy. You don't have to make him sound stoopid.

11:06 / 30.10.03

Invisibles. Clearly.
What's the fuss about Zenith? Maybe I should go back and read it all, what I remember of it from 2KAD was alright but nothing special, Rik Astley with superpowers as was said above. Meh.

12:23 / 30.10.03

"Invisibles is one of three or four comics that really blew my mind and spun things on their axis and I love it for that."

Which were the others?

And oh, I vote Doom Patrol, too. For the Cliff/Jane relationship. And for Mr Nobody.

12:50 / 30.10.03

"Which were the others?"

Well...

Cerebus The Aardvark
The first issue I picked up of this was from the early part of the 'Mothers & Daughters' storyline, about 18 months before the "Dave Sim: chauvinist" thing really broke. The plot was incredibly complex and weird, and written like a William Gibson novel: None of that stopping to spell out all this history and religion for the reader, just left in the background to make it organic, and real. The art (esp. Gerhard's backgrounds) was unbelievable. The letters page was a dozen pages long and filled with people who swore, talked about philosophy and clearly felt themselves to be part of a community. And in the back was an excerpt from a new upcoming comic, a comic about comics itself by some guy called Scott McCloud. And next issue was a 12 page polemic by Sim about creator's rights, self publishing and artistic integrity. At the age of 17 this was the book that made me drop all the X-titles and start picking up Bone, Thieves & Kings, 1963, Miracleman, Sandman, Shade etc.

Ed The Happy Clown
I never really understood what "underground" comics were about until I read this. Mr Natural crapping in his pants and lusting after girls whose buttocks were even more unnatural than those drawn by Rob Liefeld just didn't make any sense to me. But Ed the Happy Clown had zombie hunters, disembodied hands, vampires, skinny emaciated clowns, men who couldn't stop pooping and a chap with the disembodied head of Ronald Reagan attached to the end of his penis. I read it in one seating, jammed into the narrow space next to the cat's sleeping basket between the radiator and the couch one Easter Sunday afternoon. Same day I smoked ... certain substances ... for the first time, now that I come to think of it, although this was earlier in the day. And again it just totally dissolved all of my preconceptions about what comics could and couldn't do. Chester Brown is a genius.

I could mention others here, like Shade, Sandman, Big Numbers - hell, even Stray Toasters in a way... but I don't want to rot this thread much further.

To be honest, I think there's very little that GM has written that isn't far above average for the "mainstream" comics field. But all of his works are still flawed, so we can spend forever nitpicking over which is the greatest.... Joy.

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