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Underground > Comic Books >

Ok, why were the Invisibles not good guys, and Sir Miles not a bad guy?

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05:03 / 15.10.02

Oh my god, I'm a moron. How did I miss that? Tom O'Bedlam's last name in reality is Seaton. That's who Miles was talking about! I must have forgetten Tom's last name and assumed Seaton was some cryptic mysterious figure. Still, I think that the masked man who tells Miles that initiation never ends is still the Blind Chessman. Anyway, Tom had seen the Outer Church, so he'd be the perfect person to introduce Miles to it. And it does seem fitting that Tom would train both Miles and Dane, two of the most important pawns on the board, so to speak.

I'm still not sure how I feel about Cell 23. They are a little creepy... but they did help Boy meet Barbelith and, if their psychics are to be believed, they did save King Mob's cell...

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

06:24 / 15.10.02

"All I'm saying is, looking at the potential futures desired by the two sides, I prefer the Invisibles vision."

Are there actually two futures, or is that a possible dodge and weave as well? I look now to New X-Men #128 (bear with me) for new thoughts on the matter.

I won't get into specifics, but two telepaths are discussing the fact that one of them seems to be manifesting a primal force of the universe known as the Phoenix.

Xavier: "Jean, can I talk to the phoenix?"

Jean: "Jean is only the house where I live, Charles."

We're now taken to the familar burning future of the outer church from the Invisibles.

Jean: "I am born and consumed in blood and flame and sacrifice. And return. Always coming back."

Xavier: "Jean, what is this place? Are these words from the future? What's happening?"

Jean: "It's not a place, it's how it feels to be the last hope... and to know you'll win against all the odds. It's the wing of the Phoenix touching your heart with it's flame."

This exchange leads me to question the nature of the "future" we saw again and again in the Invisibles.

The Natural Way

09:05 / 15.10.02

Yeah, I mean it was obviously never the future, just the Horus foetus's anxieties re it's impending birth - it's first bloody, fiery, apocalyptic aspect: Rah Hoor Khuit. The scourging, the purge. The inoculation.

Horus....Y'know, a bit like Jean's fiery bird God.....

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:40 / 15.10.02

dlotemp But on the other hand, both V and the Invisibles seek to free our minds from the old conceptual and social chains. I tend to think Osama and crew have missed that point.

Well, I'm sure I'd find that a comfort with the prospect of series 1 KM intending to shoot me for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

13:22 / 15.10.02

Wouldn't worry, chum, it's only the working class that do these kindsa jobs. 'Morrison destroys roots' shocker. Note that there's a class dialectic undercutting the whole thing - and, look, no suburban middle class, which I suspect the vast majority of posters here (self included) are.

Also, if we're counting deaths, I'd suspect the Outer Church is responsible directly/indirectly for exponentially much more than the Invisibles. But that's binary logic...

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15:54 / 15.10.02

posted by Duncan Falconer:
Also, if we're counting deaths, I'd suspect the Outer Church is responsible directly/indirectly for exponentially much more than the Invisibles. But that's binary logic...

Well, supposedly they are the ones behind all the wars. And they did create AIDS... so I'd have to agree with that.

20:38 / 15.10.02

Dlotemp,
I am about to enter thr brain of a fictional race of inter-dimensional monsters, so here goes...(I stole the analogy mostly from the Authtority's New Management and the recent Filth's #4.)

I see the Archons as a young energetic couple trying to renovate their new home, and 'lo and behold it's full of termites and rodents, namely those pesky humans.

I would believe they don't see any good or bad in re-programming the local reality to suit their personal residency, kind of like me adjusting my trailer's thermostat or humidity or spraying a lot of roach and ant-killer allover the place.

There is no moral judgement to the action, and I don't cackle sinisterly about the pain and fear those vermin must suffer.

But for a better example, think of the Invisibles as the Native Americans/Africans and the Archons as the colonists from Europe say, oh, two hundred years ago. Smallpox and the conquistadores wiped out parts of the Middle American civilizations.

VR
The Shark

21:34 / 15.10.02

To My Misgendered Lord of Flowers -
You wrote "Well, I'm sure I'd find that a comfort with the prospect of series 1 KM intending to shoot me for being in the wrong place at the wrong time," in response to my comment contrasting the terrorism of the Invisibles with Osama. First, I totally agree. I don't think intellectual or idealogical understanding provide comfort in the face of a 9mm held by KM pointed at my head. I hope you didn't miscontrue my true point that one group is appears mired in traditional dialectics - East vs. West, Poor vs. Rich, Us vs. them - while the other group understands that they need to overcome that struggle. There is no Us vs. them; there's just us. Hence, we see most of the Invisibles mature away from brutal killing by the end of the series. Just wanted to clarify.

Sharkgrin -
Thank you for clarifying. I basically agree with your proposition. The Archons properly do think they bring a better reality into the world. It is very similar to the White Man's Burden, an excellent example of the Enlightenment's weakness to appreciate value in non-quantifiable things like culture and alternate value systems. Nifty description.

The Natural Way

07:46 / 16.10.02

For loads of Invisibles it IS US vs Them. Jolly Roger, anyone? KM up until the end of vol 2? Boy until she contacts Barbelith....

PERSPECTIVE!

Reread KM's speech in the restauraunt prior to the coronation and the storming of the abbey. Viewed from above the Invisibles (and that's all the players, guys!) form a hyper-sigil used to draw down Horus/wake the sleeper/activate the player/whatfuckingever and the "war" is simply the big cluster fuck used to charge it. Down on the ground it's "business as usual" - there's a massive scrap going on; there's goodies and baddies and people die.

12:49 / 16.10.02

What's the title of The Filth #1? 'Us vs. Them' An illustration of 2 people (large) vs. 12 people (small) adorns the cover.

And yet, no fighting is found therein. I confess, I find myself mystified.

18:43 / 16.10.02

Duncan F: And Audrey Murray saves KM's life - what's that about then? Karmic inversion?

More like Stopping The Wheel Of Karma Altogether, I’d say.

It parallels the end of RAW’s Cosmic Trigger I…the “Final Secret of the Illuminati” that Tim Leary reveals to the Wilson family…the secret that they’d already learnt from their daughter Luna…

yawn: yknow what: I couldae handle the filth in a one volume trade pape

I'd spew ma load I reckon. .

You say that, yawn, but we all know you’ve got your box of man-size Kleenex already set aside…

Sypha Nadon: Even Bobby the soilder KM killed had to have known that Harmony House was a bad place (and the guy was a wifebeater to boot). In "The Invisibles" there are no characters who are purely innocent. All the characters make the graves they lie in, from Bobby to Jolly Roger.

Ooooo…you’re quite strict, aren’t you, Sypha? You don’t take any “The dog ate my homework, Miss” nonsense from anyone, do you?

And listen, did the (ahem) baddies in the Invisibles strike anyone else as a bit…well, crap? It seemed liked anytime they were confronted with KM or Roger or whoever, they just stood there and went on and on about all the terrible things they were going to do, all the filthy perverted ways they were going to violate the good guy, all the unholy desecrations they were going to per—OH COME ON!! DO IT for chrissakes! Sure, you can talk the arse off a donkey, but the good guys are blowing things up while you’re nattering on like a bitter old granny on the bus complaining about all the [Nigerians] that are coming into the country!!
Pah…

20:39 / 16.10.02

Marriage:

sorry, I'm a tad confused by your post. Do you mean to say that the Invisibles IS about US vs. THEM? That the Invisibles had to destroy the Archons to survive? I always interpreted the Invisibles a tad differently. No mistakening that some players/characters preferred or were stuck in the dialectic in parts of the series, specifically the sections that you mentioned. But comments like "we plan to give everyone the world that they want" (paraphrase) and "It's a rescue mission" always made me feel that Morrison was trying to point to a different perspective then Us vs. Them. Particularly when Dane ingests the Archons. He doesn't destroy them. He takes them into himself, incorporating them into his being, and moves on.

side note - can you imagine the gas Dane must have had after that Archon meal? Stank for a year.

No doubt war is used to charge the sigil, but I think the point, best typified by the Inspector's sacrafice, is that we must give up the old to get the new. Not a pleasant concept - see Hitler's Germany - but in this case an attempt to reach the next stage of awareness in preparation for Barebelith's end.

21:14 / 16.10.02

You're a cheeky bastard, Evil.

Keep it up.

The Natural Way

08:16 / 17.10.02

God, umm...I meant nothing of the kind Dlotemp. The Us vs Them thing was a response to yr previous post where you seem to be positing that one "side" view reality as a battleground and the other, more enlightened "side" (presumably the Invisibles), understand the broader err...*trialectic* picture - the unity informing it all. Was just pointing out that loads of Invisibles, at least to start w/, interpret events through the Us vs Them lense.

If you want to know my views on the thing, read the rest of the post. It isn't till later on that Gideon groks any of that stuff.

The Natural Way

08:26 / 17.10.02

Or reread any of my posts on this thread. Was
"Marrynce" the other day....

yawn - thing's buddy

10:28 / 17.10.02

there's some magic being worked on this thread.

I should really contribute more to the discussion but you 'all' seem to be doing fine without me.

stroke on, boys, stroke on.

nother knote:

marriage: you purging runce from your complex structure?

The Natural Way

10:47 / 17.10.02

I think I have to. Actually, I need to get rid of all that "marriage" stuff, too. It's weird noise and I blame the Proclaimers. I'm working throught the marriage thing towards something else right now... I'll know what it is when I find it: it'll probably be equally annoying, but at least it won't have anything to do with weddings.

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14:40 / 17.10.02

One character who always befuddled me was John A'Dreams. Our first glimpses of him (mostly in flashback) make him seem like a thoughtful, enlightened character. But then he doesn't reappear until the very end of Volume 3, this time as an enemy agent (as Mob had feared back in volume 2). At first this befuddled me because I had no clue why John A'Dreams would join the Outer Church and sacrifice people so that the Archons could manifest. But later on when the whole thing falls to pieces he seems remarkably calm when he talks to Fanny.

It wasn't until someone in this forum pointed out to me that John became a 4D entity when he tried on the timesuit that I made any conclusions. When John tried on the timesuit I think he saw time completely and realised that to bring about the age of Horus he would need to return to the "game" and reinsert himself into various pieces: Quimper, Jack Flint, etc. It also required him to get converted into an Outer Church agent so he could be present at the ceremony and help bind the archons. I must say his performance as an agent was quite good... He did sound like one of them with his rhetoric. He knew he had to commit evil acts in order to bring down the archons. This ties in with an earlier comment that atrocities had to be commited to pave the way for the next aeon. I think, I'm not sure.

Actually, there's a lot of things in the comic I'm not sure about, like why King Mob's headress looks the way it does. I'm sure I'll figure it all out one day...

The Natural Way

15:03 / 17.10.02

Uuuh, you should have been here in the old days for all the John ranting. You'd of liked it.

The headress? Grant just explains it away as a download - a vibe. No "reason".

17:50 / 17.10.02

Evil - they just ranted on about how they were going to fuck up the heroes because they were villains. That's what villains always do.

'C'mon, I have a gun in my room, I can get it now, we can shoot him together, it'll be great!'

'Ya just...Ya just don't get it, do ya?'

22:18 / 17.10.02

Marriage:

Sorry about the misunderstanding. I think I just misjuggled all of the conceptual discussion threads. I see what you're saying and totally agree. Thanks.

Sypha:

Your ideas jibe with just about everyone else's I've read so I think you're on the right track. One additional piece of info gleaned - Grant Morrision, in his interview in "Anarchy for the Masses," implies that one perspective of the story is that John A'Dreams - or rather his ur-identity - is the one player behind all of the characters. Following this thread, he participates in the Invisibles game as a transcendental event. Possibly, he needs to join the Archons to reconcile/absorb their essences, and this eventually helps paves the way for his final exit out of the game and into awareness.

RE: the rantings of evil discussion
I agree that it is a hoot. Evil is as evil does I suppose. Wouldn't be an evil Archon pawn if I didn't caterwaul once in awhile. Except...so much of the Invisibles is also about the power of sigils and words. Morrison of course designed the Invisibles as one huge sigil to change society's mind. It seems apropros that the enemy spends a great deal of time using words and images to convey their power. It's more than just physical threat, it's psychological as well. Not to forget spiritual and cultural. So I don't disagree but I wonder if there was another level to their taunts that should be considered.

Geez. Have we wandered far from the original question or what.

Murray Hamhandler

01:19 / 18.10.02

Just for the record, runce/marriage and yawn, I would love to read a full-on essay on The Invisibles by either or both of you. If you'd ever be up to such a thing. You've both got talons much more deeply dug into that mess than I ever did.

yawn - thing's buddy

09:31 / 18.10.02

runce certainly got his claws in.

Me: I'm flattered that you think so.

There are certainly others here who may have more to say than me.

But I like a challenge!

That said, it’ll be a short essay. And I wont use words like ‘alembic’ or ‘nigredic’ cos other mean it when they use them and I don’t.

In fact, here’s the essay now, if you want; bear in mind it’s been fully compressed:

‘.’

The Natural Way

10:14 / 18.10.02

Thanks, dunc, you've just given me the idea for my new name.

10:59 / 26.11.02

ok, maybe i'm the only one here with this perspective...
but who would see the Invisibles as good guys and who as bad guys?
are there not people ignorant to the consipracy who may see them as either one... (fallacy in dualism aside)
thus among those (us) who are mostly ignorant to the background of Al Quida... why should Al Quida be seen only as bad guys?
i choose to see them as a tool/element serving a purpose that i see as good

12:08 / 26.11.02

Evil:
And listen, did the (ahem) baddies in the Invisibles strike anyone else as a bit…well, crap? It seemed liked anytime they were confronted with KM or Roger or whoever, they just stood there and went on and on about all the terrible things they were going to do, all the filthy perverted ways they were going to violate the good guy, all the unholy desecrations they were going to per—OH COME ON!! DO IT for chrissakes! Sure, you can talk the arse off a donkey, but the good guys are blowing things up while you’re nattering on like a bitter old granny on the bus complaining about all the [Nigerians] that are coming into the country!!
Pah…

From what I've read of it all, etc... couldn't you see this as part of the whole spy-movie gag: "You don't expect me to talk, do you?"/"No, I expect you to die!" etc. Drawn-out overlong exposition that's GREAT for plot but gives our "heroes" all the time they need to escape?

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:49 / 26.11.02

Just wanted to make a general point.

Two widely-agreed things about the Invisibles are:

1) That it constantly undercuts, questions, challenges and doubles-back on its own 'message'/ideology - forever generating auto-critique. Thus, variously: gun-toting voodoo assassins aren't cool; opting out the Revolution is a valid choice; a bullet in the right place may or may not change the world; seizing the Western military-indutrial complex for 'subversive' ends may or may not be a good idea. The list pretty much goes on - there are very few viewpoints presented over the course of the three volumes that aren't vocally challenged by another one.

2) It's not a linear work: "and so we return to begin again", etc.

Given the above, I don't see why we should necessarily accept the "there is no us and them; there are no good guys or bad guys; we are all one" mentality as the comic's neat and tidy conclusion...

"Zen for 'I can't be bothered'", remember?

The Natural Way

13:10 / 26.11.02

Or, as I've been trying to explain on every Invisibles thread - it's a matter of "perspective". LITERALLY.

King Mob's Speech at the restaurant when he talks about bumping into the timesuit (Vol 3 #3). Read it.

The Natural Way

13:15 / 26.11.02

Or just spend a few minutes mulling over what a 'MeMeplex' is....or a 'Supercontext'. Or 'Magic Matter'. The point is: unity and multiplicity exist simultaneously: "no difference, same thing".

16:52 / 26.11.02

I did wonder why GM writes memeplex as (what appears to be) 'MeMeplex'. Is this pronounced 'Me Me Plex'?

Memeplexes as a concept are something that I could grasp fairly easily as GM was building on an existing idea. I'd agree that things get more fluid when we discuss fiction suits, magic mirror and the supercontext (although I was hoping that GM had based that on some idea or other).

If The Invisibles broadcasts any sort of message it has to be the old one of 'The map is not the territory'. A lot of the ideas and plot points are shown modelled one way, and then in other ways. Each model is as valid as the other and no one model is the 'right' one.

18:11 / 26.11.02

That's how I'd pronounce it, arcboi. I think it's an attempt to drive home the "MPD as a lifestyle option" concept: not only can you look at your "self" as a collection of beliefs, you can rewrite what beliefs your "self" is built out of, based on your current needs. "MeMePlex Prime! There is no fear! All is one!" Personalities as Voltron weapons.

19:43 / 26.11.02

It's a great idea and I think to some extent GM is exploring the memeplex concept a lot more succesfully in The Filth.

BTW What are "Voltron weapons" Perfect Tommy?

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02:39 / 27.11.02

I might be wrong but I read somewhere that the word "meme" is pronounced the same way as "dream". I originally pronounced it as Me Me myself.

04:44 / 27.11.02

Richard Dawkins invented the word meme. He wanted it to rhyme with meme. It's a neologism (i think, if I'm using that word right), based on the greek mimesis which has something to do with reproduction and is the root word of mimeograph.

I've never heard anyone pronounce it meemee, but I do know someone who pronounces it mehm. Of course, I inward-snicker every time she does.

Anyway, on the topic... I don't think the Invisibles admits a good-bad distinction. We're all on the same side, if for no moral reason than just because, as Jack explains while scaling the building at the end of Vol 3, a description of our enemy is just as much a description of ourselves.

In fact, I think I want to think for a while about the moral topology of The Invisibles, and why I feel like it's got something to do with the way topologists can turn spheres inside out without cutting them. 'cause, like, the boundaries of ego and self and group and morality are constantly inverted in the series, and are constantly forced into showing that they always describe their contraries/complements.

The Natural Way

07:28 / 27.11.02

Yes, Syph, but "MeMe" differs from "meme" in that the M's are capitalised. Hence: Me Me. Just there to underline that, if our personalities are constructed out of a billion and one - often conflicting - idea viruses, it might be more accurate to describe our "self" as a plural.

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