Supergods

Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human by Grant Morrison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human is part history of comics, part Grant Morrison's autobiography, and part Grant Morrison's opinions on popular comics.

I've had mixed reactions to Grant Morrison over the years. I loved All-Star Superman, 52, some of his Batman work, and Marvel Boy. His X-Men were good and I liked his run on Doom Patrol quite a bit, even though I didn't understand it, and I loathed Final Crisis. I think Morrison is a great idea man but works best when someone is reining him in. When this popped up on the cheap, I was cautiously interested.

First off, the subtitle is misleading. Maybe the first 40% of the book is actually "What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human" and even that is debatable. It's mostly comics history with snide remarks from Grant Morrison.

The rest of the book is Grant Morrison's autobiography with plenty of potshots at Alan Moore, Watchmen, and pretty much every popular comic from 1984 on. I find it interesting that Morrison didn't insult anyone that could have an adverse effect on his career, only Alan Moore and a bunch of dead guys.

There's lot of talk about Morrison's life of drugs and jet-setting when Arkham Asylum took off and lots of twaddle about putting himself in the 2-D world of comics. I remember reading years ago that Morrison was writing a book about his experiences while writing The Invisibles. I'm guessing a lot of that material found its way into Supergods.

Just to make it clear, I'm not shitting all over this book. There were interesting bits of information to be had but there were a lot fewer in the second half, when it became a meeting of the Grant Morrison fan club. Also, I'm really curious about what he's doing on Green Lantern so I guess the joke is on me at the end.

Morrison covers the big crossover events in the home stretch and then it's on to recommended reading, which curiously includes Watchmen. He hypes Astro City so he scored some extra points there.

At the end of the book, I'm still conflicted about Grant Morrison. He's part interesting figure, part full of his own bullshit. If you're already a member of the cult of Morrison, you'll probably enjoy this. If you already suspect Morrison isn't the messiah of modern comics, this will add more fuel to that fire. 3 out of 5 stars.

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