Top Ten Writers #5: Grant Morrison

Another day written off and this has officially failed to resemble ANYTHING like 10 straight days of doing this. In this case I'm gonna blame getting close to the 100th post and the fact that the final 5 are much better constructed than the last 5.

#5: GRANT MORRISON

Today we enter the crazed mind of another writer, one who has achieved a fair bit over his writing career. I could list them all but you've already read the title and know at least SOMETHING the man has written. So instead I'll just lay back and relax...

... OH GOTTA WRITE THE REST OF THE ARTICLE THAT'S BEHIND THE JUMP!

Who is he?: 49yr old Scot and Lex Luthor lookalike.

What has he done that I might know?: Dan Dare, Animal Man, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Batman & Son, The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, Batman R.I.P., Doom Patrol, All Star Superman, 52, Final Crisis, Batman and Robin, Seaguy, WE3, Skrull Kill Krew, Marvel Boy, New X-Men, Wildcats
What has he done that I don't know?: A plethora of stuff so vast that I'm not gonna list it. Deal with it, that's what wikipedia is for!


Tell me 5 series that warrant him being on this Top Ten!: Okay you pushy voice in my head, I think I just might!

1. Animal Man
What to say about Animal Man? With this series Morrison was given a little known character (well it was his proposal so it's not really given as much as allowed... Where am I going with this?) and by expanding him from what was nothing to this flagship for the British Invasion of comics. It wasn't just that achievement that makes it noteworthy, with this series Morrison managed to do such brilliant things as address the nature of reality by manipulating and deconstructing the 4th wall and such, something that wasn't regularly done at the time. This comic was almost revolutionary in its awesomeness and as such stands as enough to warrant him being in the Top Ten alone (though not #5 by itself)

2. All Star Superman
I have to admit I don't know much about All Star Superman, having only glanced at it periodically, then glancing again for the sake of this Top Ten. The main point to make is that it's an out of continuity look at Superman that won an Eisner award and generally rocked bells, changing and updating Superman into something far more than he was at the time. I mean sure now we have New Krypton that's developed him in a new way and made him better than ever but before that THIS was the series to turn to for that innovative ground-breaking approach to the character. Further evidence that Grant can do what he likes with a character and still rule the roost.

3. Marvel Boy
Perhaps the least relevant here; this is more a personal choice to talk about than a series that represents Morrison at his best. Marvel Boy was a modern piece of art, managing to make a small impact with its Kirbyesque stylings and combining modern sensibilities (very morrisony ones at that) with silver age stylings and atmosphere. Whilst not well remembered it's the Marvel work that mattered from Grant and needs to be read by everyone who wants to write a Marvel comic. Or something like that.

4. Final Crisis
Let's keep this short and obvious: when a series is still awesome after something as horrible as COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS you know the writer has some serious chops.

5. New X-men
I fucking LURVE mutants. I enjoy Frank Quitely's art. I had never even HEARD of Morrison when I read this for the first time. New X-Men changed EVERYTHING. It evolved characters, killed characters who were long in the tooth (not that that lasted), gave characters that were 2 dimensional previously massive amounts of depth. Grant Morrison was gently caressing my reading eyeballs and tonguing some sort of comic reading vagina in my mind when I first read this back in the early 00s. There will never be an X-comic with this much impact on me and I think that any reader who approaches this will feel the same way. WOO BIAS!

Skrull Kill Krew - "Mr. not-appearing-in-this-article"

Now tell me why his writing's good!: STOP PRESSURING ME OKAY? The reasons are all up there! He's a genius who understands more about pacing and characters and emotive resonance and the medium of comics than me! As such I can't hope to explain this very well. Just understand that the man IS Lex Luthor and perfectly able of beating Superman. That's how fucking awesome he is. With that in mind I'm going to curl up now because I don't think I can suck any more writing cock tonight. Just understand that he deserves to be here, if not higher.


Good thing I'm not sucking any more writing cock with the three reviews that'll appear soon. All comics are somehow bad. Also I'm glad this post didn't degenerate into me yelling BALD over and over. Perhaps I'm evolving. Like a Pokémon. Bulba!