Grant Morrison's Invisibles trade review series wrap-up (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[The eighth in our series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, a wrap-up by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

"And so we return and begin again." For those of you just joining us, we've been looking at the seven-trade collection of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles since March. Now that I've reached the end of my seven reviews on a trade-by-trade basis, I'm left with the question -- what do I do with all of this?

Is The Invisibles a must read? It's a difficult question, but for the most part the answer is "No." It pains me to admit it (for reasons which will be made clear below), but The Invisibles isn't a groundbreaking landmark series that changed comics forever. If I were to draw up a list of the ten most important trades, I don't think The Invisibles would even crack the top 25. Morrison has said on several occasions that the entirety of The Invisibles was intended as a hypersigil to "create more Invisibles" and push the culture in a new direction post-2000, but he's admitted almost as frequently that the spell didn't produce the desired results.

Whether you believe in the magical underpinnings which Morrison has always claimed for his work -- from the infamous Kathmandu abduction scenario to the encounter with the "real" Superman outside a comics convention -- the gist is essentially undeniable: The Invisibles hasn't had the impact on comics that its contemporaries have. The Invisibles began in 1994; that same year, Metropolis was falling in the pages of Superman, Jack Kirby died, and Frank Miller's second "Sin City" storyline was just getting warmed up. Elsewhere in the Vertigo marketplace, The Invisibles had to compete with names like Neil Gaiman (The Sandman), Peter Milligan (Shade, the Changing Man), and Garth Ennis (Preacher), not to mention the whole Image Comics boom of the '90s. So for whatever reason -- poor sales, too much else going on, exponential weirdness by comparison -- The Invisibles never really took off, and it's almost never cited outside of Morrison 101. The Invisibles is inevitably going to be picked up by anyone who's enamored with Morrison after his recent work, but the average comic book fan unfortunately won't quite know what the series is and might not give it a try -- or might give up after being totally unprepared.

Which is a damn shame. It's not a "must read," but is it a "should read?" Absolutely. The Invisibles represents Grant Morrison's first major long-form work (Animal Man and Doom Patrol dabble with long-form but tend to be dominated more by smaller arcs than by one large story), and we can see from this first outing with the style that his work on New X-Men and Batman wasn't just a latter-day Morrison phase; it's been a style of his for many years now.

As far as writing goes, Morrison is doing good work here; although it's not perfect -- there are a few bumps, pacing issues, and moments of unadulterated confusion -- Morrison never drops the ball and never loses sight of his ultimate endgame. Not everything is answered, true, but no question is raised that isn't significant regardless of the possible answers. In the case of Ragged Robin, for example, whether or not The Invisibles exist in a story is not as important as what that metaphor means for us as readers -- which is about as genius as the ever-meta Morrison has been. Of course, I'm writing from the subjective position of someone who believes Grant Morrison is a better writer than Alan Moore (deliberately provocative statement), but I don't think that The Invisibles deserves the critical disregard that it's received thus far.

For one, The Invisibles is the first mainstream creator-owned work by Grant Morrison, at once wildly original, smartly crafted, and disarmingly entertaining -- dismantling the supposed disconnect between "serious" literature and "fun" literature. If it's entertaining, The Invisibles suggests, it can mean a whole heck of a lot, too. And after re-reading it one more time in a decade different from the one where I discovered the series, I realized that The Invisibles hasn't failed as much as it seemed. While it's true that we haven't heard anything about an Invisibles movie (seriously, DC, get on that!) and while the series hasn't been reprinted in more permanent hardcover (more on that later), I think The Invisibles has meant more than we recognize -- meaning it deserves another look. But if you don't have the time to read seven trades, take another look at 1999's The Matrix.

Now, I'm not the first to suggest a connection between The Invisibles and The Matrix -- Morrison himself has claimed that you can rearrange the panels of the first issue and come out with storyboards for The Matrix -- but if there is such an influence, what does that say about the wildfire appropriation of Matrix-esque iconography in the culture? If we idolize the bald, bespectacled, gun-toting, leather-garbed, philosophy-quoting Morpheus, aren't we the grandchildren of King Mob? Or if that's too much of a stretch, take a look at the latest volume of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in which the villains call themselves "an invisible college" and attempt to create a moonchild to end the world. Sound familiar?

So maybe The Invisibles aren't as absent as they seem. Maybe, appropriately enough, we just can't always see them unless we're looking -- unless we too are wearing the white badge. And in a way, this is the perfect time to rediscover The Invisibles. With the publication of Supergods in July 2011, Morrison explained a bit more about what he meant behind the series. I won't spoil any of the fun, because the book is one of the most compelling prose pieces I've read in a long time, but suffice it to say that more of The Invisibles makes sense to me -- including, finally, the fiction-suit device.

And there are a wealth of resources available to help new inductees navigate the world of The Invisibles -- on this last outing, I had a copy of Anarchy for the Masses (a book of annotations by Patrick Neighly and Kereth Cowe-Spigai) handy and found it to be a major help, assisting me in connecting a lot of the pieces where the text gets a little murky and pointing out recurring symbols that have an unconscious effect on the reader (especially the "universal stop light" which is never fully explicated in the series proper).

Indeed, with December 2012 -- and the advent of the Supercontext, whatever that really is -- just around the corner, we're only missing one more important piece of the puzzle: beautiful hardcovers of the original series. It's eminently doable -- three hardcovers collecting two trades a piece, with the brief volume four (Bloody Hell in America) collected in the second hardcover. Given the right treatment, republished with new introductions and afterwords that make clear the influence The Invisibles has actually had on culture, and tossing together all the bits and pieces of the series that didn't make it into the first trades (including the final page of Bloody Hell in America and the original Ashley Wood pages from The Invisible Kingdom), The Invisibles might finally take its place as the great "undiscovered" Grant Morrison text.

Who knows? With the Flex Mentallo trade finally emerging from the ether in February 2012, The Invisibles may be right around the corner. And what better ad copy than "DECEMBER 2012 -- THE SUPERCONTEXT IS UPON US!!! FIND OUT HOW IT ALL BEGAN -- IN THREE TITANIC HARDCOVERS!" Slap a "From the writer of All-Star Superman and Batman and Robin" onto the trade dress, and we might have a hot seller. I know I need a new edition, because the glue on the later trades isn't spectacular.

That's the end of the road, loyal readers. There have been whole books written on The Invisibles, but I won't take up more of your time. Now that I've said my piece about the series and drafted the fan letter I could never send to Grant Morrison (mostly because I'm not cognizant of his address), I've reached my own personal Barbelith and am ready to move on. But as I enter the Supercontext, don't be surprised if you hear from me again. If this site is willing, I have a few more reviews up my sleeve. [Any time, Zach!]

"And so we return and begin again."

Round of applause for Zach for an excellent series! Read Zach's full Invisibles review series at the link. See you next week for a Halloween treat -- and more collection news as it breaks!

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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 7: Invisible Kingdom trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[The seventh in our series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

With the final volume The Invisible Kingdom, Grant Morrison's seven-trade opus The Invisibles draws to a close -- only I'm not sure if it's with a whimper or a bang. What's clear is that the story ends, without much ambiguity or hemming and hawing due to editorial control or last-second alterations. What's not clear is whether it all works -- as an ending, the story meanders a bit and loses sight of its larger questions, but the characters are satisfied, and we are satisfied with the characters. But does the ending itself satisfy?

"And so we return and begin again." Rather than rejoin our Invisibles immediately, The Invisible Kingdom begins with a long look at Division X, the mystical street cops who are trying to prevent the devious plan to replace England's monarchy with the monstrous moonchild from behind the mirror. King Mob ends his brief sabbatical to fight Sir Miles Delacourt and the minions of the Outer Church, but not before bidding farewell to the Invisibles' maternal guru Edith Manning in a poignant but slightly overlong narrative thread. And when The Invisibles come face to face with the totality of the Outer Church's dastardly plot, not all of them will be coming home -- and those that do are going to be changed forever. The series concludes with a flash-forward of sorts, in which the survivors regroup in December of 2012 to take on the King-of-All-Tears one last time before budding Buddha Jack Frost ushers in the next stage of human development.

If nothing else, The Invisible Kingdom more than lives up to the following one-word review (which has inadvertently become an odd tradition in these reviews), "payoff." This seventh trade brings together almost every narrative plot point in the entirety of the series, quite literally going back to the very first issue when we learned that young Dane McGowan was the next Buddha. Let's not forget that Dane began as an arrogant snot with an interest in casual arson over ontological terrorism; he's come a long way, and his story arc wraps up not in a neat bow but in a circle not unlike the all-white badge used to recruit new Invisibles to the cause, as Jack Frost does in the penultimate chapter -- the learner becoming the master.

Indeed, The Invisible Kingdom is littered with closure, with every character finding a kind of peace with themselves and with their violent past. King Mob reinvents himself several times before finally finding his calling, losing a mother but regaining a lover in the process, Jack Frost embraces his role as the next Buddha in all its complexity and mystery, Sir Miles finally chooses a side, the identity of the Harlequin is revealed (sort of -- more on that later), and eagle-eyed readers will even find that Boy, who's almost entirely missing from this volume, finds her "happily ever after" by putting her violent past behind her and embracing the closure she finds in her new family.

"Closure" is a major theme in The Invisible Kingdom, and nowhere is that more evident than in the most beautiful moment of the entire series, a moment which both affirms the optimism of a faith in the goodness of man and simultaneously proves that Grant Morrison is a writer who never does anything unintentionally and can find meaning in even the smallest moments -- in short, he's a genius. As King Mob lies bleeding to death in a phone book, telling his on-and-off lover Jacqui how he saved the world, he's rescued from death by the most unlikely and unexpected return of Audrey Murray. Even the most die-hard readers of the series will be forgiven for not remembering Audrey, who only appeared once before in the series in "Best Man Fall," the one-off chapter in Apocalipstick which gave life to faceless soldier Bobby Murray, murdered by King Mob back in the very first issue of Say You Want a Revolution.

The fascinating irony of Audrey saving the man who killed her husband is overshadowed by the poetic beauty of this encounter between two people who never truly know how they're connected. When asked why she saved a total stranger, Audrey replies, "My husband was killed by a gunman. Five years ago. I still miss him. I couldn't just walk past." Very near tears, King Mob confides to recent convert Helga that Audrey is the first woman he hasn't wanted to shag: "That woman saved my life and she didn't even know me or ... I feel like crying." And if the reader has any heart, King Mob won't be alone. (Confession: although this moment got me a bit choked up, only one comic has ever elicited actual tears from me: twice during Morrison's All-Star Superman -- once when the dying Superman saves suicidal teen Regan by telling her, "It's never as bad as it seems. You're much stronger than you think you are. Trust me," and when Superman flies off to save the sun after confessing to Lois, "I love you, Lois Lane. Until the end of time.")

But character development is where this volume excels, a remarkable feat considering that this was a series which began as a "nice and smooth" action story about glamorous people who blew things up while looking cool but lacking personality; the mythology underpinning the whole thing falls just short of genius. I've compared The Invisibles to ABC's long-running Lost before, and the comparison really comes to life here. Lost began as a "What the heck is going on?" show but ended as a story more about the characters than the mysteries around them; while the show's final hours provided answers about the island and its mysteries, what was more important was that the characters found satisfaction. The same applies to The Invisible Kingdom; while we're given suggestions as to what it all means, the focus is much more on the characters who make the world rather than the rules that govern their world.

Case in point -- the identity of the Harlequin is revealed when the Harlequin tell Jack not to think about midwives; Jack's satisfied with this answer and knows what he has to do to save the world, but the reader -- especially a first-time one -- can't help but scratch their heads and wonder why someone doesn't just turn around and say, "Wait, what?!" (I've read the series several times, and I'm still not sure I get it.) Unfortunately, other mysteries get the same short shrift. Remember the question about whether The Invisibles were just characters in a story into which Ragged Robin wrote herself? That's revisited here, but only to remind readers that there's no resolution to be had; instead of resolving itself, the plot point is picked at like a scab that refuses to heal. The best thing we can say about these mysteries is that Morrison doesn't just abandon them; instead he adds a little bit to each one, opening rather than closing and suggesting new possibilities or reinforcing old ones. While this is clever writing, it's a bit difficult for an ending, which should be answering more questions than it asks.

Fortunately, the answers given in The Invisible Kingdom are aided by artwork which for the most part seems to know what it's doing, especially in the pages drawn by Cameron Stewart (which are mercifully redrawn for this collection from the originals by Ashley Wood, which allegedly deviated significantly from Morrison's script). While each of the foregoing six trades was governed by one or two main artists -- especially Phil Jimenez, whose detailed pencils I've praised many times -- here the series turns into an artistic jam session, such that the spine and front cover list six different artists before surrendering to an "et al" at the end of the line.

Two artists -- Philip Bond (Kill Your Boyfriend) and Sean Phillips (Marvel Zombies) -- get the most face time here, their artwork resembling a madcap version of the kid-friendly Marvel Super Hero Squad by way of Jamie Hewlett. This more cartoony and slightly stubby verison of our heroes is a major departure from Jimenez's fine-tuned lines, but in a way it's exactly what the series needs as it rallies itself to challenge the apocalypse head-on. The jam session concept is pushed near to breaking near the end when the artwork seems to change faster than you can turn the page, and the purposelessness of the changes seems self-indulgent, reveling in the jam as an end in itself. When done right, multiple artists can reflect changes in a character's history (as in retrospective issues filled with flashbacks) or can indicate changing perceptions and storylines. But here the jam doesn't serve any real function, instead only adding to the confusion of the mythological wrap-up at work in the final few issues; Morrison's scripts are difficult enough, and Lord knows the last thing we need is more obfuscation.

Fortunately the series ends with a chapter pencilled, as all great Morrison scripts should be, by Frank Quitely (if Jimenez is the definitive Invisibles artist, Quitely is the definitive Morrison artist). Quitely's pencils, now comfortably familiar to current readers, give the audience the feeling of going home -- appropriate, considering this final installment is a reunion of sorts for our heroes at the end of the world. And Quitely's gritty lines help show the age of the characters in the intervening twelve years, especially Lord Fanny, who's put on a bit of weight.

This final chapter of Invisibles: Invisible Kingdom gives one last sense of closure, feeling like both an ending and a new beginning. Jack Frost intones, "Our sentence is up." Like the all-white badge and in full memory of Elfayed's words which began the series, we end only to begin again. In true Morrison fashion, the implication is that the world of The Invisibles is ending, but our world -- the next stage in human development -- goes on, and perhaps even reaches a new beginning now that Jack Frost and his crew have taught us how to live. And so the series concludes -- the story that Morrison wanted to tell is done, and even if there are some questions lingering I feel a little richer for having read it all. Maybe I don't fully understand what an Archon is, but I've figured out a little bit more about what it means to live as a human being at the turn of the twenty-first century. And for that spiritual rebirth I couldn't have asked for a better midwife.

[Contains full covers, character pages, and "Snapshots of the Past," which function as "Previously on..." blurbs for the preceding six volumes.]

That's volume seven, loyal readers. We've reached the end of Grant Morrison's seven-volume opus The Invisibles, but fear not! Coming soon to Collected Editions, a bonus wrap-up review in which I'll take a look at the merits (and demerits) of the series as a whole, consider its place in the Morrison canon, and ponder why it is that The Invisibles hasn't been collected in glorious hardcover like so many of its contemporaries. Do return and begin again with us, won't you?

Thanks, Zach! Read Zach's full Invisibles review series at the link. More reviews next week -- be here!

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Review: Tick: The Naked City trade paperback (New England Comics)

[A new guest review by Doug Glassman, who blogs at Astrakhan Industries.]

In my review of Armor Wars, I mentioned the Iron Man animated series from the early 1990s, and I would like to continue investigating comics relating to that second Golden Age of Animation. My generation was brought into comic books with animated series such as Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men, and of course Batman: The Animated Series. Also running at the same time, but in a very different genre, was The Tick.

As a child, The Tick was barely on my radar, partly because I was completely obsessed with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and partly because the series was really never meant for kids -- not that it was vulgar, but just written for a much older audience, with puns and references which flew over my head. What eight-year-old would get a pun about a furniture-obsessed villainess called the “Ottoman Empress”? (I do remember a particularly brilliant one in which the United States was invaded by the Swiss, who had massive Swiss Army Knife backpacks with helicopter rotors.)

Coming back from that tangent, the first few issues of The Tick, collected in The Naked City, are more about parodying specific targets than the broader superhero parody it would eventually become. The last story, involving supervillain rentals so that neophyte heroes can show off their skills, is closer to the rest of the series’ tone. The first two issues are about a parody of Superman, and the middle issues are, in my opinion, the greatest Daredevil parody ever written. Yes, better than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Little is revealed about the Tick in these issues ... but then, there is not much to reveal about him. He has no actual secret identity and no past; the first thing we see him do is escape from an insane asylum. Important supporting characters, including Arthur and Paul the Samurai, are also introduced. Paul never made his way into the animated series, which mostly went on its own path in creating its characters, although another comic book hero, Man-Eating Cow, did appear on the show.

Like writing a funny movie, reviewing a funny comic is difficult. Make no mistake, The Tick is still as brilliant as it was back in the late 1980s. Most of the superhero humor is broad enough to withstand the test of time, and the sequence between the Tick and “Ban-Al”, the father of Superman parody Clark Oppenheimer, is an effective skewering of Marlon Brando’s performance in the first Superman film.

There are some subtle references and shout-outs as well. For instance, one panel in the first issue features the Tick at the restaurant from Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks. Naturally, the restaurant is called “Hopper’s.” The parody of Marvel Comics’ Electra is named Oedipus; her full name is Oedipus Ashley Stevens. The Tick’s rooftop soliloquies are spot-on parodies of Frank Miller’s narration boxes.

Considering that Ben Edlund was a novice when he created The Tick back in 1988, the artwork in The Naked City is quite impressive, especially when it comes to comedic timing. For instance, the title card for the third issue, “Night of a Million Zillion Ninja,” first appears as a yellow box on a wall. This just seems to be an interesting placement ... but as the sequence continues, it is revealed that the title card is a sign, albeit a fourth wall-breaking one. Over the next two pages, as a fight scene rages, the title card can be seen in the background at a variety of angles.

My one major complaint about the art is the lack of variety of facial expressions, which border on “dull surprise” at times. However, since this was Edlund's first real foray into the world of comics, it is certainly forgivable, and he does improve later on. Fans of the animated series may also be surprised to see how fat Arthur is.

As an aside: My absolute favorite characters in this volume are the ninjas. Clad completely in black uniforms with extremely expressive yellow visors, they provide some of the best laughs of the ninja story. They are the most wimpy, pathetic ninjas ever written, to the point that when one is run over by a car, the driver brushes it off with, “It’s not like we hit a collie.” If you have ever seen the “Ninja Hedge” images around the web, they come from “Night of a Million Zillion Ninjas.”

There are a variety of ways to get the story. This volume, The Naked City, is a colorized version of the first six issues, which were released under the “Chroma-Tick” title. Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Usagi Yojimbo and other contemporary independent comics, The Tick was published in black and white. Although the colors in The Naked City seem a little washed out -- reminiscent of colorized films -- I feel that The Tick almost needs to be read in color. You can also buy updated omnibus editions with extra features.

Although the trades go in and out of publication, you are likely to find at least one edition in your local comic book store or used book store. Edlund is very business-savvy, as seen in the lengthy catalog at the end of this trade, which features comics and lots of animated series memorabilia.

Every comic book fan should own a copy of the initial twelve-issue miniseries of The Tick, whether or not you watched the animated series. Quite simply, it is the best superhero parody ever created, both art-wise and story-wise.

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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 6: Kissing Mister Quimper trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[The sixth in our series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

For me, the jury is still out on Kissing Mister Quimper -- such that I wasn't sure exactly where to begin a review on the sixth and penultimate volume of Grant Morrison's mega-epic The Invisibles. On the one hand, the series is winding down in brilliant action film format, with explosions and plotlines resonating off the page. On the other hand, though, the series is increasingly showing signs of prioritizing mythological components without giving its readers enough to make sense of what is going on a lot of the time.

"And so we return and begin again." Kissing Mister Quimper begins with our heroes taking another vacation (a sign, perhaps, of the stress Morrison notoriously suffered during the writing of the series), this time in New Orleans. But the downtime doesn't last long -- King Mob becomes obsessed with learning what's become of John-A-Dreams since his disappearance in 1992, and the "sliver" of Quimper residing in Ragged Robin leads the team to confront the demonic dwarf once and for all. But theses missions change the team in profound and irrevocable ways, leading them to mistrust each other to the point where several Invisibles will not be back for the seventh volume. And finally, welcome back to Sir Miles Delacourt, whose reintroduction here after a protracted absence is a welcome breath as the series cues itself for the final issues, in which the seeds of doubt sown throughout Sir Miles's arc will come to deadly fruition.

Chris Weston (and a guest appearance by Ivan Reis) replaces Phil Jimenez as the regular artist, but surprisingly it's not a hit that damages the series too much. Weston does a good job imitating enough of Jimenez's style without fully sublimating his own unique lines. The results are a little heavy on the inks but a fresh new way to look at the characters as they go through their last major metamorphosis before the series concludes, although his King Mob tends to wear Angelina Jolie's lips more often than is comfortable. His Lord Fanny, though, perfectly captures the character's transvestism, and the body language imbued upon Ragged Robin nicely encapsulates all the tensions raging within the future psychic's mind.

In a sense, "Black Science 2" (a sequel to the "Black Science" arc from Bloody Hell in America) is the storyline to which the series has been building since introducing Quimper, and fortunately Morrison doesn't let up as far as the heart of the narrative is concerned. The assault on Quimper's citadel is gleefully entertaining, including a voodoo hostage crisis when Jim Crow (channeling Oppenheimer) rejoins the team. And the confrontation itself hinges on an eleventh-hour plot twist which must have made monthly readers deliriously giddy and which presages Morrison's famous claim in Batman RIP that Batman "thinks of everything." It's also nice to see Morrison tie up a few loose ends, ends which some readers may have forgotten entirely. And it's a delight to see another face-off with Quimper; his narrative arc's conclusion is extremely non-traditional, but it feels right, and it's weird enough that Morrison devotees won't feel cheated.

Unfortunately, volume six gets bogged down here and there in some heavy philosophical content which still isn't entirely clear to me on my latest read-through of the series. Elements like the blind chessman and the magic mirror make more sense each time I read the series, but I still don't know quite what to make of Ragged Robin's somewhat abrupt exit from the storyline, in which it's implied that she wrote the whole story as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy; aside from the time-travel hijinks, which are decipherable enough, Morrison teases us with hints that The Invisibles has all been a story whose author enters the events (sorry, but I just noticed the resonance with the Morrison/Mob connection) without fully exploring the ramifications of that fact. And this isn't the only example of Morrison's ideas running loose -- fictionsuits and timesuits and an ultimately empty red herring surrounding billionaire Mason Lang leave the periphery of Kissing Mister Quimper moderately vapid.

When it's good, it's good, but Kissing Mister Quimper isn't perfect. In fact, one of the largest flaws the work carries is the self-knowledge that the series is coming to an end -- only twelve more issues to go after volume six concludes. As such, some of the character conclusions seem artificial -- Boy's departure especially never really feels right, and the loss of Ragged Robin is a major hit for the series, which somehow never really feels as fun again without someone so free to shrug off her own insanity with a quipped, "I'm nuts."

Kissing Mister Quimper closes out the second third of The Invisibles (recall that the series was originally published in three "volumes" of single issues, of which Quimper concludes the second "volume") with an actual bang -- the destruction of Mason Lang's manor -- but never fully takes the triumphant steps toward a fantastic finish, whimpering (or Quimpering) several times throughout.

[Contains full covers and recap & character pages. Printed on non-glossy paper.]

That brings us to the last leg of the tour, loyal readers -- up next is the seventh and final volume, The Invisible Kingdom, in which it all comes to an end and yet begins again.

Read Zach's full Invisibles review series. New reviews coming soon!

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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 5: Counting to None trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[The fifth in our series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

With the fifth volume, Counting to None, the seven-volume megaseries The Invisibles begins its road to the final issue. After the resounding success of the last two volumes, Entropy in the U.K. and Bloody Hell in America, Counting to None has a lot of work to do as far as living up to expectations. Fortunately, consistent artwork from Phil Jimenez and more of Grant Morrison's traditionally off-the-wall ideas make the book work, though it's not quite as good as what came before it.

"And so we return and begin again." Counting to None is fairly neatly divided into three sections -- an untitled arc which finally explains Robin's mysterious past; "Sensitive Criminals," in which we meet an Invisibles cell from 1924; and "American Death Camp," in which the Invisibles are betrayed by Boy, who steals the Hand of Fate, a mystical superweapon of great power. In the first, we finally learn that (in case you haven't figured it out already) Ragged Robin is from the future, as the Invisibles rush to defeat armageddon cultists and save Takashi, a scientist destined to discover time travel. In "Sensitive Criminals," King Mob travels back in time to retrieve the Hand of Fate while cooperating with a vintage Invisibles cell, meeting Edith Manning for what might be the first time (depending on your interpretation of "chronology" and "linear time"). Finally, in "American Death Camp," Boy's betrayal surfaces as she undergoes brutal deprogramming that unpeels the layers of her already fractured psyche.

Counting to None is an extremely unpleasant read, with some delightful character moments in the "Sensitive Criminals" arc, but overall the series is beginning to show signs of wear. The characters -- and, the reader senses, Morrison himself -- are all growing disillusioned with their lifestyle; the stylized violence, which had heretofore been as enjoyable as any Hollywood blockbuster (as in Bloody Hell in America, which showed no remorse for its action-hero goriness), takes on a level of grotesque and often senseless grittiness. Both the reader and the Invisibles are starting to realize the inherent ugliness in their world and their way of life, epitomized brilliantly by the "little sliver of Quimper" infecting Ragged Robin after the events of the last volume's raid on Dulce. The discomfort is accomplished largely thanks to artist Phil Jimenez's extremely nuanced pencils, which spare no corpuscle of blood but rather blast gunshot wounds and arterial sprays in lavishly ornate detail.

When even King Mob expresses discomfort with, for example, the psychological torture Boy undergoes, the series is headed toward a different kind of conclusion. It's not unlike the moment in the Star Wars trilogy when Luke Skywalker decides not to fight his father but forgive him; similarly, each of the Invisibles is beginning to realize that their approach may be all wrong, that physical violence may need to be subordinated to psychological warfare -- "ontological terrorism," as King Mob puts it. The effect is such that the trip to 1924 practically feels like a vacation; the Invisibles cell of that era is fresh and entertaining, and we finally get to meet some of the characters we've been hearing so much about (Beryl Wyndham, for instance, who's eventually central to the cosmology of the whole series).

But for readers who aren't accustomed to Morrison's esoteric style -- and even for those of us who've read nearly everything he's ever written -- Counting to None marks the volume at which the series begins to get very strange indeed. Almost as if he knows the end is coming (and perhaps the writer really felt this way, with the impending millennium and all its magical connotations facing his publishing schedule), Morrison begins to take stock of the cards still up his sleeve and throws them into the story without devoting too much attention to the details. On repeat readings, things like Takashi's time machine or the Harlequin -- mysterious figures in a variety of disguises, who seem to know everything there is to know -- don't make much sense, and Morrison doesn't seem too invested in unpacking them. Perhaps the best manifestation of this is the short tale which concludes this volume, "And We're All Policemen," which seems not to fit into Invisibles continuity and which remains, for me, entirely a mystery.

There are, however, answers in this volume -- the truth about the relationship between King Mob and Edith Manning begins to unwrap itself, and by the end of the volume there's no question to whom Boy owes her allegiance -- but increasingly they're no longer the focus of the series. Instead, Morrison seems more interested in interrogating our notions of how the world works, layering his own unique philosophy over our own and ultimately asking questions about the nature of reality itself. Diehards might not object, but less cooperative readers may find the series getting a bit too heavy. With Counting to None, The Invisibles is becoming a series about, rather than simply with, a message. This certainly isn't the series we began reading in Say You Want a Revolution . . . ,but at this point I'm not entirely convinced that's a bad thing. In retrospect, it's jarring, to say the least.

[Contains full covers and a "Story Thus Far" page. Printed on non-glossy paper.]

That's Volume Five, loyal readers. Up next: Kissing Mister Quimper, in which the series begins to conclude itself, but not before wading through some murky territory -- and bringing us back to that nasty diminutive devil, Quimper.

Read Zach's full Invisibles review series. Next week, join us as we begin to delve back into Brightest Day and its related tie-ins. Don't miss it!

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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 4: Bloody Hell in America (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[The fourth in our series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll state that I believe Bloody Hell in America, the fourth volume of The Invisibles, is among the best work Grant Morrison has done in comics, right up there with Final Crisis, his run on Batman, and All-Star Superman (which I believe is his all-time pièce de résistance). Unfortunately that doesn't bode well for the rest of the series when it peaks at the midway point, but that's a matter for subsequent reviews.

"And so we return and begin again." It's been a year since the Invisibles rescued King Mob and Lord Fanny from the torture chamber of Sir Miles Delacourt, and the team has been recharging in America on the estate of Invisibles financier Bruce Wayne Mason Lang. After a ritual shaking up of the team hierarchy -- Ragged Robin is now the leader -- our heroes are off to Dulce, New Mexico, to retrieve a secret AIDS vaccine from a covert government base. They're unaware that they're walking into a trap laid by Mister Quimper and that their newest ally Jolly Roger may already be compromised ...

Bloody Hell in America wisely does not pick up where Entropy in the U.K. left off, applying rather than merely continuing the energy and momentum from the last few issues. Rather than show us the rest of the escape from the torture chambers (we can infer, since King Mob's last action in Entropy in the U.K. was reloading his gun, that there must have been a firefight to leave the building), Morrison jumps forward a year and focuses on glamorizing the Invisibles, unapologetically turning them into full-blown rock stars. Now that we know who all these people are (well, save Ragged Robin, whose mysterious background is practically valid characterization at this point) and have reasons to care for them, Morrison wants our interest in the characters to be felt as much as understood. "Nice and smooth" becomes the mood of the series, heretofore nice but somewhat less than smooth. It's the kind of move that would be indulgent if it weren't so successful.

It's slightly ironic, then, that artist Phil Jimenez -- who (I've said it once, I'll say it again) is undoubtedly the definitive artist for The Invisibles - doesn't slather on the Day-Glo and go for excessive visual glamor. The body language becomes increasingly dramatic -- Lord Fanny and Jack, particularly, strike poses very reminiscent of rock stars -- but Jimenez's detailed line work brings out all the grittiness and at times violent ugliness of the world these characters inhabit. When Quimper removes his mask, for example, it's a prime opportunity for a vividly impressionistic image, but Jimenez grounds his Quimper unmasked in heavy shadows which don't entirely obscure meticulously charred flesh and distinct dental disfigurements. (Caveat: Jimenez is the best artist on The Invisibles, but that may be only because Brian Bolland never did interiors. His cover work, which begins in this volume, is incredible, better even than Sean Phillips's work in the last one.)

The revelation of Quimper raises an interesting point about The Invisibles -- now that the series is at its halfway point (looking, of course, retrospectively), there are no signs of stopping. This isn't a bad thing in itself, but it becomes slightly problematic when the series continues to expand as it does. The introduction of Jolly Roger and Mason Lang are difficult because Jolly Roger feels extraneous now that we've gotten full senses of characterization for the Invisibles proper and because Mason Lang isn't really given anything to do except be a kind of Bruce Wayne stand-in (which makes it obvious that Morrison has never really stopped writing Batman since Arkham Asylum in 1989). Additionally, as compelling as Quimper is, it's unfortunate that (for now) he has replaced Sir Miles, just when the latter was starting to get interesting. Fortunately, these are mistakes the remainder of the series corrects, and taken in isolation the volume never truly suffers from these flaws.

Bloody Hell in America is such a fun read in part because it's the most pop-savvy, most accessible, most exhilarating volume of The Invisibles, but it's helped by the fact that Morrison clearly knows he's writing a four-issue action film. King Mob complains to Mason, "You've just turned the last ten minutes of our lives into a Tarantino scene. I'd call that a triumph for post-modernism any day of the week." Bloody Hell in America is indeed a triumph, the most digestible of the seven volumes and, at $12.99, a good trial-sized dose of Morrison's magnum opus. Although after that last frame cliffhanger, I can't imagine anyone not coming back for another helping.

[Contains full covers and a recap/character page. The collection is, however, missing one less-than-crucial page (the last of issue #4), which introduces Takashi, a scientist who becomes pivotal in the next volumes. Printed on non-glossy paper.]

That's volume four under wraps, loyal readers. Stay tuned for the fifth of seven reviews, Counting to None, in which the end begins and we meet the Hand of Fate -- but fortunately there's still time to dance like there's no millennium approaching.

Read Zach's full Invisibles review series. Next week, not one but two Time Masters reviews, starting Monday -- you'll remember to stop by, won't you?

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Uncollected Editions #8: Mark Millar and Grant Morrison’s Swamp Thing: Bad Gumbo (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[With Swamp Thing rejoining the DC Universe, a timely "Uncollected Editions" feature by Paul Hicks]

When Mark Millar and Grant Morrison took over Swamp Thing in 1994, they must have been faced with several dilemmas. Alan Moore had broken all types of new ground in making the book a cutting edge mature readers title and that had been successfully been continued under the pen of Rick Veitch. Somewhere between issue #87 and #88 the book stumbled dreadfully. Veitch left, editorially prevented from completing his long-planned finale to a time travel arc and his stoey where Swamp Thing meets Jesus Christ. In a show of solidarity, the series's already-lined-up and promising new young writer, named Neil Gaiman, decided to walk as well. After several months of nothing, issue #88 finally appeared with writer Doug Wheeler at the helm to hastily wrap up the time travel arc in a less controversial, more workmanlike manner.

The book continued for another seven years with Wheeler, followed by horror novelist Nancy A. Collins. The stories became very safe, status-quo-maintaining adventures split between the Louisiana bayous and the plant spiritual dimension known as the Green. Between Veitch's last issue and issue #140, there's nothing truly memorable or compelling. Swamp Thing was a title now mired in mediocrity and desperately needing to be dragged out of its rut. Millar and Morrison had the antidote, but it was a brutal process that started with the decimation of the supporting cast.

The four-part "Bad Gumbo" story in Swamp Thing #140-144 begins with an incoherent Swamp Thing howls through the Louisiana bayou, murdering the local populace. For a long-time reader, this is the equivalent of watching Superman tear apart everyone at the Daily Planet (except for Lois and Jimmy or in this case his wife Abby and the hippie Chester). Meanwhile, botanist Dr Alec Holland awakes in the Peruvian forest from a drug-induced coma. The plant who dreamed that he was a man is now a man who dreamed he was a plant. This is Millar and Morrison sweeping the pieces off the board and making sure we can’t play the game the same familiar way anymore.

Abby no longer lives in the bayou, shacked up instead with a regular man. She gets an ominous phone call from the mysteriously absent Tefé, the half-human, half-elemental daughter she had with Swamp Thing. Tefé warns that Swamp Thing is coming to kill Abby and she should run for her life. Abby runs, but she’s already being tracked through the flora in her intestines.

Wearing his artist hat, Phil Hester works with inker Kim DeMulder to superbly return the darkness to this title. There is wildness to the art that meshes brilliantly with the plot as the familiar world of Swamp Thing falls apart. Real locations give way to nightmare-scapes. Simple things like a black bird or ivy on the side of a house become ominous and threatening. Peruvian forests give way to jungles of machinery eating the forests. Alec is guided to board the horrific Soul Train to journey from Peru to Louisiana. It’s fantastic to look at and it works so well to convey the dislocation as Alec begins his physical and spiritual journey to find what he lost, or may have never had.

Millar and Morrison introduce a number of new characters to nudge Alec to learn what he needs, including Don Roberto, El Seńor Blake and the mysterious Traveller. I’ve heard the writers wanted to use established characters like the Phantom Stranger and John Constantine, but they were unavailable; this is better, I think, because the reader can't as easily predict the motives of Alec's new mentors as we could with familiar faces. The writers (maybe one in particular) deliver many well-informed explanations about the effect of plant-based drugs on human physiology, but it’s all a smokescreen. Alec isn’t a victim of hallucinogenics, rather Swamp Thing is under attack by his elemental forefathers, the Parliament of Trees. He’s a disappointment, failing to reach his true potential and held back by his connection to humanity. Their solution is to sever the human part from the plant, and the rampaging remains are trying to destroy every human connection Alec has.

Alec must race to save Abby and recover his power. The climax is a very physical confrontation with guns and explosions, not the usual fodder for this title. Alec does attain a victory, but it is bittersweet; Abby can no longer live in the world of monsters. While she isn’t killed off like the bayou-dwellers, her relationship with Alec has been destroyed. I thought this a travesty at the time, but looking at where the story went to from there, the writers offered wide-open possibilities. Abby was Alec’s center, his last true connection to humanity; she grounded him, but isn't that another way to say she held him back?

You may have noticed I’ve always placed Millar’s name ahead of Morrison’s. That’s deliberate. This isn’t Grant Morrison’s book with a novice writer hanging on his coattails, but rather this is the start of Millar’s run and beyond these four issues he was on his own. Millar's twenty-eight issue solo run on Swamp Thing after this arc surpassed these beginnings. It was marvelously inventive, deliciously dark and ultimately became a thoughtful exploration of the plant elemental with the safeties off. It carries the book to a (sadly all too rare) fully satisfying conclusion.

To get there, the authors needed a dose of "Bad Gumbo" to clear their collective heads and make way for something new and stranger. And isn't that just what Alan Moore did, too?

[DC may be rebooting, but we've still got trades to read! Reviews of Birds of Prey and more coming next week -- see you then!]

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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 3: Entropy in the UK trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[The third in our series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

After a shaky period of getting its legs, The Invisibles enters its third volume with all cylinders firing. Entropy in the U.K. functions as one of the most successful of the seven volumes that make up Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, a worthy successor to Apocalipstick, and satisfyingly setting up many of the major conflicts to come.

"And so we return and begin again." When Entropy in the U.K. begins, King Mob is being tortured by Sir Miles and the minions of Miss Dwyer and the Outer Church. Only problem is, "King Mob" claims that he's just a horror writer named Kirk Morrison, who created King Mob as a character in a book; his memories propose that he's Gideon Stargrave, an anarchist superspy from a parallel reality, while physical evidence suggests he's truly King Mob. With King Mob and Lord Fanny in captivity, the rest of the Invisibles -- Ragged Robin, Boy, Jack Frost (now that Dane has accepted his destiny), Jim Crow, and supercop Mister Six from Division X -- lead an assault on the Outer Church's torture chamber in an attempt to liberate their comrades. Meanwhile, Boy gets a backstory, and we meet the psychedelic cops of Division X and the series' new and perhaps greatest antagonist Mister Quimper.

If there's one word to characterize Entropy in the U.K., it's "frenetic." To take a few words from King Mob, it's "nice and smooth." The pace never lets up in this volume; Morrison obviously gets a majority of the credit (as when he plants the seeds of the arc's climax in the inconspicuous "World's Greatest Dad" mug), but new artist Phil Jimenez and returning illustrator Steve Yeowell do bang-up work on the main issues in this collection.

It's my contention that Jimenez is the definitive Invisibles artist, drawing clean and detailed treatments of Morrison's script while demonstrating a flair for facial expression and avant-garde paneling. I appreciated the return of Yeowell, though, since his choppier style provides an excellent visual contrast to Jimenez's more restrained artwork on the psychological chapters, with the effect being a sense of chaos loosed upon the narrative. As much as I love Jimenez, I can't imagine, for example, his crisp linework aptly rendering the anarchic intrusion of the King-of-All-Tears in battle against Jack Frost. Fortunately the artists are allowed to play to their strengths, such that the shift might not be immediately noticeable when the art changes in step with the mood.

After a few volumes of hesitant marriage between characterization and plot, Entropy in the U.K. finally gives us both without sacrificing one for the other. When Ragged Robin reveals that she was born in 1988 (which should make her no older than seven), it's a brilliant moment of character development that sacrifices none of the narrative momentum, something I can't quite say for "Sheman," as delightful a romp through Lord Fanny's history as it was.

Additionally, we finally learn what makes Boy tick; my one reservation about "How I Became Invisible" is its placement in the series, right in the middle of the most exciting storyline to date. It seems that Boy deserves to be more than an aside in this volume (a complaint which one could easily log for Boy's appearance anywhere in the series, especially her conspicuous absence from volume seven), but the positioning of the story in the middle of another arc gives it a bit more suspense than might normally be afforded it.

Another word I'd use to describe Entropy in the U.K. is, interestingly enough, "progress." As a series that has occasionally spun its wheels, this volume has with it a sense of positive forward momentum. Many plotlines are resolved -- Dane's identity as Jack Frost -- with our characters fully in their own skin, yet many more new directions are opened. Phil Jimenez's presence gives the series an exciting new visual direction, King Mob's personality shift throughout the rest of the series begins here, our understanding of Sir Miles (in classic Invisibles form) shifts from "villain" to "human," and the introduction of Quimper and Division X completely reshapes the way the rest of the series behaves and -- more importantly -- thinks.

Entropy in the U.K. is the Invisibles comic The Invisibles should have been all along. The best, as they say, is yet to be.

[Contains full covers and recap & character pages. Printed on non-glossy paper.]

That's volume three, loyal readers. Stay tuned; up next, the slimmest of seven volumes, Bloody Hell in America, which further opens up new directions for our heroes and for the series as a whole.

Read Zach's full Invisibles review series. Coming up later this week, the Collected Editions review of Superman: The Black Ring by Paul Cornell.

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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 2: Apocalipstick trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[Continuing a series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

After surprising myself with a somewhat lukewarm reaction to the first volume of Grant Morrison's seven-book epic The Invisibles (due mostly, you'll recall, to the emphasis of style over substance), I dove into the second volume, Apocalipstick, with a bit of trepidation tempered by the confidence that Morrison has never really let me down. Fortunately, Apocalipstick is one of the most successful in the seven-volume series, nailing both characterization and the enormous scope of the work as a whole.

"And so we return and begin again." Apocalipstick begins immediately where the last volume, Say You Want a Revolution, left off. Our heroes, the counter-cultural anarchist heroes The Invisibles, have retaken the windmill time machine from the faceless demon Orlando. Their troubles are only just beginning, however; the windmill is surrounded by the drone-like Myrmidons, and Dane announces he's quitting the team because it's getting entirely too weird for him (a complaint I imagine some readers voiced in the original letter columns, sadly not reprinted here). The main narrative pauses for a few issues to introduce three one-and-done minor character arcs; then the main story of the volume, "Sheman," gives us the origin story of Lord Fanny, revealed to be a transvestite shaman raised as a woman in Brazil.

If the chief complaint about Say You Want a Revolution was that it was generally flat on characterization, Apocalipstick atones for this sin of omission in spades. Though Boy and to some extent King Mob are still somewhat mysterious characters, we're finally given insight into Lord Fanny, who becomes one of the more compelling characters in the hands of Morrison, who's so clearly steeped in his trademark mystical research. Ragged Robin acquires a personality (sprightly and energetic), good compensation for the fact that her origins go unexplored until volume five. Even the story's principal antagonist Sir Miles Delacourt gets fleshed out here, such that he's no longer a cartoon villain but rather becomes a fully developed enemy evenly matched against The Invisibles.

The most remarkable thing about Apocalipstick, though, is not "Sheman," though it is wonderfully illustrated by Jill Thompson, who apes many famous artistic styles while keeping Fanny consistent (she's one of the only artists, it seems, who understands that Fanny is a man wearing women's clothing; Brian Bolland would later make the mistake of drawing Fanny as an actual woman). The three one-and-done issues in the middle of the volume are among the best in the entire series; in the hands of any other writer, these three could have been mere ugly filler (as Batman: Streets of Gotham always became when Paul Dini wasn't on hand), but Morrison uses these issues to introduce new and compelling characters, only one of whom appears in subsequent issues.

Voodoo baron Jim Crow stands out as a significant figure down the pike, but Bobby Murray is perhaps the crowning achievement in the series. In "Best Man Fall," Morrison gives life to "red shirt" henchman Bobby Murray, such that Murray's slaughter at the hands of King Mob way back in issue #1 is recolored as a human tragedy rather than King Mob's "nice and smooth" triumph. Steve Parkhouse's illustrations here are perfect, capturing all the small emotions in Bobby Murray's sad and short life. (Though Bobby, obviously, never appears again in the series, the introduction of Audrey Murray, who reappears at a crucial moment in the penultimate issue of volume seven, demonstrates unequivocally Morrison's mastery of the long-form story.)

While Apocalipstick delivers characterization and a sense of the world of The Invisibles, it also begins to introduce some of the major mythological components of the series, albeit in a typically Morrisonian fashion -- by which I mean it makes almost no sense until several re-readings. As Dane/Jack begins to remember the missing time in his memory from his initiation with Tom O'Bedlam, Paul Johnson's artwork (or perhaps Morrison's script) never quite makes it clear precisely what's happened; we get a crystal clear empathy with Dane/Jack's growing confusion about the world he's entering, but the mysteries are almost too heady. It's early in the series to be bemoaning a lack of answers (or maybe it's just that six years of Lost trained me to think that way), but it seems that only Morrison diehards will appreciate the deliberately obtuse nature of the ideas behind The Invisibles.

Morrison wisely seems to recognize the off-putting nature of his philosophical advances and chooses to match dense imagery with simultaneous plot twists. By the end of Apocalipstick, Dane/Jack has embraced his role as Tom O'Bedlam's successor in the Invisibles cell led by King Mob, just as his new leader is captured by a gleefully gloating Sir Miles. Forestalling the answers to the mysteries of Barbelith with completely lucid cliffhangers is a genius move on Morrison's part, even if the frustration surfaces in hindsight. First-time readers, though, will quickly lose patience with the sudden introduction and abandonment of John-a-Dreams, a compelling characters whose most significant discovery (and whose very existence) is revealed and quickly neglected for many chapters.

By giving fullness to both the heroes and the villains of The Invisibles, Apocalipstick achieves the goal of giving the overall series a sense of purpose and identity. Now that we know who the players are, what they're fighting for, and how they go about their side of the fight, it's much easier to get a feel for what exactly The Invisibles is supposed to be. It's also easier to identify whether or not The Invisibles is entirely successful based on the objective standard of what an Invisibles comic should be like. Answer? Apocalipstick.

[Contains full covers, a character page, and a "Story So Far" page. Printed on non-glossy paper.]

That's volume two taken care of, loyal readers. Next, it's Entropy in the U.K., in which King Mob's personalities -- all of them -- are explored and the definitive Invisibles artist finally joins the creative team. Stay tuned.

Read Zach's review of The Invisibles Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution. And coming up later in the week ... the Collected Editions review of Grant Morrison's Time and the Batman. Don't miss it!

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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[Presenting a new series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

It's all going to end next year, which makes now as good a time as any to reevaluate Grant Morrison's 59-issue magnum opus (collected over seven fairly weighty trade paperback editions) The Invisibles. As for what's going to be ending, it's not the series; no, that wrapped in 2000 after six years of publication. What's going to end, The Invisibles suggests, is quite simply everything as we know it -- the world, our own consciousness, and our conception of space-time are all going to come to some sort of end on December 22, 2012.

[Invisibles purists will know that the series was published in 59 issues dispersed throughout three volumes - 25 in volume one, 22 in volume two, and 12 in volume three. For the ease of the reader, when I use volume designations in the following reviews, I'm referring to the seven collected editions, not to the three volume divisions for the original issues' publication.]

"And so we return and begin again." For those keeping score, that's Issue One, Page One, Panel One, and already we're told what the central theme of the work is. In a way, this thematic declaration hints at the episode structure which divides this first volume, Say You Want a Revolution (quoting John Lennon, whose spirit is contacted for guidance in the first issue, "Dead Beatles"), neatly in two: the introductory tale "Down and Out in Heaven and Hell" and the team's first mission in "Arcadia." This first volume accomplishes much that a first volume should: it introduces a familiar concept and character-types in ways that feel fresh. But Say You Want a Revolution is not the best Invisibles volume, flawed in ways that suggest the series had not found its feet at that time.

Meet juvenile delinquent Dane McGowan, content to be a thorn in the side of his schoolteachers by lobbing Molotov cocktails into the school library. After being sentenced to a juvenile rehabilitation clinic, Dane finds himself torn between two forces fighting over him. On one side, the apparently soulless Miss Dwyer and Mister Gelt, bespectacled advocates of conformity at all costs; on the other, the ragtag Invisibles, a countercultural answer of sorts to the JLA. The Invisibles -- led by Morrison stand-in King Mob, with homeless shaman Tom O'Bedlam, transvestite mystic Lord Fanny, Raggedy Ann doppelganger Ragged Robin, and martial arts master Boy (actually an African-American policewoman turned revolutionary) -- insist Dane is actually Jack Frost, their newest and strongest member, contender for the crucial role of "the next Buddha." After Dane/Jack's initiation, the Invisibles time-travel to recruit one more member, the Marquis de Sade, while being stalked by the faceless demon Orlando.

It's evident fairly early in this volume that Grant Morrison knows what he's doing, though much of that isn't immediately apparent until finishing the series; Ragged Robin's introduction of herself by way of an afterthought ("I'm Ragged Robin, by the way. I'm nuts."), for example, actually tells us more about her backstory than Morrison initially seems to be letting on. Recently Morrison's found a good deal of critical approval for his dexterity with long-form storytelling on his Batman titles, but it's in The Invisibles that this skill really comes to life, more so than in his previous works (also under the Vertigo banner) Animal Man and Doom Patrol. Here Morrison plants seeds that will grow over the course of the seven volumes of The Invisibles. It's clear he knows where this is all going.

It's a shame, though, that the series itself doesn't seem to know how to get where it's going. It's a bit like preparing for a long trip out of state, planning every stage of the journey but forgetting to factor in transportation. It's here where Say You Want a Revolution fails to live up to the latter volumes in the work, suffering a bit from problems with identity, both of the characters in the series and (on a meta-level) of the series itself. While "Down and Out" is quite good, appearing less derivative when you recognize that it was published in 1994, a full five years before The Matrix did practically the same story, "Arcadia" is less fulfilling because its combination of historical fiction and literary analogy ultimately paints it more like a story arc from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman than anything else (the scenes with Orlando, however, are brilliantly disturbing and grossly original, in every sense of the word "gross").

Moreover, the greatest flaw in Say You Want a Revolution is the absolute dearth of characterization present. Aside from Dane/Jack, who is given (and given quickly) one of the richest voices in comicdom, none of the characters is really given a purpose or a personality. Indeed, they seem to be grounded primarily in compelling visuals; King Mob's catchphrase "Nice and smooth" seems to describe the way readers are meant to embrace him because of the sheer cool factor his aura reverberates, while Lady Fanny's transvestism seems gimmicky and Boy appears not to have much purpose at all beyond an apparent diversity requirement. There are hints of Lord Fanny and Ragged Robin as characters with fuller purposes and abilities, but for the most part the book relies heavily on Dane and, to a lesser extent, King Mob.

On the visual side, Steve Yeowell (on "Down and Out") and Jill Thompson (on "Arcadia") are two of the better collaborators Morrison had on a series that, near the end, was plagued with artistic misfires and imperfect interpretations of Morrison's script. Yeowell, Morrison's partner on Sebastian O and Skrull Kill Krew, introduces us to the world of the Invisibles with cartoonish but clear lines and King Mob at his coolest. Thompson, meanwhile, fresh off her stint on Sandman (collected as Brief Lives), draws what I believe are the definitive versions of Lord Fanny and Ragged Robin (not surprising, considering Robin was initially modeled after Thompson) until Phil Jimenez joins the series somewhere around the third collected edition; her lines, somewhat more realistic than Yeowell's, give historical authenticity to "Arcadia" while perfectly capturing the off-kilter nature of characters like Orlando and the blind chessman.

All told, the first eight issues (particularly the first, which functions as a distilled microcosm of the entire series) are not perfect or the best that The Invisibles has to offer. But Say You Want a Revolution represents something perhaps better (after all, it's a bit early for a series to peak) -- and that's potential. This first volume displays great promise and prefigures great things to come from the series. Say You Want a Revolution is filled with fantastic moments -- the discovery of the head of John the Baptist, the raid on Harmony House, and the subway encounter with Tom O'Bedlam -- that suggest The Invisibles is a series bubbling over with ideas. At times during the series, especially in this volume, the philosophy overpowers the narrative, but it's never as extreme as Alan Moore's Promethea, in which the plot was quite literally put on hold for many issues for the comic book equivalent of a philosophy lecture. But the dominating presence of the philosophy behind The Invisibles does overshadow its characters, a flaw from which the series fortunately rebounds in subsequent volumes.

[Contains full covers and an introduction by Peter Milligan. Printed on non-glossy paper.]

That's the first of seven reviews, loyal readers. Stay tuned for my reviews of the rest of Morrison's The Invisibles -- up next, it's Apocalipstick, in which Lord Fanny and several minor characters are given origin stories and Dane/Jack finally chooses a side.

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Uncollected Editions #3: Firearm by James Robinson (Malibu Comics)

[Continuing our "Uncollected Editions" series by Paul Hicks]

It was June 1993 and the comic industry thing to do was create a new shared universe. The guys at Malibu Comics called theirs the Ultraverse. From the get-go they did some smart things, engaging talented writers to structure the universe, create some history and texture, and then populate it with licensable characters. The writers included veterans such as Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, and Mike Barr as well as newer writers like James Hudnall, Gerard Jones, Len Strazewski and the mostly unknown pre-Starman James Robinson.

The Ultraverse launched, starting small with a handful of titles, introducing comic readers to names like Prime, Hardcase, Mantra and The Strangers. These books were pretty good superhero fare, each with a distinctive feel. The line slowly expanded and September 1993 saw the debut of something very special: James Robinson's Firearm.

It looked like a standard early '90s bad-ass big gun book. It wasn’t. It was in fact, a character-driven P.I. book, more in common with Powers than Punisher. Violent, but never mindless, it was a comic for reading and savouring.

The star of the series was Alec Swan, a rumpled and scarred ex-pat Brit living in Pasedena, LA. The high-concept: despite being a regular bloke he was always embroiled in cases with super-powered freaks, or Ultras as they’re known in this comic-book universe. The name "Firearm" was a leftover call-sign from his days with mysterious British spook outfit, the Lodge. It’s not a name Swan ever used in introduction, but one other people called him, much to his chagrin. It was accurately descriptive in that he did carry a big gun, but Robinson seemed to delight in making him constantly lose it in action, just when it would be most necessary. Swan was far more John MacLean than James Bond, more likely to be bloodied and desperate, than suavely using a gadget to save his skin. Robinson showed much of the flair that he applied in his next series, Starman. Both had extremely accessible lead characters with particular tastes and vulnerabilities.

The stories were full of action, with mysteries and shady character’s worthy of a classic P.I. novel. Another of the delights of this series was Alec Swan’s inner monologues. His running commentary was often witty, populated with cool cultural observations and slyly addressed to the readers. Swan’s tastes in films, food, cars, books and architecture were all covered, in a way that made you feel like you were getting to know a friend. He also constantly referred to earlier missions that sounded all the more alluring for never being related in full. After a few issues I would happily have read 22 pages of Swan buying groceries, as long as we got to hear his thoughts. An example from two pages of a shootout in issue # 9:

Pasadena.

Let me tell you about Pasadena. And if all you out there in Podunk, Middle America are asking why should you care about my town, I say . . .

. . . Hey, Droopy, where are your manners? I’d listen if you wanted to tell me about your one whore, one diner, one gas station dump you call home.

‘Sides you got another of my mindlessly violent exploits to look at, at the same time, so what’s your problem?

James Robinson was open in his influences on the series. He wanted to capture the energy of John Woo Hong Kong action films. Remember this was 1993 when Woo was a cult director famous for The Killer, A Better Tomorrow, A Better Tomorrow II and especially Hard Boiled, and definitely not the disappointing American debut Hard Target. Robinson's used the Woo stock ingredient of spectacular gunfight mayhem and combined it with wry monologues. The concoction was unique at the time and is still compelling today.

Issues #1-4 made up the "American Pastimes" arc, a missing person case that leads Swan to a very nasty secret society of ultra-powered snobs. Issue #2 was a highlight with Swan having to deal with the lantern-jawed super-celebrity Hardcase. Their few pages together had the seeds of a great buddy movie scenario. Cully Hamner (Question co-features, Black Lightning: Year One) was the artist of the first story and he showed a great deal of flair in everything from his composition of a car chase/gun fight to character’s chatting in an art gallery. Howard Chaykin provided the covers in his appropriately chunky style. Another frequent cover artist of note was painter Dan Brereton.

Issue #5 was a simple, yet very important story as Swan talks to a suicidal young woman. It is small on action, but really shows the compassionate side of Swan. It’s similar to the Christmas issue of Starman, where the lead character takes the time to get involved in someone’s problems and try to help. It’s a type of real heroism that is far too rare in comics. Kirk Van Wormer provided the art. Hamner returned for issue #6, part of a crossover with Prime #10. Entertaining without the other issue, strangely enough the meeting of these two characters left far more impression on Prime in his Ultraverse flagship series, than it did on Firearm.

The next few issues were stand alone stories of different types of cases. They provide changes of locale for Swan as he got involved in a super-powered custody case, tracks a murderer into Sasquatch territory and gets stuck in a gunfight in a parade float warehouse. Worthwhile reads, all. Also of note is James Robinson’s very enjoyable personal handling of the letter column that began in issue #8. It became a forum to share recommendations of books and movies, not just discuss the series.

Issues #10 and #11 were a cyberpunk two-parter with the distinctive art of Gary Erskine. Set in England and a virtual Glasgow, Swan is blackmailed to return to his old employer, the brutal Lodge. We really see the crap that Swan left behind; the associations that make him dislike England, and especially why he changed occupations.

Issue #12 was a turning point in the series. It sets up the entire "Rafferty Saga" which ran from issue #13 through to #18. Rafferty is Swan’s Moriarty and Robinson sets the stakes high with his debut. Rafferty’s role as a non-powered serial killer of ultras is still novel today. He outwits Swan repeatedly, killing multiple targets under the hero’s watch. Within the "Rafferty Saga" there were an abundance of guest stars from other books, but Robinson had good reason for all of the inclusions and still kept a firm hand on the plot.

As much as I adore this series it did have some problems. The artists changed far too frequently, and while Cully Hamner did more than any others, he only pencilled six issues. Some of the other art teams provide strong work, but others appeared rushed.

Of special mention was the Firearm #0 special, a two-part tale told first in a live action video and concluded in a comic. This was a mixed bag, with the half-hour video clearly suffering from a low budget. Robinson has mentioned in interviews the director’s disdain for his input on casting, accents and story detail. The comic suffers from none of that and artist Mike Wieringo provides flair and spectacle that is sorely missing from the video. Even today, however, this still stands as an unparalleled effort in comic marketing.

Firearm came to a sad end in issue 18. This was when Marvel finalized their purchase of Malibu. Many of the other Ultraverse series limped along before being dissolved in an extremely messy frenzy of crossovers with Marvel Universe. James’ last contribution was a three-part backup tale in the thematically unrelated Codename: Firearm issues #0-2. This story was most likely issue #19, split into three parts, started by Cully Hamner and completed by Gary Erskine.

Robinson wisely got out of the Ultraverse, finishing his series in a satisfying conclusion to the "Rafferty Saga," and never beginning a run on the team book Ultraforce that he was linked to. Hero Illustrated Magazine (now there's a blast from the past! -- ed.) published details of an unfinished Firearm annual, again with Cully Hamner, which would have explored Swan’s Lodge days some more, and set up future plot lines.

Thematically the series was about maturity and moving beyond mayhem and violence for its own sake. The Alec Swan in issue #1 is not quite the same man in issue #18, he has different priorities and expectations from life. A similar theme was more overtly present in Robinson’s epic Starman, where maturity takes Jack Knight away from the heroic life. Perhaps a bit of meta-commentary on James’ part about outgrowing super-hero comics, if they purely exist for no good reason.

If you enjoyed Starman, Firearm will definitely give you the same satisfaction. Look for it in the back-issue bins, most likely to be cheap and neglected.

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Guest Review Month 2010 prize drawing and thanks

A gigantic Collected Editions blog thank you to our 2010 guest month reviewers: Azn Badger, Andrew Belcastro, Paul Hicks, Aalok Joshi, Zach King, Damien Lockrow, Chris Marshall, Adam Noble, Kevin Pasquino, Tom Speelman, Tim, and Todd Wagener.

Due to the overwhelmingly wonderful response we received to the call for guest reviewers, some of these reviews you saw this past month, and some will be coming at you over the next few weeks and early next year. Great job everyone, and much thanks.

You can read a wide variety of Collected Editions guest reviews by following the "guest review" post tag.

As I mentioned in the Guest Review Month 2010 introductory post, this year's special event was sponsored by Simon & Schuster's new Pulp History series of illustrated books. Devil Dog and Shadow Knights are both in stores now, and as a thank you to the guest reviewers, Simon & Schuster is sending copies of each book to one lucky reviewer, drawn at random.

And the winner is .... (drumroll, please) ... Andrew Belcastro! Congratulations Andrew -- your books will be on their way.

Thanks again to all our guest reviewers. Coming up on Thursday, a first for Collected Editions as part of our fifth year celebration. Don't miss it!

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Comic Book Gift Guide 2010

As has become a yearly tradition, the Collected Edition blog presents my top pick suggestions of trade paperback and graphic novel presents for your favorite comic book fan -- or suggestions to help introduce others to the medium.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Collected Editions gift list if I didn't help you get free shipping (nothing I dislike more than paying for shipping). My focus this year is on good gift packages -- books you can buy together or mix and match and your work's all done. And all of these gifts represent full stories or at least big chunks -- no one wants to get a present only to find they have to buy something else to resolve the cliffhanger.

Here's hoping with these suggestions, you'll be a hit!

* Star Wars Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle
* DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle
* DC Super Heroes: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book

I literally wasted an unexpected hour at a bookstore the other day flipiing through the Star Wars Year by Year documentary book. This oversized tome, full of pictures, takes you through Star Wars' history year by year from before the first movie's release to Clone Wars today. I dare anyone to pick up this book, flip to the year you first encountered Star Wars, and see if you're not hooked following your own life alongside Star Wars the rest of the way through. This is my highest gift recommendation for this year -- and the price is enough that you can get it with free shipping on its own or with anything else on this list.

Of course, being a DC Comics fan, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a similar Year by Year volume for DC history; this book was not as detailed as I hoped, but I imagine it would still be a welcome gift for any comics fan. This one, too, comes with free shipping (I couldn't find a similar Marvel book, but if I overlooked it, please correct me). And if big gift books is your thing (or the thing of your favorite comics fan), DC also has a dynamic pop-up book this year that will thrill both the young and the young-at-heart (DC Super Heroes: Ultimate Pop-Up Book doesn't qualify for free shipping on its own, but mix with any other book on the list or two of the I Can Read stocking stuffers (below) for free shipping).

* Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Boxset
* Lost At Sea

* Diary of a Wimpy Kid Box of Books

As I mentioned, when I give comics gifts, I like to give full stories. If your favorite comics fan enjoyed this year's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World movie, introduce them to the whole Scott Pilgrim saga at once -- perfect for holiday vacation reading -- with this box set available in just a few weeks from Oni Press -- and of course, no shipping! If you want to jazz up the package a bit (and really seem in the know), include writer Bryan Lee O'Malley's Lost at Sea, a separate book he published in the midst of working on the Scott Pilgrim series.

And, still in the movie-to-box-set vein, if your favorite comics fan is a little younger try the Diary of a Wimpy Kid box of books, collecting the most recent four volumes in Jeff Kinney's series on which this year's movie was based (with a sequel movie scheduled for next year). Need I even say it? Free shipping!

* Superman: Earth One
* Luthor
* Superman: Secret Origin
* Absolute All Star Superman

Superman's my favorite superhero. Even though he's fallen out of fashion lately -- not considered as cool, I think, as Batman, nor has Superman's multimedia forays been as popular as Batman's -- I like to think that the recent excitement over the Superman: Earth One modern retelling of Superman's origin precedes a renaissance for the character. To that end, I was pleased to see four gift-worthy Superman books coming out close to the holidays; not only Superman: Earth One, but also the Luthor graphic novel about Superman's greatest enemy by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo; Superman: Secret Origin, a new in-regular-comics-continuity Superman origin by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank; and the deluxe reimagined story of Superman's last days in Absolute All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. All of these are popular, well known creators, and they're writing Superman. Joy!

Absolute All-Star Superman gets free shipping on its own, or mix and match any of the other free for an award-winning Superman gift package.

* The Walking Dead: Compendium One
* Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s

If scary is more your loved one's thing, I spotted Four Color Fear in the bookstores around Halloween. This is a great collection of 1950s horror comics published before the Comics Code regulations, so there's plenty of fright and gore even if the work seems a little dated. The stories come with bits of notes and history, making this more than just your everyday graphic novel and the kind of coffee table-type piece (if your coffee table likes that kind of thing) that's right for gift giving.

Four Color Fear doesn't qualify for free shipping on its own, but you can combine it with Lost at Sea, one of the Superman volumes, or a couple of the I Can Read Books for free shipping -- or get a double-dose of horror with the Walking Dead compendium collection. This massive 1,000+ page book collects eight volumes worth of the Walking Dead series, acclaimed on its own and now a major AMC TV series already renewed for a second season. The Walking Dead compendium gets free shipping on its own, so anything else with it gets free shipping, too.

* Invincible Iron Man Omnibus, Vol. 1
* The Death of Captain America Omnibus
* Thor by J. Michael Straczynski Omnibus

With all my talk of Superman, I don't mean to exclude the Marvel fans out there. Next year promises to be a big year for Marvel with the release of the Captain America and Thor movies. In keeping with our push for complete volumes, three books I've been considering are The Death of Captain America by Ed Brubaker (whose work I loved on DC's Gotham Central), Thor by J. Michael Straczynski (I don't know much about Thor, but Straczynski got my attention with Superman: Earth One), and -- for those who didn't get enough Iron Man this past year, Invincible Iron Man by Matt Fraction (which Doug Glassman says well resembles the movie). Each of these books is eligible for free shipping, which gives anything else on this list that you pair them with free shipping, too.

* Blueberry Girl

A little something different on the list now. Amidst Coraline and Graveyard Book and Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader, I admit I missed Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess's Blueberry Girl, an affirming story mostly intended for young girls or mothers-to-be. Gaimain apparently wrote it originally for Tori Amos before the birth of her daughter, and that alone catches my attention as I remember clearly Amos's great introductions to Gaiman's Sandman and Death collections. For your favorite Gaiman fan (or someone you want to interest in Gaiman) or young reader, this is one they might not already have. Pair with Lost at Sea and one of the I Can Read books, and get three titles for about $25 and free shipping.

* How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less
* Footnotes in Gaza: A Graphic Novel

* Berlin: City of Stones: Book One
* Berlin: City of Smoke: Book Two

Sarah Gidden's How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less just came out from Vertigo, and I've found it interesting that the book is a travelogue created from a trip the author took for the purpose of creating the book -- it makes the book part memoir, part reportage. My holiday wishlist is often the time I break from superheroes to see what else the graphic novel genre has to offer, and Giddens's book is on my list. In considering what to pair it with, I thought of Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza, more illustrated reporting told here from the Palestinian perspective -- if you want to get serious with your gift-giving, or maybe have a non-comics-reading loved one interested in current events, these two books together give a broad range of perspectives on the situation in the Middle East (and fit together for the all-important free shipping).

Another of my recent finds (and I know, I'm probably way late to the game) is Jason Lutes' Berlin series. The first two volumes, collecting issues published by Drawn and Quarterly, came out over ten years, and information is spotty (help, anyone?) but I'm eager for the third to arrive so I can start reading them all together. Berlin, which Time named one of its ten best graphic novels ever, apparently follows the citizens of Berlin as conditions in the city get rapidly worse in the run-up to World War II. For another option off the beaten path, and maybe for a loved one interested in history but who hasn't read a comic before, both Berlin volumes together arrive with free shipping.

* Troublemaker: Book 1
* Troublemaker: Book 2

Mystery/romance author Janet Evanovitch's Troublemaker series of graphic novels have made me smile every time I see them in the stores, because they're such a blatant attempt at grabbing a cross-over market -- and yet, as a trade and graphic novel fan, I'm rather hopeful that they'll work (also still looking for someone interested in seriously reviewing these for me). Just like the history graphic novels above, maybe you have someone on your list that you're trying to entice to graphic novels who might know or like Evanovitch's work or her Alex Barnaby mystery series -- and both books plus one of the I Can Read titles equals free shipping.

* Superman: I Am Superman (I Can Read)
* Batman: Meet the Super Heroes Team-Up (I Can Read)
* The Dark Knight: I Am Batman (I Can Read)
* Wonder Woman: I Am Wonder Woman (I Can Read)
* Spider-Man: Spider-Man versus the Green Goblin (I Can Read)

I'm glad to see it seems DC and Marvel have upped their output of kid-centered superhero books of late, all the better to start the next generation of comics readers early. The above Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man books all cost under five dollars, and they're perfect for rounding out a comics order in order to achieve that all important free shipping. Even if you don't have a kid around who might enjoy these books, if it'll help you get the free shipping, consider buying one and donating it to a local hospital or shelter.

To all -- good comics reading!

(Lots of bloggers, by the way, have Amazon links like the ones above, and when you make a purchase after clicking these links, the blogger gets a few cents. This holiday season, if you're buying gifts through Amazon, consider clicking on someone's link before you buy -- I have and continue to do so. There are lots of hard-working bloggers out there [see blogroll], and this is a great, easy way to support them.)

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