For those of you who don't know, Grant Morrison is the heir apparent for the title of "World's Greatest Comic Book Writer". The vast majority of the comic book reading public (which I'll admit is a fairly small percentage of the general public) seem to regard him as some kind of wunderkind, a Faulkner for the four colour crowd if you will.
He is not.
Grant Morrison is in fact a terrible writer. His stories make little to no sense, take far too long to unfold, and generally make the reader want to claw out his or her own eyes rather than read one panel more.
Somehow, he has managed to weasel his way into the upper echelon of comic book writers alongside such greats as Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. While Mr. Moore and Mr. Gaiman tend to write stories that force the readers to think, Mr. Morrison writes stories that cause the readers to think that they are reading something profound because they can't understand what the hell is happening. This is mostly because he does not understand pacing, nor does he understand that the books are coming out a month (at the very least in his case) apart. He seems to write as if the readers are going to read the entire series in one sitting. He's writing for the collected editions of the books. Good comic writers don't do that.
The truly unfortunate thing about all this? I've had to put up with his writing on a semi-monthly basis for about 2 years now. He's been the writer for the Batman comic since 2006. It's only been semi-monthly because for some reason he can't seem to get a comic out on time to save his life. Batman is a monthly title, Mr. Morrison. If you are going to commit to a monthly title, get it out monthly. Or step aside and let a professional do the job. When Judd Winick was writing for Batman I don't think the book ever missed a deadline. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
Mr. Morrison is also currently writing DC Comics crossover event entitled Final Crisis. This has been even worse (if it's possible) than his stint on Batman. The story is disjointed and poorly thought out. He's killed the Martian Manhunter in what has got to be one of the most poorly written hero's death's ever portrayed in comics, and now he has apparently killed Batman. Also poorly.
Spoiler Alert
In Batman's apparent final act of heroism, Grant Morrison turns his back on everything Batman has stood for over the 70 years he has been in constant publication. Mr. Morrison has turned Batman into a murderer. With a gun. Now I realize it was an extreme situation, Darkseid had taken over the world and enslaved much of the population, but Batman does not kill. I'll say it again. Batman does not kill. A writer who understands the character would have known that, and a writer who has been writing the character for close to 2 years should fucking well understand the character by now.
You will note that I am not the least bit pissed at the fact that he has killed Batman. Just the manner in which it was done. I can make my peace with a dead Batman. I don't like it, but I'll deal. Untill they bring him back. After all in comics only Bucky and Uncle Ben stay dead. Actually, now I guess it's only Uncle Ben.
So, I guess what I'm really trying to say is that Grant Morrison needs to retire as soon as possible. Otherwise people are going to realize that he is not the great writer that he has been trying to pass himself off as.
He's just a hack.
Monday, January 19, 2009
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My God, that's the exact thing I've been thinking for years...and I thought I was the only one. I've never been able to understand how people can even respect him as an artist, let alone buy anything with his name on it.
ReplyDeletefuck you
ReplyDelete"Fuck you"? Well, that certainly is a well reasoned argument. Rather that just saying "fuck you" why don't you tell me why you disagree with my opinion. Do you like his work, or is it just that you are willing to be spoonfed whatever garbage is given to you without actually thinking for yourself?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, just saying "fuck you" makes you sound like a fourteen year old.
I'm a big Grant Morrison fan, but there seems to be two versions. Animal Man/Doom Patrol Morrison and JLA Morrison. I enjoy both, but metaphysical Morrison isn't going to be for everyone.
ReplyDeleteI don't think calling him a hack is fair though. There are A LOT of bad writers out there and Morrison is not one of them.
I've loved his work on Batman. I haven't looked forward to a comic coming out as much as Batman and Robin since I was a teenager.
Give him another shot.
Admittedly, I've never read Animal Man or Doom Patrol. Never had any real interest in the books/characters, no matter who was wrting them.
ReplyDeleteMy first exposure to Morrison was with Batman: Arkham Asylum, which was actually a pretty cool book if you ignored the fact that Batman intentionally stabs himself with a shard of glass. Mr. Morrison, we get that Batman is crazy. He dresses in tights and fights gods and monsters. You don't need him to act like a psycho for us to understand that.
Morrison's run on JLA was awful. For me it was all but unreadable. Stilted dialogue, and poor pacing.
JLA: Earth 2 is probably my favorite Morrison work. Unless you count 52, but that was a team effort.
Batman, Final Crisis, and Batman and Robin have been torturous for me. I really don't think Mr. Morrison understands the character of Batman.
Take the current Return of Bruce Wayne story. Bruce is lost in time, and has left clues all over Wayne Manor. Lets ignore the obvious problems with this (such as the Legion saying that time travel has been locked) and focus on the Bat aspects. The biggest problem I see is that Bruce is leaving clues in the house that he has spent a good chunk of his life. Bruce Wayne is THE WOLRD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE, but apparently he was unable to decipher his own clues? Seriously?
Holy plot hole Batman!
Thank you Rant Man, I thought I was the only one who truly saw that the Batman mythos was throughly raped.
ReplyDeleteThe only Bat book I semi enjoy now is Red Robin. Who knew?
Anyway, at least I still have Booster Gold and Time Masters Vanishing Point. Hopefully Jurgens gets back on Booster, but it is still good none the less.
Batman is lost forever now. :(
thoroughly* raped.
ReplyDeleteIts not just about Batman. Reading Grant's work, I too have been puzzled by how he even gets classed along with the likes of Moore. He relies soley on (poorly thought out) plot, but his dialogue, character development and ability to create believable motivation is truly in the Saturday morning cartoon/Hanna-Barbara "Superfriends" category. And reading his JLA titles, it is truly shocking how thoroughly he substitutes incessant use of catch-phrases "Great Hera!" in place of actual character. Plus, he changes the personalities and motivations of his characters to fit the needs of whatever rube-goldberg plot machinations he's gotten into his head.
ReplyDeleteReading back-titles recently such as "Superman: World of New Krypton" you start to forget why comics are considered kiddie fare as you read pages and pages of thought-out stories with characters with believable motivations, adult dialogue and intriguing premises.
Then you read the admittedly unpopular stuff by novelist Jodi Picoult on Wonder Woman -- and the complex and conflicted relationship with her gods she struggles with -- and its almost jarring to go back to the "Great Hera! I'll use my lasso!" tone of Morrison's work.
Discounting acclaimed novelists and legends like Moore -- even lesser known writers such as Yost and Benson who've been working on the Streets of Gotham title have created stories that should shame Mr. Morrison. Or the writers of the Green Lantern corps etc...
Well, he's off to rape Superman now so hopefuully someone with some fucking clue how to tell a story will dive in to Batman.
ReplyDeleteWriter of the year my fucking arse, the bloke really is a cunt!
I am reading his run on X-Men currently from 2003. It's pissing me off pagely.
ReplyDeleteI googled grant morrison "no sense" and found this page. At lease there are others noticing this.
The worst thing is that when I read comics, I imagine them taking place realistically. Instead of seeing a bunch of pictures, I see the action the pictures are trying to show us. And none of the actions fit together in his books. They're full of impossibilities and things that shouldn't happen. Like a person being on the outside of a building, the enemy is blocking the doorway, and inexplicably, they are inside the building. How did they get past the enemy??
Second most annoying is how he invents things in 1 panel as though they have existed forever. Like a new town that everyone's aware of that has never been mentioned before and would be super relevant throughout the past. Or giving new powers to people all at once. Or ungracefully and unseamlessly changing a character in one issue.
Another annoying thing is that he seems to want to have certain sentences placed in the book. He doesn't care if he can't bridge those sentences with dialogue that makes sense and has flow like every conversation I've heard a human have. Every section of dialogue has me saying "what? That has nothing to do with anything? Why did he not respond to that? That doesn't mean anything."
God there are so many bad comic book writers though. I feel like an average person on the street could make a story that makes more sense than these guys. Albeit the story wouldn't be as shocking, but at least it would make sense.
Go fuck yourself.
ReplyDeleteI have my millions.
You have a shitty blog. Faggot. Go die.
The above comment appears to have been written by Mr. Grant Morrison himself. I have my doubts.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I use sitemeter to track hits to this site. This particular comment seems to have come from Illonois, in or around the Lake Zurich area. I have no idea where Mr. Morrison lives, but I would be suprised if he lived in Illonois.
Secondly, when I clicked on the Grant Morrison name it appears that the account has been deleted.
Thirdly, I find it hard to believe that someone who is in the public eye would be stupid enough to use the word faggot in such a casual manner. I don't know Grant Morrison personally, but I'm pretty sure that he would realize that by using that word he would be offending at least a portion of his fan base and therefore cutting into future "millions".
And fourthly, the comment itself was too well written and made too much sense for it to have been written by Grant Morrison.
Shit... The ruse is up.
DeleteWell... I am bald.
Man, I may be late to comment but hey, better late than never !
ReplyDeleteI tend to be with your opinion most of the time on Morrison, Here's what I thought of his work:
-Final Crisis: Superman saves the day by singing a SONG. I...kid...you...not.... as a fan of Darkseid, I find it really sad how horribly villains of great magnitude get shat on over & over while the cartoon gets the villains RIGHT & RESPECTFULLY entertains you. Srsly , the 2 last episodes of JLU is what it should have been.
- New X-men: He was only doing the X-Men for the money and didn't care about the characters or the fans. Ok it sucks but he was honest.
The biggest problem I had wasn't the continuity issues, or the failing plotlines. Its the failed human beings he replaced them with.
Some of my favorite x-men were Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Bobby Drake, Henry McCoy,Gambit, Rogue Bishop, Logan,Sabretooth, Emma Frost, Magneto, most assuredly Mister Sinister, the Juggernaut , Apocalypse , Stryfe , Cable, Deadpool, the X-force & Generation X kids & the X-factor crew.
Where are they all now?
They are almost wholesale pathetic remains of the characters from the 80's and 90's. My favourite get jobbed instead of having their ideologies explored & given the epicness they deserve
Scott Summers, Jean Grey, and Emma Frost are without need for me to explain how TERRIBLY these characters have been handled not only in terms of the direction they've taken but in terms of their personal integrity, these 3 now are particularly bad off, and two of them bring me a deep sense of disgust & I gotta thank both Morrison & the Big Fat Q for fucking them up beyond any repair ( it's OMD level of FUBAR , guys . No recovery in the "mainstream"!)
http://devilkais.deviantart.co/...
Oh & for the record I've reread last week & now I need a little Lobdell/Nicieza X-men or Generation X to cleanse my palate of that atrocity...Srsly the real gods of x-men are these 2+Louise Simonson & PAD & I still recommend x-factor forever best miniseries in a while!
-Fantastic Four 1234: he fabricated and introduced elements into the team members individual personas that simply could not have existed previously and the FF still be able to function as a team for all those years. Had he been allowed to go with what he'd originally planned - revealing Sue had incestuous thoughts towards Johnny, his career would have been torpedoed right then and there, along with whoever at Marvel allowed it to happen.Oh & Doom lets Sue scold him like a kid without reacting? FUCK THAT! DOOM shall smack the harlot!
_Batman ; let me keep this short , Damian Wayne. Yep, I still hate the little dipshit & still wish the Joker would give him the crowbar treatment, honestly does it make any sense that Batman would accept somebody in his home with open arms after this person has beaten half-to-death his (adopted) son and assaulted his long time friend? Even more ludicrous is that he accepts Talia Al Ghul's word that the boy is theirs without doing a DNA test once they are in the Batcave. Did I forget to mention that the boy brings back a head he decapitated back to the cave? Does Batman approve of murder all of a sudden?
Talia Al Ghul is just a cardboard cutout evil MILF ... that's disappointing for a cool character to be used that way
His treatment of the Joker was pretty lame & as a fan of the Clown Prince of Crime I basically said fuck it!Thats not the Joker in Morrisons run, its a compilation of the most overused serial killer cliches coupled with Sweeney Todd and all rolled up into a turd that is supposed to be justified by Morrisons "super sanity" retard logic.
This is it, I hope I didn't annoy you, but that's my 2 cents on it.
Saidi
I'm so glad there's an active anti-Morrison base out there, I thought I was developing an inferiority complex.
ReplyDeleteI've actually only read Arkham Asylum, The Filth and Batman Inc, but I hated all of them, and the main problem I have with them is that he clearly thinks he is the cleverest, most 'outside the box' sumbitch ever graced the Earth. His obsession with the 'meta' overrides all plot and characterization and I've never been able to make sense of a single story. Biggest wanker in comics.
I knew Morrison was...polarizing, but I never knew there were so many who had the exact same issues as me. I started to think I was going crazy! I'm a new reader (since new 52) and while there have been comics I didn't like, nothing was as bad as reading some of his work.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit though that from the little I've read (new x men, batman, action comics, all star) there have been a great deal of inexplicably good but brief moments. His character creation shows a remarkable knack for establishing personality and motivation (Damian, fantomex, quire etc). It no where near makes up for the issues though. If it anything it tells me he constantly ignores what doesn't work since he keeps excelling in a few areas but trucks on in the story like a blind horse in mud.
First off, I've got to say that I think it's hilarious that I haven't updahack this blog in a couple years and the only hits it ever gets comes from this post.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I feel the need to say something about Mr. Grant Morrison. He actually seems like a really nice guy. I highly recommend you go find Kevin Smith's podcast Fatman on Batman. He interviews Mr. Morrison on a couple episodes. Very enlightening. They didn't make me change my mind about his writing, but I did change my mind about him and where and how gets his ideas. I don't like his work, but I respect the man and what he does.
Mark it on your calendars folks, Rant Man has changed his mind! He's not a hack after all. But I still don't like his books.
So this comment is several years too late, but as a lifelong Batman fan who had somehow never managed to read the entire Morrison run on Batman, I decided to rectify that this year.
ReplyDeleteI read the lot. From start to finish. I read the golden age stories in the Black Casebook, then started with Batman & Son, through Black Glove and RIP, to Final Crisis, The Return Of Bruce Wayne, Batman & Robin to Batman Inc and everything in between.
I now feel fully qualified in making the following statement.
Grant Morrisons work on Batman is an absolute hot mess of shit. It is obtuse, deliberately confusing and incredibly badly written. It pales in comparison to pretty much every other Batman writer I've ever read in the last 35 years.
There were moments I enjoyed. The relationship between Damian and Dick as Batman was interesting, and I enjoyed some of the Batman & Son stuff. The Black Glove was OK, but on the whole as a cohesive piece of work it fails so hard. Final Crisis and Batman Inc are some of the worst things I've ever read.
And it's disappointing. The premise for Batman Inc is brilliant. What a shame someone else didn't write it.
Funnily enough, I stumbled across this blog by Googling 'Grant Morrison is the worst comic book writer ever'.
How true that is. Glad I'm not alone!
LMAO
ReplyDeleteBatman KILLS and always killed in a desperate times/cases since his creation, since he shot that van with his machine gun mounted on bat-plane even though he DIDn't want to do that. He was CREATED that way.
That's his GRID. That's whole point of him as a character, just as with Superman when he was forced kill Zod in different periods of comics and in all movies.
It is just only writers with balls can do that and only readers with objective analysis can admit it, or persih in denial basically what Dark Knight Returns was about, especially final fight with Joker when grey thought-rectangles appear).
"But those characters supposed to be beacon of morale"
That doesn't mean they can't be put in a tough situations (again, by writers with balls) instead of letting Batman just dive right onto machine gun fire like in new godawful drivels by Tom King wih no consequences. If anything it COMPLEMENTS them when noble heroes making bad dicision and shown to regret it after that. It all washed out with Silver Age comic code, cartoons and retarded DC policy to pander to those who know about heroes by few words and only see them as idols instead of complex characters they always were. Thankfully at least filmmakers (such as Burton, Nolan, Snyder (and Bruce Timm in Killing Joke)) are with complex source material, rather than popular view on it.
I am not saying that Batman or Superman, or any other hero should always being out in tough situations or that they can't have it easy like in cartoons, or majority of comics. But "tough situations" should be always remebered, instead of being forgotten as contraversial, otherwise there will be impotent heroes from Kingdom Come.
TBH I agree that Grant Morrison is overrated.