So I just read my first Grant Morrison book. Am I missing something?
So thoughts on Pax Americana. I went in blind. -He has a strong 8 motif , with the number appearing many times and using an 8 panel grid - The story is nonlinear. He has 4 different characters in the book emphasize time is nonlinear. -There's a scene where "The Question" has a wall of text explanation for the 8 motif and the color scheme of the book. However he positions the wall of text behind the art so it is unreadable. Is he trolling me?
Some of the scenes were cool. The page where the The question is investigation, the woman gets murdered and Peacemaker explains her plan to him is really cool and how he subtle color queues so we can tell the sequences apart. The face puns on the The Question were fun and the widescreen action seqence with Peacemaker fighting terrorists was cool. and the walk and talk scene with Nightshade and the VP with visual puns was cool .
Am I missing stuff? It seemed too confusing and self indulgent for me to enjoy. Its bizarre how he acted like he was going to explain the 8 thing , but then hid the text.
You probably are missing something. I've found that looking online for articles and fandom posts can help understand stories in a way you couldn't find on your own. I had to read several articles to understand Nameless, also by Grant Morrison.
I found this article that reviews and reads into the subtext of Multiversity
Pax Americana is really not Morrison's best work. It's him being artsy and clever and like a lot of really artsy and clever comics it's shit.
Carson Butler
Thanks. What do you think is his best?
Owen Bailey
While I wouldn't call it his "best", on the basis that I haven't read all of his work, I enjoyed Batman Inc. and Batman Gothic for being pretty interesting concepts based around one of the aspects of Batman that gets overlooked, IE that in universe he's supposed to be a scary motherfucker.
The idea of him trying to franchise criminals fear, and of criminals getting desperate enough that they turn to the one thing that scares them more than whatever's killing them off out of desperation, was interesting to me and it's a bit more grounded than a lot of his other works.
Jose Hall
>Am I missing something? You're missing the rest of Multiversity. The President planned to be assassinated and resurrected but multiversal forces conspired to run Captain Atom away from that universe, thereby corrupting the hopeful narrative thread that had been blossoming there. Morrison's DC cosmology boils down to "hopeful agency VS resigned nihilism." The Pax universe fell to nihilism. Consult Final Crisis for an example of hopeful agency winning.
Gabriel Murphy
>I had to read several articles to understand Nameless That one is not worth it.
Robert Stewart
I’m reading Morrison’s INVISIBLES
It’s fucking weird as shit and I read doom patrol and thought it was somewhat straight forward.
Ian Roberts
I never like, or get, Morrison stories. Multiversity was alright, though. Still too much meta, but a good read.
Jackson Lewis
I’ve read his Action Comics, All-Star Superman, New X-Men, Multiversity, and Batman. He really loves time travel.
Samuel Butler
That's funny. I loved Doom Patrol but haven't started Invisibles yet. I've got the omnibus though so I'll read it eventually.
Oliver Garcia
One popular way of reading the story is reading it as an homage to, or parody of, Watchmen (depending on your beliefs on the whole Moore/Morrison feud). All of the books in Multiversity are different in tone and theme, and some of them are references to specific eras of comics, or styles of comics. If you've read Watchmen, you'd see similarities between Captain Atom and Dr. Manhattan, or Rorschach and The Question. The 8 motif resembles the devices used by Moore/Gibbons, such as their strong reliance on symmetry and repeated imagery (the embraced couple => the dead german sheppard => the blotch on Rorschach's mask => nuclear holocaust shadows => butterflies).
If you want to read someone else attempting to do Moore/Gibbons, for comparison's sake, I suggest Doomsday Clock.
Another popular way of reading Pax Americana is to realize that Morrison IS trolling you. In the sequence where Captain Atom bisects the dog to explain how understanding something can have the entire experience feel empty? Some people like to see that as Morrison pointing out how people that tear apart his works for clues or more are deconstructing the story to the point of it being completely unrecognizable and almost hollow. For the reader to look for clues in Pax Americana is to lose sight of the forest for the promise of a golden tree that will explain it all.
I honestly don't think you're missing something. If you ask yourself, "Did I enjoy this story?" and you respond honestly, you'll know what you need to know.
Nathaniel Thompson
Try basic and short things like WE3, Batman Inc. and All Star Superman first. You won't get what he wants to deliver untill you understand his definition of good.
Jack Jenkins
Have you tried wanking while reading it? Morrison's instructions.
Cameron Murphy
Thanks I will say I didn't enjoy the story overall. Needlessly confusing and unsatisfying. I did enjoy some scenes though. Haven't read the Watchmen in ages but I did see some parallels. I still don't get why he wrote a wall of text explanation and then hid it.
Ryan Bennett
>I still don't get why he wrote a wall of text explanation and then hid it. Because his version of the Question is a complete maniac that's using 8 colored Spiral Dynamics as a reason to be a vigilante, similar to how Ditko's Question(and later Mr. A) would use black and white Randian Objectivism to justify his actions.
Morrison's not so deep as some say, but there's layers like a motherfucker.
>using 8 colored Spiral Dynamics as a reason to be a vigilante, similar to how Ditko's Question(and later Mr. A) would use black and white Randian Objectivism to justify his actions.
i didn't pick up on this but that is hilarious
Sebastian Wilson
I recommend you find some annotations to Multiversity, then re-read the whole thing and brush up on what it introduces to you. Also you've only read Pax Americana once, front to back. Now read it back to front, find that chronological edit some user made when it came out, and then print out all the pages and arrange them in a mobius strip. You think I'm joking.
Oliver Cruz
Does anyone have this edit?
Luke Gray
>print out all the pages and arrange them in a mobius strip
fuck you chris ware i read my comics on pages bound between covers i'm not making shit
Caleb Williams
I've never seen that spiral thing before. Isn't it just Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?
