2 out of 5

Back in the day, when Grant could do no wrong, careening around the indie universe and baffling the shit out of us mortals, he was – undeniably, as it was essentially his shtick – prone to his indulgences, but they were wrapped up in such fascinating stuff it didn’t really matter.  His attack upon and presence within the States’ books was immediate, and after making his name on some indie-er titles, he began the first steps on his forever quest to rewrite all of comic history with Arkham Asylum.

Which, guys, is an okay Batman book, but is also cheesy and ham-fisted as shit, and can’t help but make you grin sheepishly with its uber-Joker grit and tarot card nonsense.  This certainly helped to crystalize some of Grant’s Big Ideas, though, and so eventually he’d get to try again with JLA, and X-Men, and then down the road the entire DC Universe – include, once more, Batman.

What’s made the dude stand out, besides his drug and, uh, chaos-magic fueled cut-up writing style, is that he’s *always* after the bigger picture.  And once you realized that pretty much every book he wrote was circling around this same theme of layered realities (comics are our fiction; we might be somebody else’s fiction; and so and and so on) and a unification of vision based on working with that concept, you could get over the rather anticlimactic lump all his tales hit where it seems like they’re trying to tell you something HUGE and they never do.  You could get over it because they were still damned entertaining.  And maybe because Grant always had some other objective in mind, whether it was a study of his rebellious youth and his maturity throughout the years with Invisibles, or a contemplation on loss with (my still favorite of all these variations on a theme) Filth, or paralleling heroism and villainism with Arkham.  When he got around to working heavily with super heroes, it really became about idealizing that world: justifying all the ages under one roof, so the world of comics never had to cast out something as non-canon again.  This began in a more limited sense until a trial run with Seven Soldiers showed he was ready to expand the scope.  Along the way we’d still be gifted with indie books (Seaguy stands out) that still showed he had other ways of expressing his ideas (and interests, with We3 being strictly a straight ahead and wonderful action tale) that didn’t need capes and multi-verses.

The trouble began with 52, though.  Around this busy, busy time for now DC-world architect Grant Morrison, some Wildstorm ideas came and went via the beginnings of an Authority series and a Grifter series.  Both opening issues read a bit too predictably: like Grant Morrison trying to rewrite the big and loud WS Universe, and we’ll never know if they would’ve shaped up because they ended after 2 and 1 issues, respectively.  Then Batman.  Then Superman.  Both of which I came around to, but only once accepting that they were no longer really designed for… direct entertainment (as he was careful to do with JLA, for example), rather for, in a way, summarizing – eulogizing – all that came before.  And with Batman, it allowed Grant to reboot into Bats, Inc., which was actually a lot of fun.  So why was this trouble?

Well, the tone had shifted, for one.  What used to seem like a wild man’s attempt to tell us a story now felt like the polished approach of a professional.  You knew you had to sit back and swallow however many issues Grant felt like feeding us, because it would lead to *something*.  And he got that liberty, moreso than any other writer.  For as campy as I felt like the first few issues of his Batman were, I was surprised it wasn’t canceled, as reviewers seemed to feel similarly… but it was Grant, and it was then Grant’s sandbox.  He also disappeared from indies for quite a while.  Had he lost touch with the little expressions of his big ideas?

His first reappearance on Vertigo, with Joe the Barbarian, sort of hinted at that.  A super-obvious setup of a kid’s imagination as a substitute for life’s woes, it’s true I’ve yet to finish the series, but even 6 issues in – out of 8 – it never felt like it was building to much.  It seemed constructed from outside (shell first, guts second) as opposed to an expression of something else, which was usually Grant’s method.

Next was the abysmal Happy, a horrid attempt at the crime genre.  True, Morrison was trying something new, but that doesn’t mean it was good.  I have no idea how this got good reviews.

And now Annihilator.  Which held some promise.  The tale of burning-out-scriptwriter-with-a-brain-tumor Ray Spass being confronted with the character he’s writing about – Max Nomax – spouted a lot in its first few issues about the nature of fiction, and the quality of a creator’s life.  It felt like old Grant, trying to confront some demons – perhaps his feelings about his own writing – funneled through new Grant’s more streamlined writing style, which kept the tale focused and understandable.  And Frazier Irving’s oddball art and gorgeous colors – with effectively moody lettering from Jared K. Fletcher – seemed to seal the deal.  Maybe, finally, we’d be getting back to some of the sadness that made books like Doom Patrol, Filth and Invisibles so continually affecting.  But, well, no.  Not that these elements maybe weren’t part of the original intent, but halfway through the series Grant – or Ray – who’s been ruminating on lost loves and how those have changed his world, brings one of those lost loves fully in a side character, setting us on the path to a Love Saves the Day ending.  Which is my least fucking favorite ending and concept of all time.  Morrison tries to lampshade this device constantly by calling out that Ray might be insulting his  viewers with these themes, but if its a meta-joke to cover up the same themes being used, it doesn’t hit home.  Easy endings and platitudes are provided.  The earlier depth-plumbing that seemed to be going on is abandoned.  Perhaps reading Annihilator as the springboard for Max Nomax from the start – which, the ending tag of “Max Nomax will return” (paraphrased) seems to suggest it is – removes these frustrations.  But such has been the problem with these last couple Grant books, which is that they’re lately a lot simpler than they seem, making the writer’s style seem like an unnecessary put-on, and the stories feel pointless.

I launched in with the history lesson up above to underline the trajectory I feel Grant’s career has taken.  Happy! may actually have been a chance to circumvent this – the expectations of the writer’s past works – but I sincerely can’t find any redeeming values in that book, so the tact failed.  But reviews for Annihilator are positive (as they were for Happy!), so the train chugs on, I suppose, and I’m sure I’ll be there for the next round, to see if Grant’s able to spark a connection once more, or if his approach has been truly – uh, continuing the metaphor – derailed after those many years in the big leagues.