5 out of 5

Let’s say that you were born into comics yesterday, and have only had the time to read the current jobs.  Maybe you hear some whispers about this Grant Morrison cat, but you’re not really getting it; his Graphic India stuff has some scope to it but seems pretty silly and indulgent, and his otherwise recent appearances – like Klaus, or Nameless – have been interesting, but miss or hit.  Drifting back chronologically, you discover that someone allowed Grant to run rampant across the DC landscape for a while, rejiggering the minor leagues with things like Seven Soldiers, but also working with the A-list: Batman, Superman.  So what’s the deal?  Why do people care about Grant; why was he given this responsibility?

While Grant is talented enough to have had several titles one could call ‘definitive,’ if you’re interested in his dudes-in-tights work, his spin on JLA is a wonderful calling card that captures the zeitgeist he’s forever chasing and makes it clear why people might go ga-ga over his constant reimaginings of classic titles and concepts.  And especially in the earlier issues – like those featured in American Dreams – before we get distracted by Morrison’s building tesseract of comic catastrophes and the stories are just these coiled and concise punches of Silver Age-y goodness.  ‘Dreams’ does one one-shot (an Amazo riff) and then two two-issue punches, which seed some elements for later issues but not in any distracting fashion.  The work is just a blast of fresh air and fun; not exactly ‘innocent’ but written in a very vacuum sense that allows it to remain upbeat in a way DC has only recently tried to get back to with 2016’s Rebirth titles; it’s big picture without being widescreen, which is sort of Grant’s specialty.  And partnered with (for the first three issues) Howard Porter and Pat Gerrahy’s bright colors, the visual vibe matches the antics, Porter’s vertical paneling stuffed to the gills with crazy cartoonish proportions and angles and sun-blotting-out poses that match the cheeky dialogue.  Oscar Jimenez does things a bit more stiffly for a dream-invasion two-parter, but Grant’s plot moves around so much and Pat’s colors keep it all bouncy that it still fully works.

I admittedly had ditched my JLA books at a time I was sort of souring on Grant; it’s great fun to go back to them now and recognize how much of an achievement they are, especially given how many reboots DC has gone through since.  So I know you’re probably going to buy Watchmen for that fledgling comic fan, or Y the Last Man, but test the waters: give ’em one of the first couple Morrison JLA books, and show ’em how much fun comicy comic books can be.