4 out of 5

Grant’s ‘everything is connected’ worldview is madly interesting and has allowed him to script some horribly complicated (or perhaps seemingly complicated) expansive series that boggle and fascinate in a way that lets you believe that all of the exterior details waxed on top of whichever subject are fully realized elements in the sketches the writer must’ve lain down when designing his new version of his same story.  It’s almost amusing how this theme has cropped up in almost every book he’s touched, even affecting his big league writing for JLA or Batman.  But like a lot of inspired writers, comics or otherwise, Morrison might work best when he’s leashed to some kind of limitation or required to provide some kind of page-turning momentum beyond the wave of his conspiracy wand, since once you know the gist of his tales, you’re really just sitting back and waiting for the curtain to be fully pulled aside; knowing while reading from issue one that what you’re seeing is just a layer, and that all of those details that seem confusing will probably be shuttled aside when that connecting line is finally drawn.

And The Filth is one of the worst offenders of this.  It’s definitely a more streamlined companion piece to The Invisibles (which, after some third part of this triptych never materialized, was, along with The Filth, tied to Flex Mentallo as a trilogy of thematic tales), but whereas that wandering book ran you through a gamut of nonsense and volumes and cancellations and resurrections on its way to All Is Love, The Filth gets a clear vision of what it wants to do in its 13 issues and goes about it purposefully, being the realization of the ‘writing spell’ that Grant claims to be committing in his scripts in his ‘Supergods’ book.  Thus there’s a moderately insulting nature to the way the nonsense is piled on top of itself here – images and concepts that undoubtedly have an explanation but it is not needed to grasp the idea and is – I don’t think – really easily intuited through one read or even a hundred.  This could be a good thing, adding aspects in which require rereads to understand, but most of what’s in ‘The Filth’ is either trickery (look once, study it for months until the next few issues comes out, now look again and I’ve changed it) or Grant just having fun creating worlds and giving the impression that You Should Understand.  His is a niftily wired brain, and I get that, on some level, to him its just like – focus on the story, you totally get it, ignore the rest.  Indeed, one could argue that’s part of the point here.  (To paraphrase: It’s all shit… just spread it on your flowers…)  …But the flipside to that is that it’s like the joke that goes on and on to get to a punchline that’s not at all dealing with the joke setup (we all told that joke when we were kids, yeah?).  It’s funny / fun if you’re in on it, but when you’re a passive listener you just want that joke-telling kid to fuck off.  Get it?  The Filth is frustratingly wrapped up in itself.  It is genius-ly realized and plotted and paced and structured, but it’s about nothing.

Note that I still give it 4 out of 5. Because it is a work of art from all sides.  Weston’s work here is stunning.  I imagine he had rather clear direction from Grant, but the Invisibles fumbles sometimes because the art was inconsistent.  Having a competent artist willing to go to the surreal extremes necessary for bringing the worlds of The Filth to light is half the package here.  The Segura Inc. covers have never been matched.  The book still looks distinct a decade on – no Bolland or James Jean covers could ever have filled the needs of these formalistic pieces.  Recently, Jonathan Hickman’s The Manhattan Projects lured me in with a similar minimalist cover, but the book didn’t match the feel and month to month all we get is a color swap.  Not only do the images on the books relate, but the juxtaposition of clarity on the cover and insanity in the contents is excellent.  And having seen Weston ink himself on The Twelve, I gotta hand it to Erskine – both artists on their own can sometimes dress up their pencils to look sorta ugly, but the pairing here finds the right balance for every character – Greg Feely looks believably pathetic or angered when necessary, and various members of The Hand match their department.  I wouldn’t notice letters normally… but Clem Robins part here was equally important; there’s a note of care to each panel, and the lettering is absolutely part of that.

Then, finally, wrapping back around to the plotting / scripting.  While ‘The Filth’ makes clearer the ties that Morrison and Millar once must’ve had, as rereading this is a reminder that ‘fuck’-laden dialogue wasn’t a brand new occurrence in the (by my opinion) atrocious ‘Happy!’ – the difference here – between this book and that book, as well as between Millar and Morrison – being that Grant doesn’t revel in the language for snide shocks, and when he resorts to in-your-face concepts, they’re not painted on splash page, but included as part of the sensory overload of the narrative.  And once you’ve been through the ride a few times, you more fully appreciate both the basic structure – person/anti-person mini arcs, moments of Greg’s life, then The Hand, then back to Greg – and the meta-structure of never really showing transitions between the worlds or from set piece to set piece.

Years later I mention that the story is about a secret ‘clean-up crew’ called The Hand, who deal with elements of the world which shouldn’t exist.  They need to recruit / re-recruit Agent Ned Slade, who has taken a leave to exist as regular joe Greg Feely, in order to track down some dangerous ‘anti-persons.’  This is mostly what we’re told at the start, and though some things change, this mostly ends up being true.  ‘The Filth’ being slang for police, but also applicable to about fifteen bamillion other aspects of the story, which, beyond the A to B tale of Greg’s ‘fight for what’s right’ growth to power (reflected in Flex and Invisibles), is indicative of the way the story is another entry in the ongoing Morrison Manifesto to prove that All Is One forever, and we are individuals, and yet we are just motes in existence, parasites or antibodies in a larger system… which is part of a larger system… and so on.

There are still some images I puzzle over… speculation only as to their meaning (beehive in a babycarriage?), but despite always feeling a little miffed or disappointed to realize that there’s no Big Reveal at the end of this tale, I can reread The Filth many times.  Grant’s proud of it and rightfully so – it feels like one of his only titles to get its due from start to finish.  As most have noted, totally not for everyone, but Grant fans will piss their pants over it forever.