This One’s for the Archives

How did I miss this? I need to get out more.

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I think we're gonna have to start defining terms if we're gonna throw around claims like this. Comic's writing (and this is the actual script, not dialogue or captions) can be more stage direction than actual writing like New York Times Bestseller's List Book #1. But this is a misleading distinction, anyways: books create and populate stages in the minds of readers. Comics have an extra interpreter conveying information from author to audience, so, in a sense, some comics can be seen as a reading of a script. So then comic's writing is a conversation or idea, and not a finished product like a book. This is only if the comic lacks captions and dialogue.

I don't think that Katie wants to explore the distinctions between textual and visual narratives, though (which can be done in so many different ways, and I'm sure that my words here exclude valid techniques). Just a thought.

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Now, I don't mean to get too pornographic, but my love for Morrison comes in squirts. Here's another one.

Fantastic Four: 1234

(I'm sure you all have read this first paragraph about how cool Jemas Marvel was compared to Quesada Marvel. Sorrys!)

Marvel used to be an interesting, latitudinarian place when Jemas ruled its creative output. Milligan and Allred were on X-Force, Morrison and Quitely were on X-Men, and Morrison was given the Fantastic Four and Jae Lee (Oh, and something about the Ultimate Universe, too. *Yawn*). They produced a four issue miniseries through Marvel Knights (The imprint where superheroes keep it real) to deafening silence. This is Morrison's only mature work for Marvel besides his run on X-Men and Marvel Boy (well, that's debatable), and probably his only work deliberately using superheroes as symbols instead of characters. It reads a lot differently than his copious mini-series and extended runs.

Morrison always reads as constrained when working with a more painterly artist than pencillerly. His trio of works illustrated by painters, Kid Eternity, The Mystery Play, and Batman: Arkham Asylum, flout the stench of pretention, impeding an otherwise intriguing read. While the dilettante in me would propose a theory of finer art propelling Morrison to a different mindset when creating, but it's just as likely that the artist was sought after the conception of the project. Some of the Seven Soldier's miniseries are littered with symbols and visual allusions without the pedigree of paint. This comic only has the veneer of paint. Lee provided inked pages on which Villarrubia worked his magic. It's somewhat fitting that the work itself is stuck between the two extremes of Morrison's work visually and thematically, between the spastic creativity of Doom Patrol and The Invisibles and the hallowed halls in Batman: Arkham Asylum.

The painted coloring has two striking effects on the comic. First, we must talk of the world Lee and Villarubia create. Lee's grimy linework needs to be mentioned. Characters meld into the surrounding darkness, bodies are outlined thinly, juxtaposed with pools of shadows. Villarrubia lathers the seediest colors on top of Lee's figures, and the ugliest, most sterile colors on anything inorganic. Some of the pages are muddy, ugly messes of people and buildings and shadows, but therein lies the beauty of the art. Some pages, enjoyed without the context of the story, are beautiful. Secondly, and it must be said, this kind of art undermines the fantasticality of our heroes and their adventures.

The book is structured around a plot by Doom to vanquish his foes, accomplished by giving the three Not Reed Richards their deepest desires. Ben Grimm gets the event of being shunted into space jettisoned from memory and regains his human appearance. The Human Torch gets the beautiful girl and gets a monster to fight, and Invisible Woman gets the heart of Namor when Reed Richards isolates himself from his family.

Morrison begins by showing the central conflicts in the fantastic family; Sue feels distanced from Reed when he engages in intellectual pursuits, Ben Grimm wants to be normal, and Johnny is fed up with everyone's problems and their moping. Characters often mention how fighting against exterior forces pushes their problems aside and this ennui disappears when the Mole Man rears his face. Lee and Villarrubia's art is perfect for the first couple issue's restless and depressed mood.

There are also really cool bits of art where the panels break apart from their formerly rigid structure and appear as angled, flat planes in a three dimensional world competing with each other for space. Sometimes they illustrate Ben Grimm's fractured memory as a series of conflicting images, sometimes they herald the coming of a huge monster (because Dr. Doom is inflexible biê/strength and Mr. Fantastic is malleable mêtis/intelligence and emotions, which will always ensure him victory against Doom), and its stomping feet affect Namor and Sue. Sometimes they present exposition. They're all cool scenes, and innovative uses of the page. Other cool usages of the page include the use of well defined panels (an elusive beast in most of the work. Most pages are panels on top of an entire illustrated page) when Sue begins to talk to Alicia. The relationship between Alicia and Sue, and later Johnny and the random chick, are much better defined than the other characters, and their exchanges are the only ones in the book deserving clearly defined storytelling techniques.

After the second issue, the art in the book starts to flail a little bit. Johnny fights a monster and there's no action. Doom sics a huge robot on the Fantastic Four and the characters continue talking amidst all the destruction. The conclusion of the work is even reached by a similar feat of underrepresentation when Richards talks very sparsely on Doctor Doom's machine rearranging the lives of people. The Invisibles' sense of a person's self as remaining unchanged and only reacting to circumstance is recalled, but not conveyed with the profundity of Lord Fanny's story arc. Richard's stretching of consciousness is similarly dismissed in a paragraph, but central to the conflict between Dr. Doom's offensive and Richard's defensive roles, of the inflexible metal man seeking one thing and failing, of the flexible defender succeeding because he has not the rectilinear purpose of the aggressor. The only relationship given any kind of depth is between Namor and Sue, of the housewife finding a new beginning with a new lover but rejecting it because of its implications, of proving that "we're more than just slaves to our unconscious instincts," but even that develops along the sideline of the plotline, and is only elucidated when Namor kisses Sue before they leave each other, and the quote above is uttered.

The characters of the Fantastic Four are icons, and Morrison treats them as such. All the characters are shown doing what they normally do, Ben Grimm being mocked by society, Johnny reveling in it, Sue being distanced from her husband (because she's invisible!), and Reed occupying himself intellectually. None of these appear as compliments, and Marvel slapped a reassuring quote on the back, "A Heartfelt tribute to a heroic legacy," because after reading the first couple issues, Morrison does not paint a flattering picture of the four. Perhaps if an affirmation of every character's traits as alternating between conflicting and complimenting each other was not the sole purpose, Morrison could have achieved more than a heartfelt tribute and told one of his characteristically humane stories, but we're just left with a portrait of the Fantastic Four and their traits, without any movement of using the legacy of the World's Greatest Magazine.