GRANT MORRISON: ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, AND MUCH, MUCH MORE

[MattBrady]

by Zack Smith

Click here for part one and here for part two.

Our extended talk with Grant Morrison finally concludes with a look at some of his other DC projects. Morrison’s Eisner-winning work on All-Star Superman with his frequent collaborator Frank Quitely has been hailed as some of the most imaginative and touching Superman stories of the last few years. With the series finally winding down, we sat down with Morrison to get his thoughts on the storyline and on the character…and on the possibility of more All-Star stories in the future. We also got some scoop on some of his film work, on some of his upcoming comic projects (including the long-awaited return of one of his Vertigo series) and his thoughts on the passing of one of his major influences.

Newsarama: Grant, let’s start by talking about All-Star Superman. You’ve got three issues of that left, building to issue #12.

Grant Morrison: Yeah, I finished that last year, actually. We’re just waiting for Frank Quitely to wrap up. Issue #10 is done, and I think it’s one of the best-looking Superman books ever. He and Jamie Grant really surpassed themselves this time.

NRAMA: What’s coming up in the last few issues? You’ve got the whole overarching plot about Superman’s impending death and Luthor’s impending execution…

GM: It all starts folding together in the final three. Issue #10 is Superman’s last will and testament. It’s basically what he does on one of the last days of his life. Issues #11 and 12 are what everyone’s been waiting for, I hope, the ultimate confrontation between Superman and Luthor. And in this one, it’s Luthor who has the powers and Superman who doesn’t. Brains vs. brawn, but the other way around.

Issue #12 completes the story – it also kind of functions as the last Superman adventure ever, so we want to give him a good send-off – I think the wrap page is one of the best endings I’ve ever thought of (laughs). So yeah, I’m very pleased with how that whole book has worked out.

After that, there’s been some talk about doing three two-part All Star Superman specials with some unusual artists who’ve never drawn the character before. While I was writing All-Star, I came up with a couple of ideas that didn’t really fit into the main book but they still had strong ties to the All-Star Superman universe, so we’ll see if we can work it out with the guys I have in mind.

There’s a story called “Son of Superman” with an All-Star re-imagining of the Super-Sons concept. [There’s also] “Men of Tomorrow,” which is a huge, generational Superman Squad cosmic epic, and an idea for a flashback story to the All-Star Superman’s first year in Metropolis called “Superman vs. Satan!”

NRAMA: There was a very interesting article in The Comics Journal recently about Mort Weisinger and the perspective he brought to the Superman books, something you’ve talked about in the past. The point of the piece was that the Silver Age Superman comics are very psychologically interesting in the way they reflect personal neuroses – how, in many ways, they’re about this man struggling to control the world around him and everyone he knows, and often being subjected to very nightmarish situations of failure, being transformed into something grotesque, or being shown up.

Your arc seems to follow the Silver Age sensibility of, “Let’s throw a lot of ideas out there,” but you’re taking a more life-affirming approach, showing Superman being aware that he can’t solve every problem, but trying to do the best he can with the time he has left. Do you agree with TCJ’s assessment, and if so, are you consciously trying to take a different route than Weisinger’s?

GM: It’s clear from the material that Mort was attending analysis sessions every week. The 1950s was the great time of psychoanalysis in America, and he was coming back from the couch and giving his writers ideas – at least, that’s what I understand from what I’ve read, and from talking to people in the business.

The Weisinger comics, although they were designed to be read by children, were conceived and written by adults, so they actually do speak to the human experience, our fears and hopes and dreams and paranoias.

Like you say, the Superman stories from that era were all about the fears and fantasies of the post-war suburban American male – with his den, his pets, his technology, and his views on women. And we kind of watch the whole thing going into meltdown.

So many of those stories are about loss of self-esteem through physical transformations where he’s old, or fat, or sick and they sort of remind me most of the fairy tales and folk tales we all grew up reading. These are fairy tales and nightmares of the schizoid post-atomic age that created them, but it was also the most popular, iconic “pop art” period of Superman’s publishing history. Back then, as far as I know, those comics were selling millions every month.

So I was interested in modernizing that mass appeal approach. These beautiful little science-fiction fairy tales inspired the take on All-Star Superman, although we’ve been trying to do a more rounded, mature 21st century Superman rather than ape the unreconstructed 50s bachelor/dad guy.

I wasn’t a Silver Age fan – either I wasn’t born or I was too young to read those books when they first came out. I started reading Superman during his ‘creepy’ period in the 1970s but when I was preparing for All-Star and reading my way through the history, the books from the Weisinger era seemed to be most in tune with the human experience as expressed through a kind of pure superhero poetry. They’re not much like what you’d call “superhero” books these days, but they’re really inventive and surreal with an odd kind of suburban twist.

I wanted to make All-Star about being a guy, what it’s like to be a man, and fall in love, or lose parents, or be misunderstood…role models, rivals, all that sort of stuff but viewing it all through the lens of alien worlds, mighty feats and super powers.

It was never meant as a pastiche of Silver Age comics or to service nostalgia…which is why we took care to add new situations and characters to the mythos, like Leo Quintum, Zibarro, new types of Kryptonite and new villains like Krull, the Chronovore, Mechano-Man, or whatever. We wanted the stories to seem timeless, mythic, rather than tied to any particular period or interpretation of Superman.

All-Star is an Age unto itself.

NRAMA: Well, it certainly reflects the idea of Superman being a guy who’s just trying to do the best he can with what he’s been given – and he’s been given a lot.

GM: Yeah, yeah! Obviously, what he’s been given is this whole mythology, with friends from space and time-traveling relatives and all that sci-fi stuff. He lives on a much higher scale or frequency than a normal man does, but the problems he has are the same ones we all share, and I think he’s at his best when he acts out human dramas on a cosmic stage.

We all have places we retreat to, Superman’s just happens to be the Fortress of Solitude. Many of us have had pets we love – Superman’s dog can fly in space.

No matter how powerful he gets, he can still feel grief and joy and love like the rest of us. The stories that deal with these common themes, I think, are the most “relevant” ones we can tell with Superman, the stories that can speak to our human experience, particularly the male experience in the case of this particular character.

NRAMA: One moment that resonated with me while reading this was the issue with Clark and Lex in the prison. At the end, Clark is furiously angry with Lex, not because Lex has tried to kill him so many times, or that he’s responsible for his fatal condition. He’s more upset that Lex is going to be executed, and he’s so obsessed with killing Superman that he isn’t even trying to save his own life.

GM: Yeah, see, Superman sees the best in us, including Luthor. And that’s why he’s sad or confused sometimes, because he also sees us messing up, being angry and jealous and self-destructive. He sees the best, he thinks human beings are amazing, and he wants us all to rise up to his level, become superhuman and go off into space or whatever, but his ideals are constantly running up against basic human problems and inadequacies, including his own.

And I think that’s what makes him great. He just keeps tirelessly trying to make things better, to be a role model for everyone. People take him for granted – he’s always dealing with characters who think he’s an idiot, or irrelevant or who just don’t like his plain morality and can’t see that he’s just a genuinely good guy slightly hampered by a fear of forcing his ideas on people.

NRAMA: Now, it’s one of the worst-kept secrets in comics that some years back, you, Mark Millar, Mark Waid and Tom Peyer put together a proposal for the Superman books. Has anything from All-Star Superman been taken from that original proposal?

GM: Very little, actually. I think there are a couple of little things that I re-used from there, but I can’t remember what they were. Maybe one of the climactic Luthor beats survived.

I kind of wanted to rethink the whole thing for All-Star, because the Superman Now! pitch from ‘99 was a very specific story, and we had a very specific plan for it, coming off the continuity that was in the Superman comics of the mid-1990s, All-Star, I think, is a purer vision of Superman.

I’ve read a few speculations over the years about how we were going to use that proposal to end the Supeman/Lois Lane marriage. In fact that was actually something we decided we didn’t want to do. I remember Mark Waid and the guys and all of us sitting around thinking of ways to end the Superman marriage – and we talked about it for a long time, and we got to where we were talking about things like “memory molecules,” and we finally said, “This is ridiculous! The only way to do this is to keep the marriage and make it work!”

It was the only thing we could do with what I still think was a bad idea. The marriage damaged the dynamic of Superman comics quite severely, but if we broke up the relationship of these two great fictional lovers, Superman would immediately seem ineffectual and ultimately beaten by his foes, walking around for the rest of his life not knowing Lois was ever his wife or whatever.

So we opted to keep Lois Lane and the marriage intact. It’s kind of an interesting reflection of what recently happened in Spider-Man, where they did choose to magically unmarry the hero to predictable howls of protest. Then again, I actually think they’ll be able to make that one work if they just grit their teeth for a couple of years until the new status quo becomes accepted, so who knows?

NRAMA: Why do you feel that, in a comic book, it’s sometimes harder to write a happy, stable relationship than it is to write about, say, the end of the world?

GM: Happy people don’t make good drama, basically, and the end of the world never loses its appeal. It’s why I don’t want too many people to get their hands on Animal Man, because he’s one of the last guys in comics who has a good family relationship, (laughs) and that’s really, really important to that character. So every time I see some new writer get a hold of him, I always worry that they’ll mess with Animal Man’s marriage. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened yet.

Sadly, it can be easier to write the girlfriend in the refrigerator or whatever than it is to write an actual loving relationship. (laughs)

NRAMA: To wind down, I’d like to talk about some other comics and projects. What are some books and who are some creators whose work you’re currently enjoying?

GM: The usual suspects – Geoff’s Green Lantern is always good, Warren Ellis’ Thunderbolts…Greg Rucka’s Checkmate. The Twelve by JMS and Chris. Joe Casey’s Gødland.

A lot of my favorite books are by the guys I know – Mark Waid’s The Brave and the Bold has some of Waid’s best ever work. Fandom hasn’t quite latched onto that one the way I thought it should, which is a shame because it’s such a good book, a superhero comic with a big emotional, imaginative storytelling style that reminds me of Doctor Who.

There’s a lot of books I’m forgetting…Mighty Avengers by Bendis, Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way’s been great. I really enjoyed Kick-Ass, which has so much amazing potential and reminds me most of the short, real-world teenage stories Mark was writing for British comics when I first met him. I’m forgetting loads but 2008 is shaping up to be an amazing year for comics readers, don’t you think?

NRAMA: Do you see yourself staying in comics in the long term, or do you see yourself fully moving on to other media eventually?

GM: I’ve been doing work in other media since the beginning of my career, but I don’t think I’ll ever “move on” entirely. I love comic books, and I love doing them – I think it’s a very, very unique art form, very self-expressive. You know, there’s not a lot of editorial control, you can go off in really, really crazy directions.

Still, I’ve worked on a couple of screenplays in the last few years, and it was really great to do something that’s complete in 120 pages – you know, doing monthly comics is like a never-ending Jack Kerouac typewriter roll. You just keep working, throwing ideas out, month after month, and you don’t really get any time to go back and change things or do second drafts.

That’s what I like about movies – the opportunity to really craft a piece, going back and tweaking it to perfection over a few drafts and several months. It’s a very involving and satisfying process…at least until the studio notes come in! But I’d never give up comics. They’re too much fun.

NRAMA: How’s the We3 movie coming along? Advance reviews of the script have been very enthusiastic. I know a lot of productions got stalled because of the writers’ strike…

GM: Yeah, it’s not even so much the strike, because I finished the script well over a year ago. It’s moving slowly because New Line can’t nail down the right director for various reasons. We’ve been through so many guys, the list is a ridiculous who’s who of talent. But they were either unavailable or unsuitable in some way. We’ll see what happens next when New Line’s current troubles get resolved.

The screenplay follows the comic faithfully, with a few extra scenes we’d cut out because of the page-count restrictions, so the movie version of We3 is, I think, even better than the comic book script.

I’m used to doing comic books, where you’ve got your story written and it’s on the stands within three months, while you’re on to the next thing. But in Hollywood, the process can be long and involved and go on for years at a time. It took Neil Gaiman 17 years or something to get Beowulf onto the screen, so it’s best to just keep moving forward with other projects in the meantime.

NRAMA: You’ve also got Area 51, and are there any other projects you can talk about at this time?

GM: Well, I’m working in Los Angeles right now and since the strike’s been over, I’m doing all the usual pitch meetings and business. We’ve had some pretty exciting developments on various projects over the last week or two but, as usual, nothing I can really talk about till the trade press makes it real!

I’m about to start the second draft of the Area 51 screenplay this week… Everything you’ve ever heard about writers and the Hollywood experience is true, but I’ve still got more friends here than anywhere else, and nothing beats escaping from Scotland during the cruel winter months.

NRAMA: Do you see yourself doing a long-form creator-owned series like The Invisibles again?

GM: Well, maybe not so much a long-form series, but I’ve certainly got a bunch of new books coming out from Vertigo later this year – they’ve taken a while to write, because I’ve been busy with the movies and the DCU books, but you’ll be seeing some mad creator stuff pretty soon.

The first of the books, I’m happy to say, is the long-awaited ultra-violet, necrodelic…Seaguy 2: Slaves of Mickey Eye – Cameron Stewart has the first script, and maybe now that we’re getting to finish our story, people will finally understand what it was all about!

There’s a couple of other things…so yeah, maybe a series, but nothing as long as The Invisibles. That was a big part of my life, and I got so tangled up in it I couldn’t tell where I began and it ended. I don’t know that I’d ever do something on that scale again, but then again, never say never.

NRAMA: Any updates on the quest to get Flex Mentallo reprinted?

GM: Not at all! They’re just very resistant to it. And it drives me nuts, because it’s one of my favorite pieces, and no one gets to see it unless they steal from BitTorrent. So I’d love it to be reprinted, but there are no plans at all right now. Everyone’s too afraid of Charles Atlas and his mighty fists. (laughs)

NRAMA: And now, a personal question. I know you were a fan of Steve Gerber…I was wondering if you had any thoughts on his recent passing.

GM: I grew up with his stuff, and he was one of my basic templates for how a good comic should be, and how the mainstream and the experimental could be combined.

It’s always seems a shame…Gerber and his contemporaries established all the rules of the so-called ‘Dark Age’ of comics in the mid-70s. They planted the seeds that grew to fruition in Dark Knight and Watchmen…but they rarely get accorded their place in the history books. Gerber, along with Steve Engelhart, Doug Moench, Jim Starlin, Don McGregor and others, worked with some amazing artists to bring elements of cynical humor, real world violence, psychedelic storytelling, poetry, philosophy, cinematic panel transitions and experimental layouts to mainstream comics, but they rarely get credit for it.

There was an incredible period of innovation and progress at Marvel during the post-Vietnam years, when writers were allowed to edit their own books and break the rules a bit. It really is time to start re-evaluating these guys as pioneers and give them the respect they deserve while they’re still around to enjoy it. Don McGregor retrospective now please!

Howard the Duck was always my favorite of Steve’s stuff. I remember buying three copies of the first issue thinking they’d be worth a fortune – which they were for about three years until the Duck bubble burst and they were worth less than I’d paid for them. I’ve still got every copy in a box at home - my first and last venture into the speculator’s market. I loved that book - the Chair-Thing! Turnip Man! That amazing autobiographical “deadline doom” issue where, instead of handing in a Howard script, Gerber does an experimental illustrated essay about how he couldn’t make his deadline!

And The Defenders stuff with the Headmen and the Bland guys. Amazing, insane villains. That incredible panel where Doc Magnus becomes sane, after murdering his Metal Men, with the tear running down his face and the tiny word balloon going “Tina ?” That stuff really sticks with me.

And I’ll always remember how I first heard about the destruction of the ozone layer by aerosols in his first issue of Guardians of the Galaxy. And that beautiful phrase he wrote…”lightning gerrymandered the sky,” which has been flashing up in my head for the last thirty years every time there’s a storm…

Inspiration gets passed on like a baton in a relay race.

[Inertia]

Nice interview .

[gsam4ever]

Not a huge Morrison fan but I've loved this series. Frank's art is unbelievable work. Overall I feel that the All-Star line has been a bust. A lot of potential but it hasn't materialized.

[PyroTwilight]

I love Superman All Star and am heart broken to see it winding down and ending like this.

[TheMaxx]

wow...so much interesting stuff in the article. thank's zack

[BillReed]

Seaguy 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[NatePetrelli]

Such a class act.

All Star Superman is probably his best superhero work IMO.

[C_Striker]

Still nothing about finishing Wildcats and The Authority

[Ace]

I've barely been able to get into All Star Superman at all. I loved the Jonathan Kent issue, but past that, it hasn't done it for me. I sort of just shrugged it off when I saw it at all the top of the best of 2007 lists.

While his interview on Batman really made me appreciate what he was doing on another level, I'm not sure this did it for me.

I think it just comes down to the fact that I don't connect at all to the Superman being portrayed here. Except for the Jim Starlin/Paul Levitz stuff from DC Comics Presents, I've never met a pre-crisis Superman story I've actually liked (I love both the Stern and Rucka runs post-crisis for what it's worth).

Maybe that's not it at all. I don't know.

[nightwingoracle]

Great interview.

I liked getting clarification on what he would have done with the Superman/Lois marriage had he been put on the main Superman titles, as I'd always heard he was going to do away with it. As a fan of the marriage, I always wished he'd stay away from the title...now, after knowing his thoughts and seeing how wonderful he has been on All-Star Superman, I'd like to see him take a crack at the book sometime.

I also echo his sentiments on Animal Man. Although as the series progressed into its Vertigo era and Buddy became a leader of a cult, Buddy did indeed have an affair that led to a child if I recall correctly. I quit reading the book about that time, so I don't know if he and Ellen ever broke up. I was thrilled that the Infinite Crisis books brought back the Morrison-version of Animal Man with his happy family - that's how I like him best.

[leahcim]

No mention of the Bendis tantrum because of what Grant said in last weeks Wizard.

[Apocrypha]

It's not really "stealing from bittorent" if, by your own admission, it can't be gotten anywhere else is it?

[C20Percent]

I've bought ever All-Star Superman issue, and -- overall -- I think the series has been overrated. I think his Batman is better, and I don't even think that's great.

[linnen]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

Gerber and his contemporaries established all the rules of the so-called ‘Dark Age’ of comics in the mid-70s. They planted the seeds that grew to fruition in Dark Knight and Watchmen…but they rarely get accorded their place in the history books. Gerber, along with Steve Engelhart, Doug Moench, Jim Starlin, Don McGregor and others, worked with some amazing artists to bring elements of cynical humor, real world violence, psychedelic storytelling, poetry, philosophy, cinematic panel transitions and experimental layouts to mainstream comics, but they rarely get credit for it.

Great interview!

It was cool that Grant mentioned all those wonderful writers and pointed out that they don't get the credit they deserve. I grew up reading books by each author he mentioned and I love them all. I still jump at the chance to pick up their work when they get something released.

Thanks for giving credit to what came before, Grant! It's always nice when today's "hot" writers do that!

[SpaceButler]

I love All Star Superman, I have bought every issue and look forward to buying the Asolute in a couple of years.

[durkadurka]

I've been a fan of Grant Morrison for a while. I loved the Invisibles and his X-Men run, and his Batman run is pretty interesting as well. And i am really glad he's the main guy behind Final Crisis.
But i do have to say that All Star Superman continues to blow me away. I love the ideas, and i feel Quitely's art is so amazingly good and appropriate for the story.

Originally Posted by Grant Morrison

Issue #12 completes the story – it also kind of functions as the last Superman adventure ever, so we want to give him a good send-off – I think the wrap page is one of the best endings I’ve ever thought of (laughs).

I can't wait to see how it ends.

Originally Posted by leahcim

No mention of the Bendis tantrum because of what Grant said in last weeks Wizard.

Could you or somebody else explain this to me? I must have missed it.

[Userama]

Originally Posted by leahcim

No mention of the Bendis tantrum because of what Grant said in last weeks Wizard.

maybe because it wasn't that big of a deal/no one really cares/actually talking about comics is more interesting.

[HartyPotter]

All Star Superman is indeed awesome.

[GLX]

Great interview.

[A-Newton]

Originally Posted by Apocrypha

It's not really "stealing from bittorent" if, by your own admission, it can't be gotten anywhere else is it?

It's aqcuiring a copyrighted work by means other than from those who own it, or who legally have the rights to distribute it. Objectively it's still stealing (though I'd rephrase to "stealing through bit torrent" just to be picky), though arguments can be made about intentions and moral subjectivism. If it was ever pressed it would never hold up in a court, of course, but that's a very different matter from justifying the actions to ourselves and sorting it out with regards to our own moral decisions.

[luckybucky]

Issue #12 completes the story – it also kind of functions as the last Superman adventure ever, so we want to give him a good send-off – I think the wrap page is one of the best endings I’ve ever thought of (laughs). So yeah, I’m very pleased with how that whole book has worked out.

That's my only regret about this. I was so hoping All-Star would BE the set up for the post Final Crisis continuity. Sorry to see it's wrapping up within its own continuity.

[mrpunch0]

Originally Posted by Apocrypha

It's not really "stealing from bittorent" if, by your own admission, it can't be gotten anywhere else is it?

It's still a reproduction of someone else's property. So yeah. It's still stealing.

Even if you can't get it legally from another source.

[Pseudoderm]

I'm sad to see Grant leave this book. I'm also glad to hear that he's not leaving comics for Hollywood.

Grant's written some of my favorite all-time comics: the JLA revival, Animal Man, The Invisibles, Aztek, We3, Seven Soldiers and All Star Superman. I also loved DC One Million and the Mystery Play. His current Batman has taken longer for me to wrap my head around, but I'm finally getting it. (They read better in big chunks.) I would like to see him write Plastic Man again.

Grant's Batman monthly run was interrupted early on by a cool story by Ostrander & Mandrake, but it threw off the pace when you're reading a monthly. The recent Ra's al Ghul multiple crossover, which was popular, threw off the rhythm for me as well because I'm not into these mega-multi book crossovers. I wish it had just been a three part Batman tale by Grant instead of moving into Detective, Robin and Nightwing. But that's just me...I'm weird like that!

Hopefully Newsarama will talk to Grant again closer to Batman RIP.

[nightwingoracle]

Originally Posted by linnen

Great interview!

It was cool that Grant mentioned all those wonderful writers and pointed out that they don't get the credit they deserve. I grew up reading books by each author he mentioned and I love them all. I still jump at the chance to pick up their work when they get something released.

Thanks for giving credit to what came before, Grant! It's always nice when today's "hot" writers do that!

Agreed - Steve Gerber, Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin, Doug Moench, Don McGregor and others (with whom I would include Elliot S! Maggin and Marv Wolfman, as well as, to a slightly lesser degree, Cary Bates, Marty Pasko, Gerry Conway and Len Wein) led the way in developing ideas, concepts and characters in comics in the '70s that raised the bar while also serving as a stepping stone for the '80s books like Dark Knight Returns and Watchman.

These guys and their accomplishments need to be highlighted more. Wolfman gets a lot of respect for Teen Titans (and well he should), but Tomb of Dracula, Night Force, and other comics showcased his amazing talents.

It seems like sometimes all we hear about for the '70s is Jack Kirby, Denny O'Neill, Neal Adams and Chris Claremont. All are well deserving of their acolades, but so are these other folks.

[nightwingoracle]

Originally Posted by Pseudoderm

I'm sad to see Grant leave this book. I'm also glad to hear that he's not leaving comics for Hollywood.



Grant's Batman monthly run was interrupted early on by a cool story by Ostrander & Mandrake, but it threw off the pace when you're reading a monthly. The recent Ra's al Ghul multiple crossover, which was popular, threw off the rhythm for me as well because I'm not into these mega-multi book crossovers. I wish it had just been a three part Batman tale by Grant instead of moving into Detective, Robin and Nightwing. But that's just me...I'm weird like that!

Hopefully Newsarama will talk to Grant again closer to Batman RIP.

I've enjoyed Morrison's run on BATMAN. The Ostrander/Mandrake "Grotesk" story was adequate at best (not at all up to Ostrander's usual strong standards), but you're right - it definitely threw off the pace of the book. And the Ras Al Ghul crossover was just an extended mess of a story that could have been a three parter. I agree.