CBR: When Words Collide - Jan 5, 2011

[CBR News]

Tim joins us for a special Wednesday installment of WHEN WORDS COLLIDE to discuss the recent news of a Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely "Flex Mentallo" hardcover and why it's such an important comic book series.


Full article here.

[theorphan]

Great article. I don't think you should limit Morrison's superheroics to "Gnostic ideas" though. They are Theosophical, drawing on many more religions and non-religions and enlightened philosophies, rather than Christianity alone. He definitely pulls from Gnosticism, but it undersells how brilliant he is to not realize the universal transcendence he writes. He has an adept grasp on theology and philosophy as broad studies and works them effortlessly into his work, which makes them so absorbing and appealing to a pluralistic society.

Also, I too am curious to see where Batman Inc. leads. I feel like it is really just a sequel or continuation of ideas he was working with in New X-Men. The idea of X-Corps seems very much a precursor to the more wholly realized Batman Inc.

[NickFury90]

This is still the one Morrison/Quitely story that leaves me cold every time I've tried to read it over the years, and its puzzling to me. I think Morrison/Quitely are the best creative team of the past decade(and definitely one of the best of all-time), I love Doom Patrol and all its wackiness, and everyone from Tim Callahan to David Brothers to Bill Reed to Patrick Meaney fall over themselves to worship the ground it unpublished on.

And yet...eh. Am I reading it wrong? Should I be looking for some metatextual message in all the dialog?

[BillR]

And yet...eh. Am I reading it wrong? Should I be looking for some metatextual message in all the dialog?

The entire comic is metatext. It's also a reconstruction of superheroes, in the same way that Watchmen was a deconstruction.

[TimothyCallahan]

The most basic interpretation is that issue #1 is the Golden Age of comics, issue #2 is the Silver Age, issue #3 is the "grim and gritty" age, and issue #4 is the awakening of a new age.

Reading it with that in mind might help click with you better.

[JayPhonomancer]

Halle-fricking-lujah! I am so excited about this. I just finished watching Talking With Gods (at long last) a few hours ago which made my yearning for this series even worse than it already was. I was considering looking around on eBay to see how much the individual issues were going for and then I see this! JOY!
I know it probably won't be out til near the end of the year but still, I can rest easy now.

[diablo7]

I have the single issues so I'm getting the hardcover for the extra material. Hopefully rebellion comes through and puts out a zenith trade.