The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1232: Kid Eternity (1991) #3, 1991

A few thoughts upon finishing this series.

1. I think that the covers would make an awesome and particularly horrifying triptych to hang in the basement. Perhaps I need to grab a copy of this series in trade so that I can hang the pictures.

2. As with Junk Culture, there's a revelation of Philip K. Dick levels here that completely rewrites the Kid's history. Mr. Morrison likes to do this to old concepts (see Doom Patrol #57). It's a very useful device to unseat a hero from years of complacency, or a to bring something intriguing to a character that has lost its edge. He does similar things with the Seven Soldiers series. Just as the myths from which they derive changed and shifted constantly, so too must the superheroes, in order that they reflect the society within which they are being created.

3. I took on a new project with my comics.

(2.5. I might actually get back to my read through of Mark Waid's Flash, as well!)

I've taken all of the stories set in the DCU proper that Grant Morrison wrote and have come up with a chronology for them. I'm reading his entire take on the DCU from the beginning (for me, Action Comics v.2 #1) to the end (again, for me, All-Star Superman #12), using the various stories he tells of Superman as a fulcrum. It's slow-going, as I'm trying to take notes on each part. But I'd forgotten that this series takes place in the DCU, and features Dr. Fate's old nemeses, The Lords of Chaos. At one point in today's issue, one of the Lords notes that the Kid's mission to erect "chaospheres" around the planet has been in an effort to force humanity's evolution. The proof of its working is said to be the beginning of the age of superheroes. It feels like this story is taking place very early in the DCU (indeed, Morrison wrote it not too long after the new Earth of Crisis came about, and needed some historical tweaking).

A pretty good read, beautiful (though also awful) to look at, but certainly not amongst Morrison's best works. You can see inklings of the things he's going to start working out in The Invisibles, for sure, so an important early attempt at these ideas, most specifically his idea of the Supercontext.

Another interesting thing is that there's a woman whose story we keep witnessing throughout the series, and she's writing a book on urban legends. It just so happens that I'm reading a book that's almost identical to the one she is writing, down to some of the chapter headings. I get the feeling Mr. Morrison may have glanced at it in researching this series.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1231: Kid Eternity (1991) #2, 1991

Things get Dantean.

As I noted yesterday, the comic reads a bit like Grant Morrison aping Alan Moore, and today's journey through judgment in the afterlife, and then down into the depths of Hell are not unlike many of Moore's Swamp Thing stories.

I don't want you to think that this should come across as necessarily a bad thing. Bear in mind that there was once a time when it wasn't so much the originality of the tale, but the way in which it was told. That was the key to Shakespeare's success. And that's why I offered the comparison to Dante's Divine Comedy. What I'm trying to figure out is which is Dante and which is Virgil, the Kid or Jerry (our focal character). So for Morrison to be telling a "Moorean" tale, told in his style, isn't so far-fetched an idea. Doing while Moore is still a going concern is a bit cheeky, but then so is Mr. Morrison.

One thing I will say is that Morrison's Hell is awful. Duncan Fegredo weaves a body horror nightmare of stairs that are alive and walls that reach out and touch you. Reading this section, and given that it was written at the same time as Doom Patrol, I can't help but see Hell here as a bloodier version of Orqwith, inhabited by strange creatures and damned souls. What might Orqwith have looked like had Fegredo been on the art for it. Not that I am in any way disparaging Richard Case, of course.

Although the comic takes us to some very non-linear, ethereal and infernal realms today, the chaos of the art seems to have settled somewhat. I'm wondering if, in some ways, the chaotic nature of the art was reflective of the state of the universe as we enter this story. Jerry is obviously, as is revealed in today's issue, destined for something big, and the Kid, though ostensibly serving his own purposes, also seems to be shepherding Jerry to a certain extent. And as he starts shepherding, the chaotic nature of the universe settles as Jerry moves back toward the path he's destined to walk.

Perhaps. I'm sure I'll have more to say after the conclusion, which will no doubt be both dazzling and obscure. More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1230: Kid Eternity (1991) #1, 1991

In the late 80s and early 90s, Grant Morrison wrote a number of comics that are considered amongst some of the great superheros stories. Doom Patrol. Animal Man. Arkham Asylum. But he also wrote today's series, a 3-issue prestige format pre-Vertigo revamp of Kid Eternity. It didn't take off quite the same way that his other works did, though a couple of years later the Kid gets his own series from Vertigo. We'll get to that soonish, I think.

I'm not sure what it is about this series that doesn't take, but my recollection of it was that it was relatively normal. Well, sort of. It's a messed up and weird Grant Morrison story, but to me it reads in a lot of ways like he is trying to write an Alan Moore story. Not that I would put this past Morrison at all. Duncan Fegredo's art is, as usual, amazing, and painted, and really scary. Definitely a Dave McKean-ish vibe. I was about to say that there was influence, until I realized that the two were, in comics, relatively contemporaneous.

I wonder if it's a combination of the artist and the writer, both of whom were skirting the edges of the form at the time. Perhaps it's just too much weird.

Nah.

More tomorrow...