Grant Morrison's stellar Supergods bows down to Superman, the 21st century's Jesus Christ.
Image courtesy Random House

Move over, monotheism as we knew it. Led by the indestructible Superman, superheroes have irrevocably metamorphosed into the spiritual paragons of our multimedia existence.

That’s the thrusting thesis of comics visionary Grant Morrison’s debut book, Supergods, out Tuesday stateside. It functions both as Morrison’s revealing personal memoir, as well as a riveting critical and cultural history of superhuman archetypes that have evolved into pop and philosophical powerhouses.

“It offers a glimpse into the stories and lives of the people who created these superheroes, as we enter the age of superhumanity,” Morrison told Wired.com by phone in the extensive interview below. “I’m hoping the flying kids of the future will read Supergods as a story of their role models, and the dreams we had about them, before they actually became real.”

Grant Morrison, comics' hardest working visionary.
Image courtesy Kristan Morrison

It’s the keystone of DC Comics’ ambitious campaign to re-create its gods and monsters for a century that might as well be light-years away from the milieu of World War II, when comics came to power as lowbrow “paper creations originally designed to entertain children and servicemen, but which have developed dimensions beyond that,” said Morrison.

Those added dimensions include blockbuster films like Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming Man of Steel, coming next year, as well as immersive virtual realities like Batman: Arkham City, out Oct. 18. They also include same-day digital comics, an obvious concession to a wireless communications future where print no longer carries the same cultural capital. But even digital comics have a long way to go before they can catch up to their supergods, whose limitless possibilities demand more flexibility and creativity.

“It’s always a mistake whenever new technology comes along, and an old form tries to translate,” Morrison said. “It’s like film a century ago, where directors were simply re-creating the look of a play in a theater, rather than moving the camera around. So far, online comics have done the same.”

For his part, Morrison is thinking, and working, both inside and outside the faltering comics industry. He splits time between his native Scotland and beckoning Hollywood, which is finally warming to the writer’s game-changing work. His original script for Barry Sonnenfeld’s dinosaurs-versus-aliens blockbuster Dominion is in the can, and Morrison’s still hard at work adapting his mind-frying comics like We3 and more for Generation Imax. It’s just a matter of time before his sweet acid satire Seaguy or once-unfilmable epic The Invisibles make the jump to the big screen. Or he proudly follows in the footsteps of comics compatriot Neil Gaiman and writes one of the best Doctor Who episodes of all time. In fact, he’s already got one lined up.

“I’ve been trying for a while to come up with my own ultimate version of a Doctor Who story,” he said. “But I couldn’t say anything because that would give it away.”

Wired.com gets deep with Morrison on digitalism, pantheism, why humanity might be a planetary cancer and much more in the conversation below. Turn on your mind, relax and float upstream into the superheroic pantheon.

Grant Morrison and Rags Morales reboot Superman as a champion of the oppressed in Action Comics No. 1.
Images courtesy DC Comics

Wired.com: Reading Supergods, I came away with the sense that Superman and Batman are ready to step into the void left behind by the aging Abrahamic gods, now that our new century is moving beyond them.

Grant Morrison: Yeah, absolutely. At least with superhero characters, we know they’re not real. [Laughs] That takes away some problems of the old legends. And they do fill the gap in a secular culture, because they open up dimensions of the cosmic and transcendent, which is stuff legends usually have to deal with. It’s not so much that they are new versions of the gods, because the gods were always just our eternal qualities. Superman possesses the qualities of the very best man we can imagine at any given time. In that sense, he’s divine. Batman is representative of our dark subconscious, who nevertheless works for the good of humanity. They embody the same ideals.

Wired.com: Superman and Batman, as you note in Supergods, function as a powerful yin-yang foundation, the light and the dark, the socialist and the capitalist. As divine figures, do you think they’re capable of being extracted from our earthly politics?

Morrison: I think so. They’ve existed for so long now that they have survived all kinds of political and national systems. The heroes of the late ’60s were troubled cosmic seekers or macho prototypes, and nothing like the kind of mythic, iconic superheroes we have now in this post-celebrity age. So they have constantly changed with the times.

Wired.com: The last time I wrote about Action Comics, Superman renounced his American citizenship and I never saw so much hate mail in my life.

Morrison: Well, I can’t speak for David Goyer but it was an interesting thing to do, and it showed that Superman can still inspire that depth of feeling. Superman should stand for America’s mythic and pioneer qualities. I feel that there is truth to that. But there is definitely more to him. He appeals to people around the world, so he’s really more of a global symbol these days, and that seems a more provocative and poetic way of writing him. That sort of suits the way I would approach him, although I like to deal with universals — love and hate, fear and peace — rather than making political points. It certainly showed that people are keeping an eye on Superman, and feel proprietary towards him. What I am trying to do with Action Comics is perhaps provocative in similar ways, because I’m looking back at the original Superman as a champion of the oppressed, and not necessarily a figure of law and order or patriotism.

Wired.com: He’s a champion of the universal oppressed. He was born on another planet, and raised in America. But he belongs to the universe.

Morrison: Yeah, absolutely. He represents something good about America, in the sense that he became the naturalized immigrant par excellence. America has a grand tradition of “Give me your huddled masses….” And Superman comes from outside of that world, and eventually decides to stand for those principles. But he’s not from America. He showed up in a boat from a grander world. [Laughs]

Pages:1234 View All