Sound familiar? It should, but it’s not what you think.

Five years after completing his epic run on the Justice League of America, writer Grant Morrison set out to reimagine Marvel Comics’ Avengers in the DC Universe with 2005’s mega-series event Seven Soldiers. Seven 4-issue series, each starring a different character in a solo tale, were bookended by two specials that tied them all together — without ever having any of the heroes meet each other. In a distinctly post-(post-)modern take on the super-hero team, Morrison gave each protagonist an individual and specific role to play in the defeat of a common foe, but maintained each hero as a solitary, often self-conflicted figure. Long gone is the round table of Arthurian legend that most Golden and Silver Age teams found themselves encircling at times of crisis. These seven heroes — The Shining Knight, Bulleteer, The Guardian, Frankenstein, Zatanna, Klarion the Witch Boy, and Mister Miracle — all play an integral part in the defeat of invading hordes of fairies from our own future, descendants of the very culture they wish to strip apart and destroy. Nevertheless, their conflicts of character reflect a millennial vision for super-heroics as much as the Avengers themselves reflected a post-1950s mentality of the Cuban Missile Crisis era, when patriotic teamwork and the dangers of nuclear power drew heroes together, not apart.

An underlying theme to nearly every character is that self-questioning that heroes rarely had, even in the much more introspective era of the Marvel hero forty years earlier. Klarion the Witch Boy lives in an underground village, deeply hidden from the rest of the world since its inhabitants left the 13 colonies with a single word (“Croatoan”) marking their departure. Part of a society not unlike that of Logan’s Run, where men and women practice Salem witchcraft only until reaching a certain age, Klarion begins his journey wistful for any sort of meaning when everyone’s ultimate fate — to be killed and become a mindless slave zombie — is predetermined. But once he finds his way to the great blue rafters of legend, and out unto the streets of New York City, his own sense of power grows exponentially and leads to a greater coup than the boy could have even dreamed.

Before putting on the helmet of the Manhattan Guardian, Jake Jordan was a broken man, having left the police force in a shooting scandal that claimed the innocent life of a young boy. With no job or way to support his fiancée, Jake was plummeted into a deep depression until the city’s greatest newspaper offered to make him its trademark super-hero/reporter. And Jake isn’t alone in his self-doubt, as two other protagonists — Zatanna and Mister Miracle — each spend a considerable amount of time engaged in the ultimate post-millennial activity, therapy. The daughter of one of the greatest sorcerers of our time, the powerful-in-her-own-right Zatanna can’t seem to raise her own self-esteem, much to the chagrin of her much less famous group therapy peers. And Shilo Norman, the escape artist known on every stage as Mister Miracle, would feel better about his fame and recognize his true power if he wasn’t undermined at every turn by the dark god DeSaad masquerading as his empathetic psychiatrist. These heroes, riddled by a psychosis only cured through glorious super-human action, may represent an even greater accomplishment to modern day readers than their heroes of old, for it is not only their physical enemies that each must overcome, but one’s own inner demons as well. Shades of Iron Man famously facing his own hazy alcoholic self in the mirror, their ultimate revelations become cathartic for all those who have ever overcome the life trap themselves and risen to fight again.

The Shining Knight’s journey too, while representing the complete opposite of doubt and shame, runs a road rarely taken in comic book form. Today, DC Comics’ most prominent transgender character, Sir Ystin is initially depicted as a girl masquerading as a man to earn his seat at the actual Round Table aside Galahad and the others. That said, his “truth” never seems as revelatory as one would presume, and to later creators’ credit, he stands as one of the most well-rounded depictions of the LGBT community in comics today. An honorable hero with bravery to spare, the Shining Knight isn’t confused about his gender identity as much as earning his place among the heroes of old, one battle at a time. It is in that sense that he has unsure footing along the path, refreshing in contrast to the lovely Bulleteer, the accidental hero who quite literally stumbles into her own destiny without desire or drive.

Truly, the monster Frankenstein may be the only hero who has no compunction about who and what he truly represents. A genuine product of mad science, armed with a sword and body parts from a dozen soldiers of legend, Frankenstein cuts a swath across the invading fairies, the king Melmoth and the queen Gloriana herself in the far flung future. He drags them back through time to face justice at the hands of S.H.A.D.E., the federal agency his own Bride operates. He is brute force, but not without the heart of a poet, and in that sense, poses a curious counterpart to his forbearer (and literary descendent, technically), the Incredible Hulk. Subject of the original science fiction novel, Frankenstein is precisely the hero our twenty-first century needs, despite his Victorian origins — a self-assured man visibly stitched together from many cultures and influences, a true melting pot of backgrounds while remaining stridently individualistic in nature. There is no cure for his condition, as Bruce Banner may seek, for he always already was the monster, just like the rest of us — and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Ultimately, for a tale broken into seven pieces and centered on the conceit of never meeting, Seven Soldiers is a deeply interwoven narrative, with details and motivations overlapping with increasing frequency as the series reaches its conclusion. Morrison layers time on space, different sets of soldiers upon those at the story’s lead, until you feel like an entirely new universe is being born right inside your hands. One of the few instances of a rich chronicle that implies deeper meanings and history without alienating one’s understanding of the current story, these vignettes and bookends all stand as a testament to the new century super-hero tale. Gone is the formulaic (ironic given the initial inspiration for the series) concept of the strongman figure in a cape, and in its place is a wicked boy and his cat, a self-aware monster with a broken heart, a young woman who grew up in lights on the stage, the embodiment of life housed in a celebrity performer, a good man down on his luck, the unwilling beauty queen, and a young champion choosing to not be confined by his own gender identity. Together they represent everything our culture needs to avenge on today’s terms. It’s about time our heroes caught up.

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Matt Santori-Griffith owns one business suit, three pairs of shoes, and over 15,000 comic books. He is an art director for several non-profit organizations, senior editor for Comicosity.com, and still manages to find the time on dark nights and weekends to fight the good fight on Twitter.com in the guise of @FotoCub. He has not yet saved the world, but isn’t giving up quite yet.

Since I believe I know most, if not all, of the comic book tropes, it bothers me when I find something that I can’t completely wrap my head around. Some of Grant Morrison’s stories do this to me. The Invisibles — I’m still trying to grasp many of the stories’ imbedded concepts. Arkham Asylum — I think I understand it but then I wonder if I’m missing something. Final Crisis — don’t even get me started on this one. This confounds me because All-Star Superman and Morrison’s Doom Patrol are two of my favorite comic book runs ever. It irritates me that I can’t completely follow all of Morrison’s storytelling, especially since I agree with him that narrative is a powerful force that is widely underappreciated.

The other reason that I would like to better follow all of Morrison’s references and motivations is he wrote a comic book story that to this day still deeply resonates with me. It’s Animal Man #5, “The Coyote Gospel,” a heartbreaking tale of heroism and loss, the like of which rarely finds its way into superhero comics. The story features a Wile E. Coyote stand-in named Crafty (get it?) who serves as the story’s messianic figure. If you start with the elevator pitch of “Wile E. Coyote is Christ” you’ve already got a bizarre and amazing idea but Morrison adds heroism and sorrow to the mix. He somehow makes the reader care about the coyote savior while at the same time making us question ourselves and the world around us. A pretty mean feat for a “funny book” about a guy who received animal powers from aliens.

In “The Coyote Gospel,” Crafty comes from a Warner Brothers-like cartoon world where life is poor, nasty, brutish, and long. The land’s animated denizens are continually battling each other with Acme-type weapons and cartoonish methods. This causes only pain and strife though none of the cartoons question their lives. One day Crafty rebels against this system of violence and appears before his god. Appropriately, Crafty’s god is the artist who created him and presumably writes and draws the coyote’s adventures. The creator sends Crafty into the comic book version of the reader’s world and declares that the cartoon coyote has been sentenced to Hell. As long as Crafty suffers in this other existence the creator promises to allow peace to flourish in the cartoon world. Crafty is given a new body and suffers pain and humiliation again and again but he seemingly cannot die. The former cartoon coyote agonizes so his people (read animals) will not. He bears his world’s pain and sacrifices himself in order to fight misery and injustice. In the end, a conservative Christian, who believes that he is slaying the devil, kills Crafty. The coyote cries as he holds a crucifixion pose and dies in the middle of a four-way intersection, which looks suspiciously like a cross. The story ends with a giant hand using a huge paintbrush to fill in the artistic details. The artist god has killed Crafty and the pact that kept the animal’s world safe is now broken.

I read this story about once a year and it always manages to touch me and force me to ponder life, death, selflessness, and the nature of God. Not bad for a comic book tale featuring a Wile E. Coyote look-alike and a yellow and orange clad superhero. Maybe I want too much but I wonder if more of Morrison’s stories could touch me this way if I better understood them. All-Star Superman did. I reveled in connecting the dots between DC One Million and the twelve issue series. I loved the numerous winks to Silver Age stories and issue number six broke my heart. This makes me ponder if I should work harder to understand Morrison’s writing and do the necessary research to better connect with the author. Something about that idea leaves me cold though. If I have to studying in order to understanding Morrison’s work, will the benefit be the same? Will I feel it as deeply as I do with Animal Man #5? Maybe sometimes our histories and interests coincide with an author’s imagination and we cannot force this connection. Perhaps, it is something unique when a writer and a reader share a narrative bond and these moments should be treasured for their rarity. I probably will never completely understand Grant Morrison’s stories but maybe that’s a good thing.

—

Jeffrey Johnson is an avid reader of comic books, watcher of television and film, and an annoying fount of 1980s and 1990s trivia. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies from Michigan State University and has written numerous journal articles and book chapter about popular culture. His latest book is entitled Super-History: Comic Book Superheroes and American Society, 1938 to the Present. He currently lives and works in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Today’s date — December 21, 2012 — has long been the source of much consternation for conspiracy theorists of all manners, driving scientists, writers and artists of all types to support or disprove the armageddon it supposedly brings in its celestial importance. For some, unique planetary alignment, interpretations of the ancient Mayan calendar, and random support found in both the works of Nostradamus and the Torah all suggest that a great shift is about to occur — on this, the day to end all days.

Well, as you may have guessed, I prefer to get my deep philosophical understanding of worldwide collapse and rebirth from comic books.

As I described previously, The Invisibles stands as one of Grant Morrison’s most compelling and complex bodies of work, not the least for its tightly woven vision of the countdown to the end of the world. For much of its narrative, the eponymous heroes of the series work against their opposite number, the Outer Church, to free humanity from the shackles of fear and loathing. In the end, however, we come to discover the battle was not nearly as black and white as it seemed. Ultimately, both sides of the embattled coin were working toward the same goal: the end of consciousness and identity as we know it on December 22, 2012. This is the morning after our last great night out on the town, except that instead of a cosmic hangover, we get to experience nirvana or heaven or, as Morrison describes it, the Supercontext.

One of Morrison’s most important theories about the nature of the universe, the Supercontext is the world as it was always meant to be — a four dimensional state of complete unity between creation and its inhabitants. Individualism is both eliminated and multiplied, as we are simultaneously all connected through time and genetics back to the first protozoan lifeform, a single organism with infinite aspects, faces and branches through which any identity we desire can be expressed. Want to be a rock god? A killer revolutionary? A public school teacher? In the Supercontext, it’s all there for the taking. And when you’re bored with one identity, one can just shed his or her fiction suit and put on another.

Our world, as we experience it today (but no longer tomorrow!), is the result of the crossing between creator and creation — the download of a higher dimensional being into our flimsy three through the rift in reality caused by the release of the first atom bomb. Like an obscene liquid pouring into a container not fit to hold its contents, this magic mirror refracts back a broken universe of conflict and overlap between good and evil, health and disease — invisibility and desolation. Our world, in this moment, retroactively became the very struggle The Invisibles purports to describe, but the mistake we all make is believing it is a battle between ideology and not, simply, a labored movement back toward our true point of origin. We are living in reverse with time speeding up every second (can’t you feel it?), moving closer and closer to our own birth back into the Supercontext. And tomorrow, if all goes to plan, is when the cord will finally be cut.

The obvious comparisons to the act of creation, particularly that of a comic book, are of course no accident. Morrison depicts a world where characters can step outside of panels, move between moments — folding time as if it were simply paper to be manipulated, drawn upon, and then erased and redrawn. Words are weapons for both sides of the war between the Invisibles and their mirrored foes, and like Oppenheimer’s grand pronouncement, they have a way of becoming real the moment they are uttered. As the series reaches its glorious conclusion, some 60 issues and 3 volumes later, the final confrontation between the two opposing forces comes down not to violence, but to language itself. Dosed with an upgraded version of a drug once given to King Mob during a near death-inducing interrogation by the Outer Church, the King Archon experiences the mad effects of Key 64 — the psychedelic literalization of the printed word. POP goes the symbol of all that is oppressive in our universe, a new era ushered in through words and emotion rather than violence and physicality. Because of this shift, and as if to signal we’re ready for the next step in our evolution, BARBELiTH — placenta to the Supercontext — finally bursts to signal our readiness for rebirth.

The mysterious giant red satellite hovering just beyond the dark side of the moon, BARBELiTH is frequent meme throughout the run of the series, appearing first as graffiti on the wall during a psychotropic Invisible initiation ritual. At once placenta, a model of the true nature of the holographic universe (in that all sides are indeed the same), and a great cosmic stoplight, BARBELiTH is that which nurtures humanity in its dreams, appearing most frequently following a severely traumatic experience. Alien abduction, shamanic activity, and near death experience are all different interpretations of our brush with the oncoming Supercontext, and Morrison’s great red dot — this period on the end of the universe we know — is there to prepare us most fully. In fact, it is only the moment when man reaches out to touch BARBELiTH, moves beyond its normal conception of space by sending a N.A.S.A. contingent to greet it, that the world experiences its second gushing rift in reality. This time, however, the break is motivated by love, not war. And thus it seems we are prepared for the apocalypse after all.

Would that I believed our world had reached this place on Morrison’s timetable, but with mere hours left to go before sunrise on December 22, I fear we’ve not quite made it yet. Humanity, as we’ve seen over the course of the last week, month, year, and decade, is definitely changing, and I believe (I truly do) evolving for the better. But just not fast enough.

The Invisibles has meant many things to me over the years, and it’s one of those rare pieces of literature that shift ever so slightly with every reading, moving us and it toward greater understanding with every page turn. It demands to be revisited, quite literally, asking that we rinse and repeat until we get it right. And we haven’t gotten it right yet. We’re still serving out our time in a hologram of selfishness and pain, constrained by three dimensions and only pretending to understand what lies beyond. It’s time for us to start rewriting our story, to stop letting the illusion of contradictory forces distract us from our greater purpose. We need to embrace our place as part of grand unified theory — not of physics but of psyche. It’s time to relinquish an either/or mentality and embrace a universe turned inside-out — to identify with unity over ego and grow into something better, that which we were always meant to be.

So, are you ready for what comes next? Because wouldn’t you rather our world end not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a cheer?

—

Matt Santori-Griffith owns one business suit, three pairs of shoes, and over 15,000 comic books. He is an art director for several non-profit organizations, senior editor for Comicosity.com, and still manages to find the time on dark nights and weekends to fight the good fight on Twitter.com in the guise of @FotoCub. He has not yet saved the world, but isn’t giving up quite yet.

Therefore, I subscribe to as many conspiracy theories as possible — not with any seriousness of course, but I find it makes our world a much more fascinating place to inhabit. I’m not particularly troubled by the tracking device that was injected with my first measles vaccine, particularly now that I carry a smartphone with me everywhere I go. If they want to find me, I say have at it. I’ll likely be at work. Or at home. Or at a comic book shop. Thrilling. I frequently see individuals on the train or walking down the street who look oddly familiar, like younger or older versions of friends or acquaintances. Merely coincidence, or do the past, present and future all exist simultaneously in our three-dimensional space? Tough call, but I like the road upon which this line of questioning travels.

But what if every conspiracy, every crazy idea ever to grace the pages of the Weekly World News, was actually true? What if the deepest and darkest secrets you’ve only heard whispered about in dreams are happening behind the closed doors of the highest offices in the land? What if they really are out to get you? Then you’re experiencing something like The Invisibles.

Originally published in three volumes from 1995 to 2000 from the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics — and now available in one complete omnibus edition — The Invisibles is the brainchild of writer Grant Morrison, and perhaps one of his finest and most complete works to date. For centuries, the Invisible College has worked in secret to combat forces that would see humanity enslaved through physical and psychic means. Their foes are the Archons of the Outer Church, extra-dimensional beings whose only desire is complete and utter control of the minds and heart of the human race. The Invisibles will use any means at their disposal — magic, time travel, psychic projection, guns — to free us and ensure our elevation to the next level of existence. As we tread quickly towards the end of the world we know and the beginning of the next, the Invisibles are always there, working in the shadows to prevent our complete and utter oppression. And where the Invisibles are, their opponents are not far behind.

Morrison weaves an enormous tapestry with this series, tying historical data with the wildest of conspiracy theories imaginable. No stone remains unturned in this series, as everything from alien abduction to the Marquis de Sade is laid out on the table for inspection. The world the Invisibles inhabit is certainly complicated, at times mind-boggling in its detail and contradiction, but at the same time refreshingly strident in its convictions. There is an intrinsic good and bad in the universe, or so we believe at first glance. But the deeper into this dark world we go — past the flash of a gun barrel and beyond the elegant gore of the enemy’s cloaked face — the more smoke is created in this massive conflagration. We’re never truly sure who the real enemy is, and how insidious their reach is within the very characters we come to root for. Is there really an Outer Church, or is that simply the backside of the Invisible College itself — two sides of the same coin — hurdling ever more decisively towards December 22, 2012, the morning after our supposed armageddon? This dilemma only gets more confounding as we read this narrative in a post-9/11 era, where terrorism, no matter what the cause, elicits a distinct knee-jerk reaction of antipathy. Where does the line fall between the fight for freedom and a spread of terror? Even the characters themselves rarely have the answer.

Broken down into potentially hundreds of cells, with relatively little communication amongst them, these Invisibles represent the height of Enlightenment individualism and opposition to societal abuses. Every cell consists of five members, exemplifying the core aspects of the metaphysical world — air, fire, water, earth and spirit. For most of the series, we follow a single British invisible cell, only getting peeks of and guest visits from other freedom fighters around the globe. At the center of the action is King Mob, a mystery novelist turned James Bond, and most commonly thought of as a direct representation of the author himself (He even takes on the nom de guerre of “Kirk Morrison” when interrogated ruthlessly by the enemy.). Mob is the spine upon which all three volumes and their characters attach themselves, and we’re treated to the inside of his head far more than almost any other figure. That said, there is an intense physicality to King Mob that drives much of the action, from his advanced martial arts training and bloody gun-fighting to his intense lovemaking with fellow Invisible Ragged Robin. Even his spirit form, sent back to the 1920s to unravel alchemical secrets, manages to copulate so furiously as to set a magical severed hand into five-dimensional motion. And as King Mob gets most out of control and unfocused, so too goes the team, spinning towards madness.

It’s difficult not to empathize with protagonists that want to free the world from endless submission, no matter what their means, particularly ones surrounded by such fascinating personal history. Lord Fanny, a Brazilian trans woman shaman, is truly a light throughout the series, exhibiting adept prowess at magic and psychic ability, not to mention a sharp tongue and even sharper sense of fashion. Lucille Butler, the conflicted operative known as Boy, was once part of the establishment herself, a New York City police officer whose brother disappeared after boarding a black train to one of the United States’ 23 secret concentration camps for dissidents. A troubled lad from Liverpool, Jack Frost is destined to be the new Buddha — the new age messiah who will ultimately usher mankind into its next state of being. His path towards enlightenment is both bloody and introspective, and he more than any other character represents doubt. Is any of this really happening, and if it is, what chance does humankind really have?

Ultimately, the ill-fated, time lost Ragged Robin is above all closest to my heart. Star of the deeply compelling second series, Robin is illustrated magnificently by that volume’s primary artist Phil Jimenez. While the work of many exemplary pencillers grace the pages of this enormous tome — including Jill Thompson, Chris Weston, and Steve Yowell — Jimenez’s crisp line and attention to detail serve Morrison’s story best of all, lending a sense of realism to an otherwise chaotic set of circumstances. His Robin, newly appointed leader and still a mystery to her comrades, is an exceptional beauty clad in a warrior’s garb of black leather and fishnet stockings, with sharply curved eyebrows just reaching around the edges of her Raggedy Ann-inspired face paint. It is through Robin that we come to understand much of Morrison’s grander plan, as time speeds up towards both the end of the world we know and the coronation of a new British king — an Archon who would bring about the utter devastation of the human spirit at the turn of the year 2000.

Truthfully, the sheer breadth of ideas Morrison spreads on this canvas is too overwhelming to take in on a single read — or a single analysis. Having read this story of relentless domination and heroic destruction more than a half dozen times, I’ve only begun to crack the seal on Morrison’s true genius. Morrison’s initial intention for The Invisibles was that it function as a hypersigil, a magical focal point for jumpstarting intellectual freedom in the years leading up to and beyond the millennium. Indeed, that magic permeates every page, reflecting Morrison’s own experience (legend tells of his own abduction by aliens, mirroring that which he wrote) and refracting it outwards towards the reader’s internal life as well. Beyond the mad conspiracy and shades of ultra-violence rests a story of genuine hope through perseverance and honor among compatriots. One needn’t believe every word of what Morrison writes to get to the core of the story — you only need to believe in the power of man, armed against overwhelming darkness, to experience a great appreciation for the battle he lays out before you on the page. And frankly, the conspiracy doesn’t need you to believe in it anyway. It’s going to get to you either way. Of that we can be certain.

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Want more about The Invisibles? Return to The Idler in just two weeks to count down the end of the world and explore what comes next. Join us as we examine Morrison’s understanding of Supercontext, BARBELiTH, and the last days of humanity as we know it.

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Matt Santori-Griffith owns one business suit, three pairs of shoes, and over 15,000 comic books. He is an art director for several non-profit organizations, senior editor for Comicosity.com, and still manages to find the time on dark nights and weekends to fight the good fight on Twitter.com in the guise of @FotoCub. He has not yet saved the world, but isn’t giving up quite yet.

Immediately after returning from his aborted escape, Darius became glued to us — to me — and followed my trail relentlessly from room to room, silent but determined to get out of this madhouse (regardless of how well cared for he was). An hour later, he was in our carrier and on his way home. I didn’t really make the choice, honestly. Darius chose for us.

Not everyone is an animal person, I admit. I’ve had many a houseguest over the years not particularly excited about the prospect of being singled out by Darius or another one of my cats. The rules are pretty much this: if you are wearing black, show little to no interest, and think keeping animals in the house just a little bit creepy, my cat will climb into your lap faster than if you opened a can of tuna over your head. This level of insistent devotion — pretty much a “whether you like it or not” proposition — from animals can be disconcerting to some, but I find it particularly endearing. They’re not exactly little persons, but the quality of personality we either project or recognize in our pets, as the case may be, resonates strongly with me.

It clearly does with one of the comic book industry’s superstars, Grant Morrison, as well. Morrison began his career in American comic books with the socially aware (while persistently wacky) Animal Man, wherein series star Buddy Baker frequently worked against those who would abuse, experiment on or otherwise mistreat the pals from whom he drew his considerable powers. The lead character in Morrison’s epic The Filth cares devotedly for his ailing cat Tony, and even viciously beats his para-personality replacement for letting Tony die on his watch. But it is in his collaboration with Frank Quitely, the brutally poetic We3, that Morrison’s true devotion to and understanding of our often silent furry friends take full shape.

Like Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, a reconstructed fiction about Jewish resistance to Nazis during World War II, We3 is a bit of a revenge fantasy for every animal ever done wrong by the inhumanity of man. Set in a military-industrial complex not unlike our own, this three-part limited series, published by DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint in 2004, follows the adventure of three military-grade weapons of mass destruction: a dog, a cat and a rabbit. Dubbed “Animal Weapon 3,” this branch of an experiment, blending domesticated beasts with a high-tech arsenal that would make the Terminator blush, is considered a grand success after the efficient elimination of an anti-American dictator. Despite positive outcomes, the call is made to decommission the three weapons. After a disturbing visit from Washington, it becomes all too obvious that the scientist caring for the animals treat them far better than she would an automatic rifle or war drone. Going so far as to teach each one basic English language skills, Dr. Berry finds herself soon to be out of a job and her furry friends in danger of being put down.

What follows is a madcap, but barbarically graphic, escape from the military facility for the animals now calling themselves We3, and each other by their numeric designation: 1, a canine retrofitted to resemble a small tank; 2, a cat designed to be a lethal stealth agent; and 3, the bunny trained to deliver mines and poison gas pellets into enemy territory. Language, as we soon discover, is only the tip of the iceberg to what separates man from beast, but it’s something Morrison uses effectively to center action precisely upon the animals, rather than on their human captors. It would be nearly impossible not to empathize with 3’s rapid obsessive chatter about fixing his broken tail, 1’s recurring concern about whether his actions make him a good or bad dog, or even 2’s animosity toward their former bosses with swears of “Stink!” at every challenge. By the end of their travels toward the elusive concept they refer to as “home,” Morrison has successfully defined each animal’s personality and motivation to such an individual degree — yet never forgetting that they are not, in fact, human. It would be easy to anthropomorphize, but the rawness to each weapon’s rationale is not simply survival instinct in action, but an honest reflection of how direct and unfettered by moral complexity the animals’ thought processes remain.

The illustration of time is another defining characteristic for We3’s treatment of the differences between animal and man. Indeed, as scientists postulate the passage of time to be perceived as much slower for small animals than for even larger non-humans, spatial adjustment must reflect temporal disparities on the page. When 2 moves to take down soldiers sent for him and his partners, the feline weapon is literally dancing between moments, ripping open aggressors faster than they can cognitively respond. Quitely executes spreads with movement in and out of panels turned in space to show how the action transcends recognition of its results for the human mind. Cause and effect are no longer purely consecutive endeavors.

Similarly, where an action has more ramifications than could possibly be noted from a single perspective, Quitely explodes out panels into dozens of intricately detailed components across the page. Each individual square layered on the primary image may represent a slightly different point of perspective in space, but also may follow through the next moment in time — leaving the reader with a sense that one hundred different points of damage are occurring simultaneously or, at least, faster than the camera can record. We’re left with the impression that animal senses exceed ours to such a great degree that new forms of representation have to be constructed just to translate information for human consumption. The artist is not distorting animalistic experience to fit into our comfortable worldview, but bending our perceptions to meet each beastly character on its own terms.

Ultimately, the only significant human perspective captured in the book is that of Dr. Berry, and even hers through a very distant lens. It would be easy to write her character off as shallowly constructed or one-note in her role as a post-millennial Doctor Doolittle, but subtle clues throughout the series point to her having a much more complicated back story. It is only because We3 is rendered through the eyes of the three animal protagonists that revelations about anything beyond her devotion to their care is completely irrelevant. Her role is simply to reinforce and illuminate their identities, not the other way around. From the revelation of 1’s true name to his realization regarding the nature of their existence after a damaging firefight, all compelling moments in this adventure belong to We3. The after effects for humanity are simply not fundamental to the tale.

By the time my little Darius passed away last year, at thirteen years of age from cancer, I had already read We3 more times than I can count. Not surprisingly, however, this book has never meant as much to me as it does today, after experiencing the loss of my first — and favorite — little pal. I often felt that I projected more personality onto my cat than was rational, particularly when I would share his exploits with the non-animal-lovers amid my friends and family. Now I’m not so certain.

Sure, Darius wasn’t a cybernetic killing machine, a fact that could have either lengthened or shortened (not entirely sure which) the three days I spent in tears after his departure. But he was a special little guy, and maybe even more special than I gave him credit for being. Like 1, he was deeply loyal to me, rarely wanting to separate himself from my side. Like 3, he would jump headlong into adventure without a second thought. And like 2, he wouldn’t take crap from anybody, even me. It’s probably for the best that all I had for him was a jaunty sweater and not a full-on war suit, but if We3 teaches us anything, it’s not to underestimate those for whom humanity is not a defining characteristic — for good or ill. Seeing the world through their eyes for even a little while may not be the worst thing in the world after all.

—

Matt Santori-Griffith owns one business suit, three pairs of shoes, and over 15,000 comic books. He works a day job as an art director for several non-profit organizations, but spends his dark nights and weekends fighting the good fight on Twitter.com in the guise of @FotoCub. He has not yet saved the world, but isn’t giving up quite yet.

For those hot summer days:

Other than Jill’s Kolongowski’s recommendation of Julia Child’s My Life in Paris (which is both an amazing book and actually about a lot more than just Child’s life in Paris), the most enjoyable food book you can add to your summer reading list is Bill Buford’s Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. Formerly Fiction Editor at The New Yorker, Buford leaves his magazine job to learn about cooking in Mario Batali’s restaurant Babbo shortly before the release of The Babbo Cookbook. It’s a time when the restaurant is both preparing for fresh critical scrutiny and tweaking the menu to move beyond the soon-to-be-published set of recipes. No one in the kitchen has the time or patience for a rank amateur in their midst, and Buford has to make the most of it — which he does with humor, humility, and aplomb. Heat is a welcome counterpoint for those of us put off a bit by the overwhelming bravado of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, and things just get better when Buford heads off to Italy to study with some of Batali’s mentors.

For those stormy summer nights:

There’s actually some really amazing stuff in even the biggest mainstream comic books right now. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s work on Batman is unbelievable (and in a different venue, I’d have written that word in all-caps AND bold AND italics), Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang’s work on Wonder Woman is everything the New 52 promised to do, a magnificent re-imagining of a classic (but too-often underutilized) character — the character designs alone are worth cover price — and Gail Simone’s Batgirl is a remarkable and psychologically gripping take on Barbara Gordon that manages to preserve most of what was wonderful about Simone’s time writing the character as Oracle. (This is high praise coming from me. I was really disappointed that DC was abandoning Stephanie Brown in order to bring back the Barbara Gordon Batgirl, although, in fairness, I might just be the only person in the world who feels that way.)

But, assuming that you might not be the sort of person who visits a comic shop every month, let me recommend Grant Morrison’s current run on Batman, Inc. as the culmination of a story he’s been telling since 2006. Morrison is a writer whose work actually often reads better when it’s been collected into a trade volume where the reader can pick up all the visual and story clues he weaves together from month to month (which can often seem a bit obscure when you’re only getting 20ish pages at a time, with 30 or more days between installments). Morrison’s saga starts with Batman and Son (with a jaw-dropping first issue where Batman fights ninja man-bats in a Roy-Lichtenstein-inspired pop art exhibition), and continues in The Black Glove (with art by the no-less-than-absolutely-brilliant J. H. Williams III), Batman R.I.P., Batman & Robin Vol. 1: Batman Reborn (where Dick Grayson steps into the cape and cowl), Vol. 2: Batman vs. Robin, Vol. 3: Batman & Robin Must Die, and finally, the pre-New 52 Batman, Incorporated. (Completists will include Final Crisis and The Return of Bruce Wayne, but you can get away without reading those two. Just know that Bruce Wayne dies, sort of, and then comes back.)

Like many “difficult” writers, the trick to reading Morrison is to just keep going. With Morrison in particular, you’ll get totally lost if you worry about making sense of everything. I think the big secret is that Morrison spends a lot less time worrying about whether he makes sense than building and keeping up a sort of narrative cadence and momentum. When you really get into him, you don’t so much read as excavate, digging up all the things that you didn’t realize were there at first, and finding yourself pulled into the most neglected and maligned corners of a character’s history, suddenly shown (well, skillfully retconned) to have been the most interesting and important thing all along.

But, having said that, you don’t need to know anything about Grant Morrison or even Batman to pick up Batman and Son. (Although, good luck putting it down once you’ve started.)

For getting away from it all:

Being the sort of person who tends to talk about narrative video games, I’m going to recommend a game rather than a book on games. (If you’re looking for a fun AND smart book on video games, there’s always Tom Bissell’s Extra Lives, which I’ve written about before, or you can do what I do and crib from The Brainy Gamer‘s bookshelf.)

If you haven’t played it yet, go download Thatgamecompany’s Journey right now. There’s a collector’s edition disc coming out at the end of August (which will also include Flower and Flow), but don’t wait. Hell, download it now AND buy the disc in August. Anything to encourage people to make more games like this.

For the foreseeable future, Journey will only be available for the Playstation 3, so my apologies if you don’t own one. For everyone else, we can count the new Mass Effect 3 endings as narrative, right? Just for the summer?

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Gavin Craig is co-editor of The Idler. You can follow him on Twitter at @craiggav.

Add to this little factoid the reality of being a comic book collector. One of the things I love most about comic books is that, barring some sort of natural disaster, they show up every Wednesday at your local shop. Every week there’s a new crop of books, and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have at least one waiting for me. Keeping up isn’t always a chore, but it certainly can become one. God forbid you fall a week behind, because that story you haven’t found the time to read yet is about to get spoiled the second you turn on your computer. Twitter becomes a minefield more stressful than jumping around Gotham City wearing a yellow cape, bright red tunic and little green booties.

So with all this energy I’m putting into reading my weekly comic books, email, research for work, internet browsing, and being sold a new cable provider for the 95th time in a day (in order of obvious importance), what about everything else I want to read? Well, it’s quickly become a stack on my dresser, sitting patiently next to my keys and any number of adorable trinkets that don’t have a permanent home. Most of these books are in some state of consumption, half read and then put down — not because they aren’t amazing, but because life unfortunately gets in the way.

Well, life is just going to have to take a backseat for the next few months, because I now vow publicly to upend this stack by the time the first orange leaf hits the sidewalk this fall. Want a summer full of awesomeness, too? Read along!

Alpha by Greg Rucka
Described by the author as “Die Hard in Disneyland,” Alpha is the first book in a new series for Rucka, who not only wrote Gotham Central and Batwoman’s run in Detective Comics, but also my favorite novel series of all-time starring Atticus Kodiak (Keeper, Finder, Smoker, etc.). Undercover Delta Force operator, Master Sergeant Jad Bell has been assigned to the Wilsonville amusement park as an undercover security officer. The action begins with the detection of a hidden dirty bomb and escalates from there. No one writes an action hero’s inner monologue better than Rucka, so this one tops my list.

Avengers West Coast and Alpha Flight Classic by John Byrne
Each of these books are over 20 years old at this point, but still have ramifications for Marvel Comics to this day. Both volumes of Avengers West Coast that Byrne wrote and drew (Vision Quest and Darker Than Scarlet) focus heavily on the Scarlet Witch and her synthezoid husband The Vision. In fact, the former’s path to madness begins in these stories and carries through to this summer’s blockbuster comic crossover. Likewise, the first two volumes of Alpha Flight Classic introduce the first and best Canadian super-team in their own series, with the ever-acerbic Northstar front and center. Northstar is currently set to marry his longtime boyfriend in this month’s Astonishing X-Men, so it’s nice to see where it all began for this preeminent gay super-hero.

Firearm by James Robinson and Cully Hamner
This one came out of the way-back machine after I listened to an interview with the owners of now-defunct Malibu Comics — a thriving comic book publisher in the early 1990s who spun off their own super-hero universe, the Ultraverse. The series centers on private investigator Alec Swan, who gets dragged into cases involving the strange and ultra-human, much to his chagrin. Lasting only 18 issues, Firearm was one of James Robinson’s earliest ongoing series and if Starman and the recently released Earth 2 are any indication, I’m going to love this one too.

Chicks Dig Comics
A collection of essays about comics by and for the women who love them, Chicks Dig Comics features a litany of writers that I have grown fond of year after year — Gail Simone, Amanda Conner, Jill Pantozzi, Jen Van Meter, Jill Thompson, and many more. Published this spring by Mad Norwegian Press, this is the book to read if you know (or are) someone who thinks comics are just for the boys. The commentaries are simultaneously thought provoking, entertaining, and certainly a source of aspiration for my own writing on comics.

The Quality Companion
Published by TwoMorrows, one of the comic industry’s most prestigious sources for historical analysis, The Quality Companion is a look at the now largely forgotten comic company that debuted Plastic Man and the Spirit, among other 1940s luminaries. Quality was later purchased by DC Comics and had its characters absorbed — in one form or another — into the main DC Universe where I would encounter them years later. Some of these characters are once again being reintroduced in a big way with sexy good girl Phantom Lady striking out in her own mini-series this summer, co-starring the diminutive Doll Man. Everything from bios on the original creators to synopses of the heroes’ books themselves are well documented here both for posterity and your enjoyment.

Finn and Charlie are Hitched by Tony Breed
A weekly webcomic by writer/artist Tony Breed, Finn and Charlie is a cute little slice of life for two men who are married and approaching middle age. Although I can read it anytime at hitchedcomic.com, I do like to double dip and pick up the collections. The first two, Can We Skip to the Part of the Conversation Where I Get My Way? (a phrase I have thought in my head many times while talking to my husband) and I Love You, You Big Weirdo (which I say some form of every night before bed) are now joined by How Would I Know If You’re Dreaming? The new book also features a delightfully naked Finn on its cover with a well-placed penguin to maintain the character’s modesty. Drat!

Supergods by Grant Morrison
Last on my list is a book that’s one part history, one part autobiography, and about three parts diary of a big comic book geek (who just happens to be a little off his rocker). Grant Morrison has written some of my favorite titles over the years and the chance to peek into his brain is too good to pass up. Subtitled What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human, Supergods is a wild ride through the legacy of super-hero comics that makes it crystal clear these characters are truly our modern myths. Agree or disagree with his observations about Superman, Batman or the like, but you know this is going to be a fascinating read one way or the other.

Now, how much vacation time do I have saved up?

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Matt Santori-Griffith owns one business suit, three pairs of shoes, and over 15,000 comic books. He works a day job as an art director for several non-profit organizations, but spends his dark nights and weekends fighting the good fight on Twitter.com in the guise of @FotoCub. He has not yet saved the world, but isn’t giving up quite yet.