As a mark of consistency, Grant Morrison has no real equal
in terms of superhero reconstruction.
Since his Zenith stories, Morrison has made a career with a wide variety
of characters examining what superheroes are and how they got that way. He has gone boldly metaphysical several
times, and one of the more famous ones has been out of print for years, until
this year, when DC finally released a deluxe edition of FLEX MENTALLO: MAN OF
MUSCLE MYSTERY.
A Vertigo mini-series that spun out of Morrison’s work in
DOOM PATROL, FLEX MENTALLO was originally published in 1996, the same year
Morrison launched his visionary JLA.
Again and quite foolishly, I failed to understand at the time that I
would one day become a devoted fan of the writer, so I didn’t read it at the
time, though it quickly became legendary and I kept hearing references to it,
which grew increasingly frustrating because it was so hard to find afterward.
Like his work in ANIMAL MAN or even THE FILTH, Morrison is
in full metaphysical mode writing the four-issue MAN OF MUSCLE MYSTERY (and the
new collected edition keeps in-step, including an essay that suggests Flex has
been published since the Golden Age, when in fact he is a Morrison creation),
deconstructing every objection to comic books imaginable while building up the
need for superheroes. One of the
characters believes he’s overdosing on drugs throughout the story and tries to
justify his obsession with the medium during an extended phone conversation,
saying that it is the only thing worth talking about now. It’s worth noting that in the essay I
referenced, it’s suggested that the original (fictional) Flex Mentallo stories
were created under the influence (much as 1960s pop music was, notably by the
Beatles, among others), which makes Morrison’s story metatextual as well as
metaphysical and metafictional (I am not trying to give you an headache). Many people have argued that drugs are
ideally a gateway to a greater understanding of reality, and Morrison writes in
such a way (deliberately) to give his narrative the free-flowing feel that one
might associate with tripping, so that the narrative feels like the world as
seen through the lens of someone creating the story in the kind of mindset
necessary to make sense of it in the first place. (SEAGUY and JOE THE BARBARIAN are versions of
this Morrison impulse in a more innocent sense; THE INVISIBLES is a world where
the fringe are the mainstream.)
Maybe I’m succeeding in making sense of FLEX MENTALLO and
maybe I’m not. It’s worth reading for
all the reasons one might have assumed based on its reputation, in that it’s
essential reading. If you read only one
Grant Morrison vision of superheroes in our modern world, this must be it. Morrison seems to be the only writer capable
of countertextualizing everything one might expect from a superhero story, so
that he not only writes it brilliantly, but subversively and insightfully, so
that he isn’t shocking for the sake of shock but rather to bring all the
elements to the surface, using them as necessary.
In a way, FLEX MENTALLO is necessary to understand what
Morrison is achieving when he writes Batman, or truly flexes his own ambitions
in projects like SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY or FINAL NIGHT. Flex is not a parody of Superman and Charles
Atlas and Captain America, he’s what they could be if they were thrust into the
deep end of their own realities. And
since writing Flex, Morrison has gotten to play with those characters in their
own realities.
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