Nameless # 2 & 3 (Image)

writer: Grant Morrison

artist: Chris Burnham

The thing that Chris Burnham brings out in Grant Morrison (which I will not demonstrate with an image) is the ability to cut loose.

The Morrison who exists in most of the material from JLA onward is completely safe for mainstream audiences, but the Morrison from a lot of his previous material (and the later The Filth) is kind of anything but.

For instance, the last page in the third issue of Nameless features a mutilated male corpse.  Notably, the nude corpse is missing one very significant piece of its anatomy.  And in a more general sense, Nameless also features Morrison's well-known interest in black magic, exhibited through grotesque imagery.

Burnham did this kind of work, to a lesser degree, in Morrison's Batman Incorporated, too, so there was every reason to expect stuff like this in Nameless.  I mean, why else bring this particular artist into another project, right?  Morrison has plenty of other well-known collaborators.  You bring along the one most suitable to the project.

Otherwise, Nameless, as the family-friendly image I've included suggests, is more or less like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Prometheus, Armageddon, a space adventure with a team of astronauts looking to solve what is essentially a simple problem: go in, get out.  Except there are always complications.  Above and beyond the problems the main character literally known as Nameless represents for working colleagues who understand all the occult matters as much as the typical reader will, this is very much a story that slowly unfolds its mysteries.

I get what Morrison is doing here.  But I'm probably not, all considered, the target audience.  Hey, as much as I enjoy reading Grant Morrison, these things can happen.