#grant Morrison

[earth-64]

DELTARUNE TOMORROW

In 1989 Trident Comics published a four-part comic titled St. Swithin’s Day.

St. Swithin’s Day follows an unnamed 19 year old who has decided to assassinate Margaret Thatcher. The comic follows him in the days leading up to the event. He steals, and later decides to throw away, a copy of Catcher in the Rye. He has a conversation with a woman in a cafe who only exists in his head. He sleeps in a maintenance train car. He dances to The La’s “There She Goes” in front of Karl Marx’s grave. He calls his mother, who begs him to come home and interview for a job at a grocery store. The morning of St Swithin’s Day he jumps in front of Margaret Thatcher, appearing as a madman reaching into his jacket pocket, "neurotic boy outsider" written proudly on his forehead. He pulls out nothing. He points his finger at her and simply says “bang” out loud and is promptly tackled by security. He rides home on the train, covered in bruises and less one tooth.

“It was worth it just to see her scared.”

St. Swithin’s Day was written by Grant Morrison, known for the incredibly metatextual first arc of Animal Man, as well as his run of Doom Patrol, The Invisibles, and All-Star Superman. He was part of the all-star lineup behind 52, the comic that got me into comics. It is illustrated by Paul Grist, an artist well-known for the series Kane. At least that’s what Wikipedia is telling me. I did not ever find the time to consume Grists’ other works, let alone study them as closely as I did Morrison’s, before deciding on my method of suicide.

[Recommended reading for this is on my new website, Earth-64. It is also available on Archive of Our Own.]

I tried to kill myself five times in a three year period. You’d say I’m being a bit loose saying I “tried” when I was never found unconscious on the pavement or bleeding out in the bath. Suicide is not a singular moment. It is weeks of spiraling. It is time spent feeling unreal. It is a decision made in a manner of thought existing below consciousness. It is a monster that festers inside of you, begging for the conditions to be met that would allow your conscious mind to accept it. A remaining sliver of your rational brain watches helplessly as you cut yourself off from your support network. You start consuming media that you know will make you sad. You want to get your brain to want to kill you. You want to feel like you want to die. You’re afraid you’ll get better, that you’ll miss your chance. You start writing a note in your head that you’re too afraid to put onto paper. Yet you may write it in a hurried panic late one night, because you need it with urgency. You’re afraid you won’t be able to write it later because you’ll be too far gone. You learn the songs that make you the saddest and assemble the playlist that will kill you. You plan the perfect day of melancholic vitriol that would make it possible and you set a date. I tried to kill myself five distinct times while in Seattle.

I’m hurtling towards the sixth attempt at forty miles per hour on the Sound Transit light rail as the soundtrack to my demise tocks Clark Powell’s “Ephemeral Muse” and ticks over to Will Wood’s “Against the Kitchen Floor”. Othello gives way to Columbia City and the Seattle skyline spells out a threat I know all too well it has the guts to follow through with. I’m thinking about how blind I must have been to think it said anything different to me as I was riding in just four years ago just as Mount Baker swallows the train whole. Will Wood’s apologies for his inability to become human echo through the maintenance tunnels of my brain.

We emerge from the tunnel out into Soho and Seattle is no longer a threat on the horizon but a looming beast. The light rail does not stop. We drive straight into the beast’s stomach as Ada Rook’s “Strangers” takes its turn stabbing me gently. This metal snake worms its way through the beast’s colon and I become aware of the other passengers for the first time as I start to bawl my eyes out. They do not react.

These underground stations are the familiar ones, the ones I would pass every day on my way to work. For the first year I lived in Seattle I took this train from Capitol Hill to the International District and back again. I remember every emotion I’ve ever experienced on this train. I remember how much hope and joy I had once felt. That was supposed to be the start of my Real Life. It wasn’t supposed to be an empty chapter of rot near the end of my book. I hate that I now feel so unwelcome here. I hate that being here now makes me want to die. I hate that I came here to die.

“Now arriving: Capitol Hill.”

I stand on the platform for a moment and take in the segmented planes I’ve passed under hundreds of times. On my first day here I took a selfie with them and made a joke about being with Eva-01. That’s just what happens when you show a daunting hunk of purple and green metal to someone who watched Evangelion for the first time just a few months prior. I wonder how many other people have made the same joke or even had the same fleeting thought for just a few seconds as they ride the escalator. Now I’m reminded more of the stealth bomber obscuring the moon at the end of Psycholonials, but that’s just what happens when you place a suicidal tranny underneath a daunting hunk of metal. It occurs to me for just a moment that I never once bothered to look up what this art piece is actually called or who made it. I don’t stop to do that now. I’m ascending up the escalator fast enough that the onism can’t keep up.

When I emerge I’m met with the heart-wrenching site of a clear blue sky. It’s a rare hot day in Seattle. I avoid a few nagging clipboard-wielders pedaling some kind of phone scam and make my way down Broadway. I should have exited the station from the other end. Old habit.

Each step I take into Cal Anderson feels like turning up the volume dial of a screaming static. The large round fountain is spilling water forth in an endless performance. The lawns are dotted with twenty-somethings smoking weed and throwing frisbees to their dogs. Only a couple kids are hanging from the monkeybars. I never saw many kids in this city. That horrid bright blue sky and roaring hot sun loom above it all. What is left of our natural world if you can’t count on rain in Seattle anymore?

My penchant for what the kids are calling “Aura and Hype” and I call “finding narrative fulfillment” and most would call “cringe” forces me to turn on Mike Oldfield’s “Nuclear” as I take a seat on a park bench.

Standing on the edge of the crater.

I try to imagine the cold ashes that must still lay embedded deep in the dirt. In my mind I see the lawns beaten down to workable soil. A sea of tents set up inside protective walls of chainlink and cardboard. And words, words everywhere. Cries for freedom and for change, mantras painted onto every surface. Endless crowds of people fighting loud and proud for a better world.

And I can’t see it.

I wasn’t there.

What a mess we made, when it all went wrong.

In June of 2020 I found myself back together with my long-distance right-wing ex-boyfriend after he simply refused to let me break up with him. I had quit my job in December 2019, he dropped the ball on moving me in, and I was stuck without a job when the pandemic hit. I tried to dump him as my politics took a miraculously wild turn left, then everything stagnated. The world came to a stop. My parents still wanted money for rent and there was a black void beyond our porch steps. They threatened to throw me out into it on more than one occasion that summer. Getting back together with my ex was the best option I had if I wanted to stay alive. But I did so with a stipulation: I told him that if a revolutionary movement started and led to a commune situation, anywhere on the planet, I would leave him immediately. I would drop everything and run to anywhere in the world to find freedom. Of course he didn’t think it would ever happen.

CHAZ was founded the following weekend.

I watched from afar as all the leftist history I had been reading for the past year played out in real time on my computer screen. I think to most people aware of it at the time it felt like a story of legend. Sparse images made their way online, stories passed around by pure written word promised a narrative that seemed magical, mythical. Even at that moment it was easy to dismiss it as a work of fiction. Five years removed and nothing here remains to prove it wasn’t.

I was uniquely positioned to know people who were there. I spoke to people who had their boots in this very soil. At the time it was a real thing I could see happening to people I cared about, and now I still see its echoes in their faces. The experience forever changed the ones that it didn’t kill.

I kept my promise to my ex-boyfriend, but I didn’t make it to Seattle until the following year. All that remained of CHAZ in 2021 was a community garden, which is now the green lawn of mowed grass I’m staring at while I sit here. That garden and the ghosts that haunt everyone I love.

CHAZ was a reprieve from culture. CHAZ was owning a gun and keeping a midnight watch. CHAZ was a fleeting glimpse into what really matters. CHAZ was all that has ever been real. CHAZ was the only chance we ever had to actually fight. CHAZ shattered the reality that internet drama or culture war means anything. The loss of CHAZ led to a lot of suicide.

4lung, in her song “Rat King World Champion - Quit While You're Ahead”, deals with the aftermath of there briefly existing a better world. Her lyrics–

“Oh my gosh I am so sorry! She gets so excited when we come here.”

“It’s fine,” I reply, taking off my headphones. The silence of the world hits me like a truck. I pet the dog. “What’s her name?”

“Maureen.”

“You have a very human name, Maureen.”

“She’s named after my sister,” says the woman as she takes a seat on the bench. We sit in silence for a few agonizing seconds before she breaks it. “You live here on the hill?”

“No, just visiting.”

“Family? Friends?”

“I’m going to commit suicide by cop. Elon Musk is in town to attend an esports event. I am going to point my fingers at him, shout bang, and be killed.”

I let the next few seconds of silence wash over me like a cool breeze. She responds, calmly, “Why?”

“What else is there left for me to do?”

“You could do it for real, if you’re sure you’re going to die anyway.”

I don’t think about it. I think about something else instead. I turn around and point to an apartment skyrise that wasn’t there a decade ago. I say, “I toured one of those apartments last year. I was so certain I was going to bring my girlfriend up here from California. It was a modest plan. We would both have jobs and we would barely scrape by living in a one-bedroom apartment. The real estate agent showed me around the room and I filmed it. I was so excited to show my girlfriend even that tiny place we could call our own. The agent took me around the building, showed me a gym I would never use, then up to the top floor. It’s beautiful up there: pool tables and grills and sun lounges and a killer view. I looked out and saw this whole park, all at once. A beautiful green lawn under a shining sun. The real estate agent smiled at me from behind her clipboard, talking about prices while I took in the breathtaking view of the world’s most beautiful graveyard. They burned our future and stuck an exorbitant price tag on its corpse.”

“Did you find a place to be with your girlfriend?”

“I did. It wasn’t here and it didn’t last long.”

She points at me. No, she’s pointing at one of my buttons. “It comes out in a couple days, you know? Don’t you want to be alive to see what happens next? And someday to see how it ends?”

At first I’m caught off guard. Then I remember how mainstream Deltarune is. I have to remind myself of that often. It still feels like a niche within a niche within a niche. A comic begets a game that begets a game. The further down the rabbit hole you go the closer you get to the surface. Obscurity is eroded by entropy. I respond truthfully, “It’s become hard to care.”

She looks almost… angry? “Given the option of a world-changing martyrdom or a continued search for meaning you choose… a pointless suicide? You’re gonna march up to the oppressor and ask to be excused? You’re gonna let a cop watch you bleed out in the street? Millions of people will know about you, and you’re wrong if you think you’ll be inciting anything in them. They’re all scared and you’re gonna make it worse.”

“Don’t ever volunteer for a suicide hotline ma’am, you’re awful at it.”

“Who do you blame?”

“I guess, ultimately, it's all my own fault.”

“So what now then? What the fuck now?”

“Now this is the part where we zoom out to reveal I haven’t been talking to anyone. You’re just a figment of my imagination. I made you up to have a different excuse to exposit than the last three monologues.”

I take a deep breath and zoom out again. West this time. The Front Bottom’s “Twin Sized Mattress”.

I came here a lot, on my worst days in Seattle. A maze-like bookstore with a bunch of live-in cats. When I’d hit a point where I could not stand to sit alone in my apartment for another moment, but could not dare to reach out to any of the friends I suspected of hating me, I’d come here and pet a cat. I was sure none of these cats held any grudges towards me, sure that none of them would recoil from my pet and complain “Um, actually I’ve hated you for years! I kept hoping you wouldn’t come back!” before issuing a restraining order.

I used to play a game here. I’d try to see if I could find a book containing someone I knew or someone that meant something to me. Well that version of the rules sounds a little easy because “liking an author” is enough for them to mean something to you, and plenty of people like plenty of common authors. The version of the ruleset that exists in my head is closer to “find a book containing knowledge that pertains to The Plot.” The Plot meaning… the things important to my own personal narrative. It’s much too late for me to be unpacking what that means. It’s not like it meant anything in the end, anyway, it would seem.

I take a seat amongst the science fiction books, the corner where the cats like to sleep in the sun. One that reminds me of a childhood pet is curled up in the windowsill. I run my fingers through its fur.

I’ve fallen, my knees screaming into the hot California cement. Sweat streams down my face and I can’t catch my breath. I can’t breathe at all. I’m dying. I just had to shovel some fucking rocks and it’s killing me. I’ve been given everything I’ve ever wanted and I can’t give back even this. I lost my temper and I screamed and I cursed and I made a fool of myself again. She’s going to be afraid of me like everyone else is. Everyone is afraid of me eventually. Because I’m rash and I’m angry and I’m violent. I couldn’t be reasonable. I had to lose myself and push myself until I was raw and bloody. I’m bleeding everywhere. I’m dying. No, I’m already dead. I’ve been dead. I killed myself in Seattle. I never made it out. I jumped off my roof and landed in Heaven and everything is so beautiful now that I don’t deserve it. I’m crying and screaming and bleeding in Heaven. I look up and see an angel so beautiful that I can’t belong here.

The cat yawns and stretches and walks away. I sit there a moment among the shitty Star Wars novelizations, listening to my suicide-playlist. “The Leaving”, Marcus Carline. I take my own, refusing to play the game. The old woman who runs the place is arguing with someone trying to resell books they just bought at the thrift store two blocks over. Outside the sun continues its onslaught.

I’m wandering at this point, stumbling through familiar streets. I try to focus on the music but I’m breathing too loud, thinking too fast. The steps don’t come naturally, I have to think about each and every one. I’m processing a thousand smells and sounds and a million sights. I can’t will myself to zoom out this time.

I tear off the headphones and collapse at the base of a tree. I close my eyes and imagine the feather. I count the numbers on London’s tattoo. I remember seeing a bunny. I saw it a few times, right here, on this street, when I would walk home late at night. I know where I am. I open my eyes.

That’s the roof I didn’t jump off.

I know just across the alley are the dumpsters I always liked the graffiti on. Rawrdcore’s fursona and a Sparkledog Clownpuppy. I always thought I was meant to meet the artists. I always meant to reach out to the artists. Just beyond that is a little sub-alley I could see from my old apartment’s balcony. I’d go out on it to smoke weed. The view from there was the wrong way, so I couldn’t see the city, just the alleyway where the homeless slept. I’d probably have died a lot sooner if that balcony was a bit higher. The five minute walk from my floor to the roof was enough of a mental gap to hold back the times the thoughts were just intrusive.

The sun starts to set and I take my place in the alley.

I’m lying on some concrete steps, looking up and imagining where the stars must be hiding behind the pollution, hoping the rabbit I know lives on this block hops by and reminds me how even such a pathetic creature can survive here longer than me.

I wonder what everyone I’ve ever known must be thinking. I wonder how many of them notice my absence. It’s just been a couple days without posting, surely none of them have noticed. I think of my girlfriend I left in California. She knows where I went but not what I’m doing. She thinks I’m rooming with a friend for a bit, just to get some space. She’s absolutely worried now that I’m not responding to all the texts. I consider calling her and telling her everything. I don’t.

It’s cold. It’s so fucking cold. I put too much brain power into thinking of the most boring thing to listen to while falling asleep, just for the sake of the reference. All for the sake of the reference. All I know is references. I give up searching for Glenda Jackson interviews and turn back on my suicide-playlist. I fall asleep listening to Will Toledo seeking reprieve from depression through dissociation.

Haven’t you?

Something between a dream and a feverish thought-spiral fills the entire sweltering night. Skeletons and ghosts dance amongst playing cards and chess pieces. The world unfolds like a dead origami unicorn and everything before me is a flat piece of darkness. I see a figure with its back to me. At the shadow’s edge the twilight reverie is shattered. A column of intense light, a blinding beautiful blue streaking into the ether. I can almost make out their face. I can almost hear the music. I can almost… I can’t. I can’t see anything.

I can’t see fucking anything. I’m laying on the cold pavement at three in the morning pretending that I care about anything. I’ve felt the same way every time I’ve ever gotten high: a small part of me is always perfectly conscious. I’m faking it. I’m faking everything. I could be fine if I wanted to and it’s all in my head. I squeeze my eyes shut and beg to dream more.

What if I never see more? What if I die not knowing–

God, what if she’s right? What if this insignificant anchor to reality will keep me bound here? What if I chicken out because, no matter how much I believe in what I’m doing, in the end I care too much about seeking more knowledge? I’m just gonna keep floating through life, a ghost tethered by unfinished business.

A friend leaves a suicide note lamenting that he won’t see the end of Homestuck and I know now a decade later that Shahrazad never stops spinning her tales.

My brain writes a dozen shitty dream sequences that my conscious mind rejects for being cliche.

I finally drag myself out of the alley after the sun is already rising into another clear blue sky.

Today is the day. I don’t mentally dwell on it.

I have another stop to make first. One more plot beat to hit. I pay for a bus fare with the ORCA card given to me by the ego-destructing manufacturing job I had a couple years ago. They made me pay for the card initially but then never asked for it back. Its magically gotten renewed both years since and I’m not complaining. We pass over Lake Union, heading north, towards Fremont. “The Mind Electric” on repeat.

That manufacturing job was actually split into two periods of temporary positions. In between the temp agency had me do a couple other odds and ends. Security check for a concert at the zoo was a fine one. The card shop inventory was not. I was so excited to be working with something I loved, Magic the Gathering, but it turned out to be the worst job experience of my life. A dozen people down in a basement, opening hundreds of packs of cards and sorting them by value. A frenzied repetition of destruction: peel the cellophane, crack open the box, surgically strip each card-pack of its glossy exterior. Endless trash bags of discarded skin and husks. Hundreds of Gandalfs and Frodos thrown into sorting bins. Mr. Salt wanted a golden ticket for his daughter. I ran screaming. I took the first bus home while they kept on ripping and tearing down there. I cried on the bus, quitting yet another job, when I looked out and saw Vladimir Lenin staring back and I knew everything was going to be okay.

That’s where I am right now.

He promised me so goddamn much. The pandemic hit and I sought any hope left in the world and I found it in books and in movements and in camaraderie. I slept through two decades of my life not caring about anything and suddenly I cared about everything. My enemies became my friends and I finally understood why anything on Earth was worth fighting for. My old friends became my new enemies and I could not comprehend why I could suddenly see what they still can not. My parents threatened to throw me out into the void of the pandemic and my once rival called me and told me everything was going to be okay. I sat on the curb feeling like I was about to die, crying into my phone, and she told me things would be okay. My whole damn world was flipped on its head.

Those were the best couple years of my life. I felt part of something. I felt like I had finally found out what it was all for. Every piece of media I had consumed and every day spent meticulously cultivating a social life and every night lost to lamenting how little I had done with my life all led here. The internet discourse and the social failures and the cloud-hosted scriptures all came together to form the singular Plot that kickstarted my Real Life.

We were going to save the world.

So what the hell happened? It all stopped as suddenly as it started. Every hope was dashed and every friendship burned and I found myself back where I had started. Am I here to follow through on my karmic destiny? Or am I just sick to fucking death of arguing with teenagers online? Am I just a sickly pessimistic person who can’t hold herself together enough to play her part in keeping the spirit of revolution alive? I should be teaching people as I was taught, forming the next generation, trying again. And here I am on a deeply selfish adventure trying to satiate the self-fulfilling prophecy the way one orders McDonald’s on UberEats. A quick, messy, expensive, destructive, self-indulgence.

I’m trying to dance. You should see me dancing. The Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again” is blasting on repeat through my headphones and I’m catching glimpses of Lenin’s hard stare towards the horizon with each pirouette. I want to dance and not have a care in the world. I’m going to die. I’m going to die today! I’m going to die today!

My footwork is sloppy. I took two years of dance classes to get out of Gym and now I’m just a crazy person stumbling in the middle of the street. I turn up the music louder. She’s down on her knees, my friend. Tears are streaming down my face, my friend. I’m dancing. I’m dancing and I don’t care that I’m about to die.

Why can’t you see it?

I’M GOING TO DIE.

I’M GOING TO DIE TODAY!

I’M GOING TO DIE AND I DON’T CARE!

I DON’T CARE!

I’M GOING TO DIE TODAY!

LOOK AT ME.

SOMEONE LOOK AT ME.

GOD PLEASE SOMEONE SEE ME.

I’m in the bathroom of a nearby pizza place. I’m shaving my face one last time. The final performance of a daily show that ran for 15 years. I’d have done it twice a day if I ever actually cared for the opinions of the spectators.

How many people will get hurt because of me? Am I just going to spur on the campaign of hate? Is every public appearance we make one that spurs on the campaign of hate against us? Should we hide? Should we pretend to not exist so that we may do so in secret? Do we beg for acceptance? Is rainbow capitalism today worth the inevitable genocide tomorrow? They will never accept us into the world as it exists. We have to make something new. We have to.

Back on the bus, heading south. I turn on something that isn’t on the playlist, something buried in my Youtube likes. “04 min 20 with Large Prime Numbers”. I don’t know the title, I don’t know the words. It’s just loud and emotional noise.

I wish I liked trains.

The light rail emerges from the tunnel and I breathe a sigh of a kind of relief the likes of which I have never felt before. As I watch Seattle fade once more into naught but a distant threat I suddenly remember that I had forgotten to tell you about how much I wish I liked trains. I just think it would be a neat autism to have. I could spend my days reading about the different models and makes, tracing routes on maps and researching the histories of stations and supply lines. I’d play railroad tycoons and watch those old VHS tapes they’d air the infomercials for. There wouldn’t be broken friendships, touchy subjects, callout posts, and endless balancing acts. I wouldn’t be traumatized by the punishments for being oblivious to feigned familiarity nor lost in the labyrinthine social web I spun myself into. I’d just like trains.

“I guess, ultimately, it's all my own fault,” as I catch my mind rewinding back to when I was 16, looking for a way to make some friends. All the things I got into, all the communities I joined, all the discourse I sought just because even that fucked up hate was one of the kinds of love we shared.

“I guess, ultimately, it’s all my own fault,” as it wanders back to when I was 23 and seeking any guidance at all. I had no plans for sleeping anywhere but the twin-sized mattress on my parent’s living room floor. I was beating my head against the wall, begging myself to make art good enough to absolve me of the sins of my fandom years.

“I guess, ultimately, it’s all my own fault,” and I’m saying goodbye to my dad at the airport, about to embark on the only real adventure I’ve ever been on. A lifetime of theme parks and movies did not prepare me for anything I faced when I chased a brighter future. He’s telling me to start living, to meet people, to have sex, to try drugs from the safety of my home. I think of his words as I’m standing in that accursed graveyard of a city for the first time, still blind, still naive.

“I guess, ultimately, it’s all my own fault,” and I’m listening to the Psycholonials soundtrack as the plane touches down in California and I’m given one more chance.

“I guess, ultimately…” I’m back on the light rail after my sixth botched suicide and I know I can’t blame myself anymore.

The bus stopped in front of the Climate Pledge Arena and I couldn’t get off. This was my stop. I knew this could be my stop. Musk would be there in 20 minutes and I could exit. And I didn’t. I just kept riding.

I let Youtube autoplay a song I had never heard before. My brain refused to decode the soundwaves and it all streamed through my brain like white noise.

I called my girlfriend. Told her I wanted to come home. She bought me a ticket on the earliest flight.

I couldn’t change the world. I wouldn’t have changed the world. Very few can. They’ve made it so hard for any of us to matter. It’s not a personal failing, I’m just another victim of oppression operating on a scale I cannot fathom. I should read more theory. I should make more friends. Right now I just need to stay alive. At least one more day. Even just one more day.

[batboopp]

gotta love batman writers. they’ll always swear up and down that batman is perfect and is completely sane and then proceed to make the artists draw scenes where he’s ranting to the empty batsuit while rocking back and forth on the floor of the batcave

[kara-zor-els]

Clark Kent in Superman and the Authority (2021)

[vampyfrnk]

Gerard Way during That One Panel™ with Grant Morrison

[fantastic-nonsense]

Dare I ask: what is Morrison's opinion on Babs and Kory?

feast your eyes on an answer that is both sexist and insanely OOC for every character involved!

I've never been able to decide which part of this answer is the funniest (worst):

the concept that Dick is "happy-go-lucky" (much less to the point where "dealing with" a woman with baggage is a problem) and doesn't come with a metric shit ton of issues himself

Reducing Dick's relationships with either woman to how much "baggage" he has to deal with, as if that's a valid yardstick to judge how healthy, sustainable, or likable either of those relationships are

Kory being objectified and reduced to a "sexy model" and yet is simultaneously someone who has "way too many issues" to be a good romantic partner. This is an especially egregious comment considering she was a better partner to Dick than Dick was to her at multiple points during their relationship because of his issues.

the very idea that Barbara Gordon doesn't have trauma, baggage, and personal neuroses that rival Bruce Wayne himself (or that said trauma would be something that deters Dick from a relationship). Grant Morrison has never picked up a post-1980s Barbara comic in their life and it shows

anyway, once more with feeling: truly every time I stop feeling disgust and disdain towards Grant Morrison and start thinking ‘oh maybe I can forgive them for their many writing crimes someday’ some bullshit comes up to remind me of how much they SUCK

[mikyapixie]

𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐍/𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐏𝐎𝐎𝐋 𝟐 𝐨𝐧𝐞-𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝; 𝐃𝐂 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐃𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐚 & 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐙𝐞𝐛 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐬 & 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐠 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐨!!!

The story, kicking off this Sep. 17, tells how Wade Wilson is hired for a job in Gotham City that puts him in the crosshairs of the World's Greatest Detective. Accompanying the main one-shot will be a lineup of "backup adventures" that features "exciting Marvel and DC character match-ups," according to an official description. However, details on what that entails, including the creative teams, will be shared at a later date.

[pierppasolini]

All-Star Superman #11

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Magic

HP Lovecraft: everyone, this is harry Houdini the famous magician Harry Houdini: hey Stephen King: you know harry Houdini? Lovecraft: oh yeah we've been looking for a project to work on together for a while King: Lovecraft: we already established he's not really italian

King: so you must really believe in magic, huh? Houdini: nope! King: nope? Houdini: it's all flim-flammery! King: flim flimmery?! Houdini: and tomfoolery! King: well i knew it was flim flammery King: but to think it's tomfoolery too--!

Alan Moore [appears in a clap of thunder]: what fool dares to doubt the existence of magic? King: the arch magus! Lovecraft: the arch magus! Poe: the arch magus! Barker: the arch magus! Koontz: the arch magus!

Houdini: i am that fool Houdini: fie on your so-called magic! Houdini: why, it's nothing but a lot of humbug and ballyhoo! Houdini: i believe, my good sir, in facts and logic Houdini: by my calculations, magic is a flapdoodle of a fraud!

Moore: MAGIC NOT REAL?! Moore: A FLADOODLE! Moore: A FRAUUUUUD!?!?!?!??!!? King: uh, harry King: you might want to speak a little more uh King: respectfully King: to the arch magus Houdini: balderdash! hogtits! Moore: HARRY HOUDINI Moore: DO NOT TAKE ME FOR SOME CONJURER OF CHEAP TRICKS

Moore: [sky darkens, thunder sounds] now observe the awesome powers of the magus… unleashed! Moore: ok check it so please note that these 3 rings are NOT connected

Houdini: bring your best magicians! i'll defeat them all with the power of facts and logic! Aleister Crowley: i got this bro Crowley: I'M THE GREAT BEAST!!! Crowley: DO WHAT THOU WIIILT!!

Crowley: ok first you need a giant hat shaped like a pyramid Houdini: really? this is the best you got Crowley: wait wait i'm not done Crowley: then you need to draw a big ol' eye on it Houdini: NEXT

Grant Morrison: see, magic is about collecting all 8 chaos emeralds- Houdini: NEXT Charles Williams: it's about following the dictates of god's holy Anglican church- Houdini: NEXT Eve Harms: wait wait wait check this out Harms: just wait til you see what i can do to these base metals Houdini: NEXT

Houdini: i look around and all i see Houdini: are charlatans and frauds Houdini: OH YEAH Houdini: is there no one here with the strength to defeat me in the arena of knowledge? Arthur Conan Doyle: NOT SO FAST!

Charles Dickens: prepare for trouble! Doyle: make it double! Dickens: we are Doyle & Dickens: [standing arms folded, back to back] GHOST CLUB Doyle: blasting off at the speed of light! Dickens: surrender now or prepare to fight! Robert Aikman: Meowth! That's right!

Dickens: we're a team of paranormal experts dedicated to investigating the uninvestigatible Dickens: determining the indeterminable Dickens: and canning the uncanny Doyle: and also fairies Dickens: no no no Doyle: yes we look for fairies too Dickens: no Arthur we talked about this, we're not doing fairies

Doyle: ok harry i know you think magic is all "fake" and "lies" Doyle: but if that's the case explain The Lost World (1925) Houdini: what the Houdini: are those REAL dinosaurs?!?! Doyle: mmmmaybe

[sweet-triple-t]

i am NAWT finishinf this so im just gonna post it now

meow i hate it but whatever

[rei-ismyname]

Cyclops, Masculinity, and the Hellfire Club

After Jean walks in on Emma's 'therapy session' with Scott, the two women have a long discussion in which he is not welcome. Scott deals with his feelings by getting drunk by himself at the Hellfire Club. People just will not leave him alone though, starting with this unnamed psychic dancer. She's presumably doing her job under the assumption that this is what men are here for. It's a normative and reasonable assumption, but Scott is pointedly uninterested in participating in this marker of masculinity.

The dancer's words remind us of Emma - telepathy, seduction, and a call to let loose - though there's markers of Jean there too, the wife he hasn't been able to communicate with. He rejects the whole thing as 'sexless and unarousing' instead of a 'no thanks, I'm not in the mood' or similar. Instead of rejecting Emma by proxy, my read is that he's rejecting the physicality of it, compared to the mind sex that's been going on. Also, Scott does a lot of 'calling the shots' - too much even. Exercising sexual, gendered power doesn't appeal to him.

This is nothing Scott hasn't been told before. I'm reminded of the butte sex incident specifically, where Phoenix urged him to 'get out of [his] head' so they could have sex. The dynamic and the power differential made the traditional gender roles hazy.

I think Scott agrees with the dancer here in some ways. He's been viewed as uptight his whole life and there's so many instances where Scott isn't the instigator of sex and intimacy. Here in the Hellfire Club with their regency cosplay the gender roles are super patriarchal. Scott rejects or tries to escape the expectations of traditional gender roles and the art reflects that - shifting from the male gaze to Scott's famous gaze. Interestingly we never see the dancer's face so we don't know who she's presenting as. It's Jean who has the significant association with black lingerie and red hair but it's Emma who's associated with BDSM.

Scott gives an awkward apology and explanation, doing his best to strip the illusions away. I can't help but feel like he's trying to convince himself that his complicated feelings for Emma aren't real but he's not doing a very good job. Why did he even come to the Hellfire Club? There's plenty of places to get drunk without running into people he knows or people that know him. He's wearing his X-Men jacket and his unique visor, not exactly incognito.

He completely avoids eye contact with the dancer and everything is tinted red, suggesting we're seeing everything through his POV. His gaze has a long association with angst and self doubt - I have to wonder how well he 'sees' the person he's making assumptions about. He's not exactly denying her personhood, but he's not especially interested in it either. It's ironic that he'd go to the one club that has a intimacy-free version of both his significant relationships with women at this point. One thing's for sure, he's not interested in performing masculinity, but he's in a space where he can't escape the expectation.

The faceless, nameless dancer eventually leaves. Scott's brief solitude is interrupted by a particular kind of toxic masculinity turned up to 11 - Sabertooth. He approaches from a dominant position in the ancient greek sense, from behind - while pointedly calling Scott 'boy.' He ignores this, and Sabertooth gets in really close to smell his drink, describing it as 'gay.' Deeply childish, but explicitly challenging Scott's masculinity. Creed accuses Scott of 'having issues' in a pretty egregious pot/kettle situation.

Scott responds, but simply by telling him to get out of his face. 'Seriously.' Creed switches to that other marker of masculinity - violence, or at least threats of it. Scott ignores that too, rejecting chest beating and puerile verbal sparring. Sebastian Shaw intervenes and orders Creed to leave Scott alone. Shaw has his own thoughts on exercising patriarchal power, but leaves when Scott isn't interested.

Scott is about to leave because 'his pride can't take it anymore.' He doesn't elaborate on this because he's accosted by probably the most prominent uber masculine person in his life - Logan. Logan accuses Scott of 'making the X-Men look like losers' and it's hard to read this as anything but a gendered challenge. He expands on Creed's judgment of Scott's choice of beverage by implying it's not 'real' (ly masculine) - slamming a bottle of Jack Daniels on the table. Scott's not interested in that either.

Logan doesn't really give Scott a choice, framing it in the context of a challenge. Denying that he's here to convince him to return to the X-Men, he tells Scott that Emma was murdered after he left. Leaving him to chew on that, Logan lays out the stakes of the challenge and departs for the urinal - that most bioessentialist of masculine spaces.

Making the subtext text, Creed follows him in for some insecure dick measuring. Rejecting any kind of serious discussion with an uncharacteristically cerebral Sabertooth, Logan issues violent threats and returns to Scott. It's got massive ex vibes in the best Creed/Logan homoerotic manchild way.

Scott finally opens up, discussing his relationship woes with Logan of all people. He shares how each of them makes him feel, explicitly tying the tension to the boy/man dichotomy. The 'pressure' and 'expectations' feel significant, something he should really talk to Jean about. Unfortunately he's got Logan instead, who's not especially interested in listening at all. He chimes in about Jean, of course, but he's here for tough love.

Scott ponders how anyone could think he'd shoot Emma. Above all he's not going back to the mansion and he's not drunk (or so he claims.) Logan, asshole that he is, suggests Scott should be grateful for what he has. 'You always get the best girls' which has got to be the worst possible thing to say (and super gross). Sure, he's having relationship troubles, but he's trying to figure out his emotions and his trauma. Logan frames this as 'all you do is whine' which is both not true and very rich coming from him.

I've never identified with Scott more than when he says 'I hate you.' Logan manages to make it all about himself, explicitly stating his jealousy. 'All I ever wanted was what you got' accusing him of throwing 'it all away to run wild with the White Queen.' He's right that Jean would like it if he came out of his shell, to a degree, but their problem is one of trauma and communication. Logan's possessive, reductive, and frankly ignorant diagnosis misses the forest for the trees. Scott's problems aren't his problems yet he gets the kind of advice one might expect from this hypermasculine space.

Further minimising Scott's issues, Logan shifts the conversation focus entirely to him. He outright says that Scott's problems are nothing compared to his and guilts him into helping assault The World to uncover Logan's past. He probably would have said yes if he just asked as a friend, but instead he kidnaps him when he passes out. Logan says he's 'trying hard' but doesn't finish the sentence before urging him to put aside his problems.

So instead of talking with his wife or getting to brood alone, Scott ends up hungover on a black ops mission. He got to verbalise some things he'd been keeping bottled up, but in a sense he was assaulted by masculinity and toxic expectations at every turn. Dude needs better friends. The narrative doesn't portray this as a positive thing - in fact it's pretty messed up. I wonder if he regrets going to the Hellfire Club.

Despite the superhero context, Grant Morrison does a swell job of portraying an AMAB person withdrawing from masculine-coded spaces and expectations, at least in my experience. Especially when you're friends with people like Logan, whose only mode is toxic hypermasculinity. I think if he was framed as being unequivocally right it'd be overpowering. Morrison's issues with writing women are on display, but overall this issue is powerful, especially for the time.

[maxwell-grant]

Whats your favorite dc city besides Gotham and Metropolis? Mine is Opal City. Also, your line about Gotham being possibly the greatest fictional city lead me to look at what other ppl said, Springfield probably stuck out as as the best contender.

Absolutely Springfield, yeah, I'd say Gotham is contending with the likes of it, Ankh-Morpork, Twin Peaks, Mega-City One, Neo-Tokyo and Duckburg for the title.

Sticking to the cities (no bigger fantasy realms/terrains like Atlantis or Themyscira), I'd say my favorite DCU city after Gotham and Metropolis is very specifically the version of New York that Grant Morrison depicted in Seven Soldiers of Victory. The vast majority of the fake DCU cities are deeply generic and indistinguishable from each other, but this take on New York, filled with real-life failed architectural dreams and impossible constructs, of in-house superheroes and newskid legions, of subway pirates racing each other to find god machines, immortal crime lords and time-displaced knights and Kirby freaks, home to the grittiest failed endpoints as well as unfathomable splashes of color and magic, struck me as a genuinely incredible setting for this world that just about no one ever cared to revisit again.

Did you know the top crimelord of DCU New York here is a dog named Millions? He had inherited millions of dollars from his old master's criminal empire and that money funded the Newskid Legion, and he ran a gang after his adventures with them. He died and was revived and was personally appointed by the Undying Don himself to inherit his empire. Given the history of organized crime in the United States, it's possible and even likely that Millions, The Dog-Father of New York, outranked Carmine Falcone and Bruno Mannheim and every other gangster based around the Five Families. He's not even a talking dog.

I definitely understand and even appreciate the value of the DCU having fake cities to act as a setting, but man, I wish most of them were even a little halfway as distinct or interesting as Morrison's New York. So if we're sticking to the fake cities exclusively? I do really like what little Al Ewing has done with Jump City so far, as the setting of his incredible new book, Metamorpho: The Element Man. He's moved Metamorpho and Stagg Industries to Jump City, the place where the cartoon Teen Titans live (thus putting Bob Haney's creations together in one place), and has established it as "the grooviest town on Earth", a retro-futuristic place of glowing skylines and nightclubs and robot superstars and rampaging robot skyscrapers where everyone talks and dresses and bickers like a 60s Marvel character, keeping in line with how the main characters talk - but not how everyone in the DCU talks, because Vandal Savage shows up here and he basically talks normally.

I extremely wish this would be the default take on Jump City going forward - granted, Al Ewing is extremely good at writing Marvel pastiche and writing 60s Marvel Speak AND Kirby Speak and demonstrating the differences between the two, he might be the only person who can actually make this work, but still, I'm all in favor of this sticking around, I think it demonstrates the point of having distinct fictional cities to play with in the first place, how much work is demanded to really make these places and their history pop, and how much fun you can have with them in turn.

[thefailurecult]

[pridequest64]

Grant Morrison’s orginal idea for Klarion from Seven soldiers of Victory Vol. 1

“Much more modern gothed-out in a way - even though he’s supposed to be sixteen I think the characters wickedness is more effective if he’s still kinda small for his age- very young looking but a look of an “old”soul in his eyes-

Very pale virtually vampire pale skin (no color) with dark bluish grey circles around eyes - the look to his expression should

Always ...

Be like there is something devilishly sarcastic and darkly playful going on just underneath the surface of his quiet still face- as if he always knows the punchline to every sick joke you might know. The wheels are always turning. Without looking cartoonish or comical.”

[tawked]

Doom Patrol, Crawling from the Wreckage.

[residentwordsofaffirmationdealer]

batman writers on how he has no sex life:

"[Bruce Wayne's] not gay because he has no sex life" - Grant Morrison

"[Bruce Wayne] is celibate. Any kind of sexual involvement would take thought and energy away from his mission" - Dennis O'Neil

[pierppasolini]

All-Star Superman #10