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Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero [Kindle Edition]

Grant Morrison (Author)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

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Length: 468 pages (Contains Real Page Numbers)
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Product Description

Review

Supergods is a rather astonishing piece of work that leaves you feeling pretty much as those first readers of Superman in 1938 must have felt: slightly more aware of our place in the universe and cautiously optimistic about the future (Independent on Sunday )

Magnificently idiosyncratic new history of the genre... Supergods is packed with intriguing nuggets of insight, and it will be fascinating to see how the trends it discerns play out... What was it they said about the geeks inheriting the earth? (Daily Telegraph )

Supergods is perhaps the most satisfactory potted history of the American comic book industry I've ever read (and I've read just about all its competitors) while also offering a brilliantly incisive, if very personal, appreciation and analysis of the most important comic books or graphic novels - call 'em what you will - to be published in the past 30 years (Guardian )

Part manifesto, part memoir, part idiosyncratic spiritual/philosophical tract... Morrison knows the genre and loves it deeply, and both that knowledge and that love shine through... an often funny and sometimes very moving account of Morrison's life as seen through the lens of his relationship with superheroes, which began in childhood (Katherine Farmar Irish Times )

The author shows a deft turn of phrase while appraising his fellow creators...Supergods proves an entertaining introduction to newcomers (Metro )

Book Description

The mind-bending history of superheroes by comics legend Grant Morrison.

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Product details

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 1658 KB
Print Length: 468 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 022408996X
Publisher: Vintage Digital (7 July 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.� r.l.
Language: English
ASIN: B005AXZHI2
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

X-Ray: Not Enabled

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #98,873 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #59 in Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Communication Studies > Semiology
- #72 in Kindle Store > Books > Nonfiction > Arts & Entertainment > Graphic Design
- #74 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Authors > Morrison, Grant

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars "Supergods" Ain't in the Details 18 July 2011

By Roochak

Format:Hardcover

Part critical history of comics, part memoir of the writing trade, part mashup of fringe science, pop psychology, and this month's secrets-of-marketing-trends business bestseller, this entertaining, inchoate mess of a book purports to be an essay on superheroes and their significance to us. Of course, significance is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to pop culture, and while experience and common sense may tell us that the detective, the spy, the soldier, and the gangster are fictional archetypes with genuinely universal appeal, the superhero remains, like jazz, an American phenomenon that, in other countries, comes across either as an imitation of the American product, or as something based on such specifically regional imaginative archetypes as to fall outside the "superhero" label altogether. (Harry Potter, anyone?)

Why is the superhero an American rather than a global phenomenon? Morrison doesn't really have an answer for that, but the fun of this story -- and any mythology is all about stories that should've happened -- lies in the telling. Morrison sees the cyclical rise and fall of the superhero comic as a recursive process of imaginative evolution, and devises a four-part structure (like FINNEGANS WAKE) to contain and illustrate the theme. "The Golden Age" and "The Silver Age" are funny and critically astute assessments of the subject, although newspaper comic strips and pulp fiction are simply omitted from the discussion, which leaves out the Spirit, the Phantom, Doc Savage, and the Shadow. This may be only because the author didn't grow up with these characters.... Read more ›

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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Passionate, knowledgeable and with a dislocated mind 7 July 2011

By Andrew P. Pack

Format:Hardcover

I'll be frank from the off - I was a Grant Morrison fanboy way back in his early Doom Patrol and Animal Man days, although he lost me for a while with the Invisibles, so I wouldn't claim to be impartial. But the reason I loved his comics is the same reason this prose book is so damn good. He's genuinely passionate, smart as whip, and comes at things from odd angles.

It's a blend of a historical and sociological examination of the early days of comics taking this through to the current era (and there are some gems in there - the fact that Wonder Woman's creator also invented the polygraph is one of those things that is so perfect - when you consider her lariat of truth, that even if Morrison has made it up, it ought to be true), with his own beginnings as a consumer and creator, to some mind-expanding bits of how he opened his consciousness and go his ideas pouring out. He can approach comics and the writing of them with a critical eye as to their limitations, but also an eye on the huge potential and wonder that can be found in their pages if you get the right combination of passion, ideas, talent and an artistic take.

You may well not believe him when he talks about writing sequences in the Invisibles as part of a magical construct to make good things happen to him in his real life, you may or may not believe that he himself believes it, but the fact that he even thinks about it and shares this with the reader is fascinating. Who else is writing that sort of stuff these days? I want my creators of superhero fiction to believe that magic exists....

He writes a very compelling piece on the dangers of listening to the vocal portion of a fanbase, and gets away with what could actually be two fingers at the internet community by the flair of his thoughts and the fact that you can tell he means it. There are times, particularly in his reviews of Alan Moore's work where you can sense some lack of objectivity and a feeling that he just plain doesn't really like the guy (though he calls Moore out fairly and squarely on the central plot device of Watchmen being flimsy and just plain unworkable).

I could personally, have heard a lot more about how it was that the guy who wrote Invisibles (a series that was deranged and inspired and complex to a point where it was possibly near unreadable for the average person who wasn't living in the authors own head) managed to persuade Marvel to let him have control of X-Men, their most valuable commmodity, and then DC to let him have control of Batman, their real big hitter; and write in both of them stories that weren't just beautiful, dazzling comics that revelled in the medium itself, but also intricate and complex and at times unintelligible to a casual reader.

I'm afraid I have gone a bit fanboyish again - there are comic book writers who when they step outside of that medium don't really deliver, or do so in a way that makes you wish they'd done all this as a comic, but from this book, Morrison isn't one of them. I read this at a single swallow, and could cheerfully have read another 300 pages of it. What Morrison does, when he is at his best, is make you read something and occasionally hit a speed bump where you think "I'm not smart enough to quite get this", BUT rather than make you feel resentful or annoyed that he's not taken you by the hand, makes you interested in what he's beckoning at and want to find the way yourself.

Horrible, gushing review, but basically, if you like comics, or are interested in the creative process, or how having access to drugs, foreign travel and lots of cash can actually in the right hands produce creativity rather than self-indulgence, this is worth a read. Read more ›

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Part biography, part Comic history, classic read in all 30 April 2012

By Graham TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I knew of Grant Morrisons work on Batman and Superman but really was not sure what this book would be like. I am pleased I bought it as it is an insight into the writer, the history of comics and recent superhero cinema but above all its a philosophers view. Sounds pretentious - well its not supposed too. I have now revisited Grant Morrisons comics and graphic novels and also a number of films which the author discuses in some depth and details how the genre has developed. Didn't like Unbreakable first time round - after reading this book and seeing the film again I realise its a bit of a gem.

I would challenge any reader, comic collector/reader or not, not to enjoy this book. I would ay it will enlighten you but mostly it will make you think, At the end, you may just doubt that there are no such things as super heroes.

I liked it. Grant Morrison is great writer. Ok I wasn't too impressed with the writings of a drug induced coma half way through but that too help in the way the writer shows his passion and eagerness to get right to the core of superhero worship.

I still gave this book 5 stars as if there is a similar book out there, I have never see it. And I am sure there isn't going to be one which is so inspirational

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Things don't have to be real to be true" 26 Mar 2012

By Noel TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

One of the most interesting and best comics writers, Grant Morrison, has produced a chronicle of comics from their inception in the late 30s to the present day, along the way talking about superheroes and their effect on our culture as well as providing a look into his own turbulent life from quiet teen to superstar writer. "Supergods" is throughout a fascinating look at this wondrous creation, the superhero.

For me, a huge fan of comics and superhero comics, the book was great fun to look at the inauspicious beginnings of the genre, the creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel and Bob Kane and the oft forgotten Bill Finger, through its various incarnations through the years. Morrison goes through the book chronologically and devotes the first chapter to an extensive look at the front covers of "Action Comics #1" and "Detective Comics #27", the first appearances of Superman and Batman respectively, setting the tone of the book as an in-depth look at Morrison's two favourite characters in comics.

He divides the evolution of comics into different "ages" from the Golden Age, Silver Age, Dark Age, and Renaissance Age (which we're currently in), and I won't go into detail as to every age but suffice it to say for those who believe Morrison wasn't detailed enough, I found him more than adequately explaining the relevant heroes and writers of the time in the context of the era and its effect down the line on future writers, innovators and characters.

Morrison could quite easily have written a memoir of his own life in this book but chooses to occasionally throw in tidbits of his autobiography amidst the intricate pontificating upon superheroes.... We find out about his modest childhood and his journey into comics through endless writing and drawing and sheer persistence before landing a job with 2000AD and from there to DC's "Animal Man". There are some gossipy bits thrown in like an anecdote of Glenn Fabry biting Karen Berger's ass during a party welcoming the British Invasion of writers and artists to America, as well as a glimpse into why Morrison's relationship with Marvel soured following the dissolution of "New X-Men" (it also might explain why Marvel didn't allow Morrison to use any of the covers of their comics for reproduction in this book, unlike DC who did) though Morrison's breakup with protégé Mark Millar is ignored (unlike in the documentary about Morrison "Talking with Gods" where he says if he was in a car and saw Millar on the street, he'd change course and accelerate).

Then there's the vast wealth of information scattered throughout the text like a shotgun that fires genius like buckshot onto the blank page. Morrison stayed up writing for 50 hours straight before ransacking his teenage dream diaries to get into the mindset and create the nightmarish imagery to write "Arkham Asylum", a book he wrote in 1 month. He gave to Neil Gaiman a book with a story called "The New Mother" by Lucy Lane Clifford that set him onto the path of creating "Coraline". Jim Lee is a Princeton Physics graduate. He also provides an explanation for Warren Ellis' series "Planetary" which I'd read recently, baffled - it's an abstract reckoning between "good" imagination and "bad" imagination. He also explains the even more baffling "Final Crisis" book he wrote a few years ago - it was a story of a bad story devouring a good one. Who knew?

One of the best chapters in the book is "Hollywood Smells Blood" which goes into great detail about Batman's on-screen adaptations which for me began with the Adam West TV show but Morrison goes back to 1943 when Batman had his own TV serial. This part of the book was utter hilarity and showed Morrison's strengths as a comedic writer in the description of these early serials. One of my favourite passages describing Robert Lowery's Batman of 1943: "This wrinkled costume he wore would be unable to stop a lit cigarette let alone a slug from a .45. With his pitiful fighting skills, which relied on clumsy haymaker punches and off-balance lunges, Lowery's Batman could expect a crime-fighting life span of three weeks, with a career ending abruptly the moment any half-trained yellow belt tae kwon do novice punched him in the head." (p.333)

And his teardown of Joel Schumacher's Batman films is equally hilarious.

Morrison occasionally lost me such as when he described in painstaking detail his journey to Alpha Centauri where he saw beings of another dimension and spoke with what we call Gods. He really does believe this happened and I totally respect him for it, but I feel the story loses some of its impact when he begins it by telling you he swallowed a ton of hash before the aliens stepped from the walls. Some might also criticise his views on comics such as his excellent interpretation of Alan Moore's "Watchmen" which he does not hold in the same high regard as many of his peers do - he felt it was too self-referential and knowing.

As long as this review's been, I haven't tapped the surface of the content of this book. I'll just say that any comics fan would love this book as it's written by one comics fan for others. It's full of knowledge and views on comics that are well worth reading, it feels like you're eavesdropping on the most interesting conversationalist you'll ever meet. And his writing style too is of such shockingly high quality, you'll be astonished of his vocabulary and descriptive abilities.

I was glad also to know that my favourite of Morrison's books - "All Star Superman" - is also his favourite and his anecdote of meeting the real-life Superman is also included here. He finishes the book with a powerfully inspiring message of hope and optimism that I dare anyone to feel cynical about, it's so purely expressed and beautiful. So I'll end it here, urging you the reader to pick up this book and see the superhero through Grant Morrison's eyes.

In Morrison's own words that end this book "There's only one way to find out what happens next..." Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Shocking revelations from the dawn of time...

Grant Morrison in big shiny populist mode, rather than weirdo obscurro occultnik mode. A very nice mix of personal memoir, comics history and how the two relate in Morrison's work. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Dawn Adams

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book

From the opening paragraph of Grant Morrisons personal history of the superhero I knew I had to buy this book, very well written with interesting insights into Grant's particular... Read more

Published 2 months ago by keir

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this book

Who cares who are you anyway ? Well I am a 51 year old shrink who learnt to read at about 4 years before starting school so I could understand Spiderman and Fantastic Four Comics. Read more

Published 9 months ago by knocked out 73 just woke up

2.0 out of 5 stars SuperSelfPromotion!!

I bought this book in the mistaken belief it would be a history of the comic book industry; its genesis, relevance and future. Sadly not. Read more

Published 9 months ago by M. R. Cox

4.0 out of 5 stars Look, up in the sky....!

An insightful, affectionate and amusing complement to any comic fan's bookshelf, and a seductive gateway book for the new/casual reader of mainstream graphic fiction.

Published 13 months ago by Nemo

3.0 out of 5 stars Could of been better

I enjoyed most of this book, it starts off really well the history of comics and Morrison's early years are good reading. Read more

Published 17 months ago by G. Stephenson

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable but ultimately falls short.

I have start by saying that I have really enjoyed reading this book, as it has reminded me of much of my personal history in and around the subject matter, it is however hard to... Read more

Published 17 months ago by JDNorton

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful and original

I liked Grant Morrison's earlier work before he got a bit weird with drugs and such but this is a good read and some cool stories from his comics career with a good overview of the... Read more

Published 18 months ago by Roving Eye

2.0 out of 5 stars things I do not need to know.

Started off really well. I thoroughly enjoyed the analysis of the covers of silver age comics and the views from a British perspective of the American led industry. Read more

Published 20 months ago by Am Furniss

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps only for the initiated...?

I loved this book. It is part memoir, part (of a selective) history of American comics, part review, and part magical-mystical tract on how to transform the world! Read more

Published 20 months ago by W. Gillies

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