THE FOUR COLOR GRIMOIRE
MEDITATIONS ON COMIC BOOK DAEMONS
This is part of No Gods But My Own, Volume 2. Read this if you’re just joining in.
COULD THIS BE… THE END?
There is a tradition in comics for stories to end abruptly, leaving the reader wanting for a tidy conclusion but giving them nothing even close. So many stories have been unceremoniously cut off because of editorial meddling, creative teams quitting, or a series being canceled before being given a proper send off. Missing conclusions litter the landscape of the comics medium.
There is no better way for me to end this volume of No Gods But My Own but to do the same thing. The concepts and artistic canons of the visionaries of comic art are yet to be fully explored and there are so many multiversal secret teachers left to meditate upon.
But that continuing story is not for me to tell. I've done my run.
These stories, characters, and creators are the ones that inspired me, enriched my soul, and expanded my scope of magical thought. There are bound to be things I missed or facts that I may not have had completely straight, sometimes choosing to print the legend in regards to certain creators and characters instead of the consensus narrative. It may not have been my intention to make this series of essays mirror the flow of serialized comics but it certainly turned out that way. It’s slightly uneven, inconsistent, and goes off on strange tangents. I can think of no better way of expressing my love of this medium than emulating it in such an unexpected way.
Unbeknownst to their fans, Grant Morrison had been weaving a single storyline throughout their nearly forty issue run on JLA. There had been little hints and subtle clues starting all the way back in his first issue and it culminated in his final storyline, World War III.
It was an apocalypse story, like so many other superhero stories are. As hostilities spiked across the population of Earth, Mister Miracle brought word from New Genesis that the ultimate weapon of the Old Gods was coming and the Justice League was the last line of defense for the entire universe. They called it Mageddon, The War-Bringer and Anti-Sun. Orion and Barda of the New Gods had been stationed with the League as advance guard and had been secretly preparing for its arrival.
Meanwhile other plans were afoot. Lex Luthor was forming a new Injustice Gang after the previous incarnation had found defeat at the hands of the Justice League. Collecting up a cadre of villains from previous storylines from Morrison’s run, Luthor assembled a team that should have been impossible to defeat. It included Prometheus, a master strategist with technology which allowed him to download techniques from any fighter who had ever lived, and General Eiling, a psychopath who inhabited an indestructible robot body known as The Shaggy Man for it’s previous resemblance to a sasquatch, both had nearly defeated the team by themselves previously.
Morrison’s aim with their incarnation of the Justice League was to populate it with living gods. They had Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and The Flash as the core members, each of them corresponding with a member of the pantheon of Greek gods. To fill out the team he had brought in Orion and Barda of the New Gods, Steel, Plastic Man, Huntress, Oracle, and two of their own creations in Aztec and Zuriel. Through this storyline they shattered that image by pointing out their flaws and tearing them open at the seams.
They made the gods human, all too human.
Superman was absorbed into the ancient weapon of Mageddon, which stripped him of all hope and left him a hollow shell of despair while absorbing his energies to power its engine of doom. Green Lantern lost the will to create light forms from his ring. The rest of the team was mired in wars breaking out in every country across the world as Mageddon drove humanity to destruction.
The conflict became so overwhelming that the team had to search out the sole survivor of a race of titanic god-like giants from a realm called Wonderworld and petition literal angels from heaven to assist in the fight. The Justice League even rallied every previous member of their team that they could find, bringing hundreds of costumed heroes to the fight.
It wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
They were fighting an ancient evil that had no true weakness. The Justice League never stood a chance.
Then Morrison revived the character they built their career in American comics on: Animal Man.
It was from speaking to the lizards, through the morphic field, and an idea involving the Hundredth Monkey Theory of evolution that Animal Man came upon an idea. He proposed that the only way to win was to unlock the potential in every man, woman, and child across the world. Through alien technologies, the team assembled a ray that does just that.
And so, with that, the collected force of all of humanity is mobilized as one to save the world from certain doom.
It was a messy conclusion to Morrison's epic run on the book. Not only were they trying to tie together all the loose ends left dangling from their previous forty issues of JLA, but they were also trying to put a capstone on characters that meant the world to them. There are moments of cringe throughout that final issue but somehow the seed of brilliance shines through for me every single time I read it.
The meaning of the story is pretty clear, as far as I'm concerned. It's that we can't always depend on our heroes to do all the work. Sometimes it's up to us to save each other from the end of the world. It's a naïve and romantically optimistic message but those are sometimes the most important ideals to express. These are fantasies, after all, and it should never just be the fantastic individuals expected to do fantastic things. These stories can also be a call to arms for us to steel ourselves and act the hero when the need arises.
We don’t fight off the end of the world by accruing power or forcing our will upon the world.
We do it by being us, by being human, and evolving.
Grant Morrison’s run on JLA is still one of my favorite comics to this day and that particular story left a deep impression that has lasted the twenty years since it was originally published.
But, like every story arc in this kind of serialized narrative, the entirety of World War III was cast aside and completely ignored by the creative team that took over with issue forty two. Mageddon was forgotten. The heroes that sacrificed themselves were once again filed away to be used by different creators some day in the future. Superman and Batman didn’t suffer PTSD or collect any new scars on their perfect flesh.
The story was reset, brought back to an ideal status quo where nothing was remembered, save for the rare editorial notes that may appear in the margins when needed to explain a somewhat connected plot point. It’s the way of comics. One story ends and another begins anew, again and again, through the decades of continuity.
Not to me, though.
To me this story was a cornerstone.
It is a piece of the array that makes me who I am and informs my artistic and magical practices.
That’s what it was supposed to do, after all.
It was a myth for our time and it continues to echo and reverberate as long as someone remembers it, just like all the other stories and characters in The Four Color Grimoire and the thousands that aren’t.
There are wonders to behold in those volumes.
Colorful, flamboyant, noble wonders.
Look…
Up in the sky…
It’s a bird…
It’s a plane…
SUGGESTED READING
JLA, issues 1-17, 22-26, 28-31, 34, 36-41 by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter (DC Comics, 1997)
Stay tuned for something a little different. This may be the last proper installment of The Four Color Grimoire but I’m not quite done with comics yet. On Friday I’ll share a list of non-superhero comics that I would consider essential reading, especially for the more magical minded out there.
Until next time,
EJM