Supergods
By Grant Morrison
- Release Date: 2011-07-19
- Genre: Social Science
Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, and the X-Men—the list of names as familiar as our own. They are on our movie and television screens, in our videogames and in our dreams. But what are they trying to tell us? For Grant Morrison, one of the most acclaimed writers in the world of comics, these heroes are powerful archetypes who reflect and predict the course of human existence: Through them we tell the story of ourselves. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Morrison draws on art, archetypes, and their own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of our great modern myth: the superhero.
Now with a new Afterword
Reviews
Your Comic Book Siddhartha!
5By Rdb66As comic books and super heroes have gone increasingly main stream, or more accurately, from shunned outsider low culture to lowest common denominator pop culture, books about comics and super heroes have proliferated as well. Why should you read this one? Because it's by Grant Effing Morrison, you git! Morrison has been one of the most successful and innovative comic book writers of the last 2 decades, but what makes this book so much fun is that Morrison is also so much more--a jet-setting rock star, experimental drug user, chaos magician, alien communicator, all in the service of reminding all of us that we created super heroes to remind ourselves of the limitless potential we possess. This book is the Buddha's journey of enlightenment through the lens of Superman's and Batman's epic, cosmic struggles against evil, demonic and destructive forces. More than any other writer on the subject, Morrison's wonderfully paisley prose and own personal story illuminate the 70-year history of the super hero as a western version of Hindu and Buddhist spirituality, where exciting tales of gods, heroes and demons bring the receptive participant closer to the truth that all of that divine energy and potentiality comes from inside him and connects him with the fabric of a universe even more remarkable than the most out-there propositions of theoretical physics. Most enjoyable to me is Morrison's explication of how multi-faceted our heroes have been, just as their classical antecedents were. Batman can be grim avenger, jocular uncle, psychedelic psychonaut, pop art performance artist, and unhinged anarchist, all in a few decades. Morrison's overflowing imagination and boundless enthusiasm, and colorful personal experiences, combine for a personal and universal story of comic heroes and his life with them. Like Superman, if Grant didn't exist, we would have to invent him.Great look at the history of comics.
5By jack the other dog!This was great. Now all those titles Morreson's writes make sence.Enlightening and inspiring!
5By Eric ScroggsGrant Morrison has written a book that simultaneously covers the history of comic books and shows you how it's possible for anyone to become a superhero. And that's just a tip of the iceberg. READ THIS BOOK!
