Dave Press

In the fifth issue, a kind of Prometheus-myth allegory, “The Coyote Gospel,” we open on a Wile. E. Coyote-type character as he falls off a cliff after being foiled once again by the Road Runner, but this time the coyote falls into “our” reality smashing end from end against the cliff, breaking limb after limb and even settling with the trademarked dust cloud upon landing on the ground. In this issue a few things change: Morrison goes from aping Alan Moore’s style of storytelling, which usually focuses on a real-life issue (in this case: animal rights) and makes use of grave-narrative captions and internal monologues. In the fifth issue, Morrison moves away from this manner of storytelling, replacing Moore’s style with an omniscient narrator; and even though the tone is very serious, the pictures within the book are absurd. This gives Timothy Callahan the idea that Morrison is an absurdist, and engages against Alan Moore who is an ironist (Callahan 70).

This change of approach adds pathos to the Coyote character, and it certainly tied into a Moore-like animal-rights theme of the first storytelling arc, but Morrison goes in another direction entirely. In this single issue, Crafty the Coyote, confronts the “God” of his universe, “[whom] we see only parts of: gingham pants, short-sleeved shirt, wrist watch, and paintbrush. Crafty challenges this ‘God’ to end the suffering and violence in his world and offers his own life in trade for the peace he desires. The bargain causes Crafty to be reborn in Buddy Baker’s world as a flesh-and-blood creature.” (71)

 The story is basically one of Crafty wandering around in Animal Man’s world, wrapping up with a trucker who witnesses Crafty in all of his cartoonish glory and thinks the coyote is a demon of some kind. So the trucker crafts a silver bullet from his crucifix to gun down the hapless cartoon character. The trucker shoots Crafty just before Animal Man arrives on the scene. There is Crafty, arms outstretched in a Christ-on-the-Cross figure, being held by Animal Man, and he gives him a note, entitled “The Gospel According to Crafty,” which says, “While he lived, there still remained hope that one day, he might return. And on that day overthrow the tyrant God. And build a better world.” However, Buddy can’t read the note—all he sees are lines of gibberish with no words, and as we pan out of the death scene we see in the final fourth panel—the hand that paints the scene with a brush.

This is just the beginning of Buddy Baker’s journey to meet his maker and realize his place in the universe. By the end of the series, Baker meets Morrison and asks him why he’s been putting the character through this terrible ordeal, just as Crafty the Coyote did. Animal Man #5 is the first instance of the Morrisonian trope that would make him popular among readers; the commentary on the creation meeting the creator and the creator himself or herself becoming a part of the fictional world, creating an internal magic of the self made into a fiction suit. A fiction suit is something Morrison often refers to as a way a writer puts himself into the story, essentially making the writer a character within the fictional narrative. The idea behind it runs similar to an astronaut’s space suit (Morrison 117). Morrison uses this concept of the fiction suit on a regular basis in his seminal comic book piece, The Invisibles.

The other magic that Morrison makes use of, along the positive idealistic principles championed by Pico and his contemporaries like Trithemius and Agrippa, is in his process for sigils, which I will explain further down. “The magical system” Borchardt writes, “even at most idealistic among the Italians before Trithemius and certainly at its most hazardously practical in the writings of Agrippa before him, proceeds ‘positively,’ ‘affirmatively.’ Study leads to knowledge and, by stages, to power and miracle.” (69) Positive magic is something that Morrison exemplifies at every turn. The practice he is known for, for actualizing creation, is in sigils. The process is, well, eclectic.

Kabbalah is really the system that we can sink our teeth into regarding Morrison and Pico. Sheila Rabin, in Dougherty’s text presenting new essays on Pico, explores this idea. “Rabin carefully explores Pico’s views on the relationship between natural magic and Kabbalah, examining Pico’s explicit claim that magic requires an annexation to Kabbalah [in order] to be efficacious.” (Dougherty 9). Pico began studying the Kabbalah form with Marsilio Ficino while in Perugia, and it helped to complete his syncretic thought in the sense that it was always his intention to approach a topic from many different angles.

Laura Sneddon, a University of Dundee Comics Studies student, interviewed Morrison for the United Kingdom magazine, The Independent. There, he admits that he used the Kabbalistic symbol of the lightning bolt while writing Supergods.

I embedded even deeper in it this Kabbalistic thing, where the whole metaphor of the lightning bolt began to be really significant because I noticed that in every age of superhero comics, throughout the transformation of superheroes, there’s a hero with a lightning bolt. You know, if it’s not the Flash, it’s Marvel Man, it’s connected to the original lightning bolt motif and the lightning bolt is the same thing that the Kabbalah talks about, this thing called the lightning flash which is the magician’s path along the Kabbalistic Tree of Life structure. And, put simply, the lightning flash is the instant connection between the divine and the material. And so I thought, there’s something here, about how comics work and the idea of these energies that once would have been called Gods but are now dressed up like Superman and the Flash and Iron Man and that notion of the flash of lightning. His whole book has this embedded structure of the lightning flash touching each of the ten sephiroth of the Kabbalah. Not to wander into too much territory that Bukatman would sneer at, but the allusion Morrison is making is on the surface level a distinction that super heroes are mythological gods reinvented. Superman is Apollo, god of Sun; Batman is Hades, god of the underworld; Wonder Woman is Athena, and so on. However, Morrison gives us a cue to delve further into Kabbalah and how it relates to Pico in the ten sephirot. In Kabbalah, the ten sephirot are beings that the Creator dispatches in creating the universe. They exist to distribute the will of the Creator, according to Yechiel Bar-Lev (The Song of Soul 73).

The Kabbalistic Tree of Life that Morrison is referring to, which takes the form of the lightning bolt, becomes an instant allegory for the symbol The Flash wears. For each of these ten sephiroth, we can cite examples of superheroes. While that can set us up for the criticism that we are treating superheroes as religious allegories, that notion is in fact there, and Morrison utilizes it in his autobiography and in his history of the medium. The Kabbalistic principles are just the beginning of the similarities that confirm Morrison as a syncretic. Frank Borchardt, in his article “The Magus as Renaissance Man” writes about Pico’s relationship with Kabbalah:

 Since Pico was one of the handful of other Christian Hebraists and Cabalists active at the time, we can safely assume that their [Johannes Reuchlin] common interests played some part of the in the meeting. Reuchlin, in any case, knew and profoundly respected the works of Pico and cabalistic writing which Pico had translated from the Hebrew. (Borchardt 62)

Morrison decorates his house with passages from Kabbalah texts, texts that Pico probably translated. In a Rolling Stone interview, Morrison’s house is described as being a part of the “millionaire row,” a suburb of Glasgow.  

“The latter implies that a magus, the moment he applied his knowledge to conjure spirits or predict the course of events or try to influence them, forfeited his credentials as a Renaissance magician.” (Borchardt 60)  Morrison is an idealist, but his forays into magic are for the sake of creation, to create a symbolic meaning that he integrates into his work. On the surface, this practice appears selfish, but not because he is using this formula to gain a higher understanding; by putting it into comic book form; rather, he is creating an alchemical literature that introduces the reader to a higher form of creativity. 

Scholars generally see the Oration as an introduction to Pico’s beliefs. M.V. Dougherty recently edited new essays on Pico, and has renewed interest in the philosopher since the 1960s. A reason for this has to do with the state of political discourse. Dougherty writes that the new significance of Pico has quite a bit to do with the work of Erasmus, Machiavelli, Kepler, and Voltaire. He also cites Milton, Donne, and Shakespeare. “Without doubt, therefore, Pico has long been recognized as an important figure in Renaissance thought, although some historians have debated whether Pico is best viewed as a representative intellectual from an age replete with intellectuals or as an exceptional figure deserving of particular admiration.” (Dougherty 2). For many Pico scholars, including Dougherty, the Oration creates a complete and sufficient basis for the discovery of all human knowledge and a myth that we can ascend in the chain of being; Pico’s work is now the focus of a collaborative commentary hosted by Brown University and University of Bologna.

There has appeared a series dedicated to editing and translating the volumes composing Pico’s Kabbalistic library collection. Additionally, the appearance of philological studies on Pico, as well as historiographical accounts, suggests that the present state of studi pichiani is a healthy one and that interest in this Renaissance thinker will continue to grow. (Dougherty 4)

Pico’s work began when he was studying Aristotlelianism at the University of Padua. He was already proficient in Latin and Greek, and began studying Hebrew and Arabic under the Jewish Averroist Elia del Medigo. It was here that Pico adopted the philosophy of Islamist Ibn Rushd, who came to be known as “Averroes.” He interpreted Aristotle to mean a few things: First, there is only one truth, but you can get it through two ways, philosophy and religion. Second, the world is eternal. Third, the soul is divided into two parts: one is individual, and the other is divine, but the individual soul is not eternal, and all humans share the same intellect at the basic level.

After studying at Padua, Pico went on to do postgraduate work at the University of Paris. It was probably in Paris that he began his 900 Theses of which the Oration is a defense. The speech and the theses form the first example of humanist syncretism, because they combine many religious and philosophical schools, among them Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Aristotelianism, Hermeticism, and Kabbalah. 

Morrison combines many of these things as well. Platonism sets forth the Theory of Forms, which says that sense objects — always being engaged in situations of perpetual change like touching, smelling, and hearing — are never genuine and always up for reinterpretation. In Morrison’s comics, speech patterns and visual cues are never explicitly stated to be what they appear to be. There is always a deeper level of symbolic and meaning in his comics.  He emphasizes this, paradoxically, by working with detail-oriented artists.. He needs that artistic detail to balance the abstract notions he is trying to convey. For example, Frank Quitely his artist on We3 and All-Star Superman comes from the artistic school of French comics pioneer Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Japanese Manga creator Katsuhiro Otomo. Phil Jimenez, from The Invisibles, has a very fashion-conscious and streamlined American pop style, and Rags Morales, the artist on the Action Comics reboot, presents motion in a static medium coupled with un-paralleled character emotion. The characters seem alive in Morales’ art. Overall, every detail in Morrison’s comics, from character to background to action, has an underlying meaning that differs from what is explicitly depicted. That doesn’t mean that the surfaces presented are not genuine, but that there is another layer of significance to the art. Readers recognize this depth, and Morrison’s works are frequently annotated online; Callahan and Meaney’s books testify to that, and writers like David Uzumeri at the website Comics Alliance annotate his current run on Batman, Incorporated.

The point of this thesis is to connect the study of comic books, specifically superhero comics, to something that has deep philosophical roots. These roots give new meaning to a literary and philosophical renaissance currently taking place within comics, spearheaded by Morrison. By saying Pico’s Oration is a major influence, Morrison is bridging the gap between a seminal piece of Renaissance thinking and a modern form of expression. Morrison opens the floor to discussion of Pico in conjunction with the study of graphic narrative and so includes the entire medium. In the conclusion to Supergods, Morrison writes that he drew his work from Pico.

Pico’s Oration on the Dignity of Man is still regarded as the foundation stone of the “humanist” movement that strove to cast off the manacles of Church dogma, locked in place since the founding of St. Peter’s Basilica in AD 324, but for all its status as a humanist manifesto, the Oration is without a doubt urging us to reach far beyond the human, into the realms of angels and gods. It asks us to accept the superhuman as an undeniable fact of our nature, and the goal of our future evolution as people. (Morrison 414)

What Morrison is talking about, the push he makes in All-Star Superman, is the capability of a human being to live up to the highest ideals and to raise oneself to a higher order. The journey Superman goes on in the book is about his living up to his ideals and trying to permanently affect the lives of the people he has sworn to protect, even after he passes away. By living up to the highest humanistic ideological standard, Superman stands as a symbol for what humans are capable of if we live up to our core values. To live up to our ideals, which implicitly come from something higher than ourselves, means we attain the ability to become better. Superman does this with Lois Lane, when he gives her a potion and a suit that allow her to mimic his abilities for twenty-four hours, thus giving Lane the ability to see the world from his unique perspective. He does this again with Lex Luthor at the end of the series. This is the central theme within All-Star: that humans can ascend to a higher plane of existence if they embrace their core ideals. Morrison believes that Pico’s Oration details the core of Renaissance thought. In comic books, we can imagine whole worlds and build relationships amongst extraordinary beings and connect with them on a human level, and by creating these things we are able to do what God did.

The number of similarities between Pico’s beliefs and Morrison’s is large: both believe in magic that enhances man’s dignity and strengthens his will; the Oration provides a model for mankind’s ascent to a higher level of being; a higher consciousness is central to Morrison’s themes. Both are heavily influenced by Kabbalah; Pico is regarded as a syncretic, and, in a way that is parallel, as a comics writer Morrison is known for his style that is perfectly in step with his varied artistic partners. In this way, he never lets his tendencies as an individual get in the way of art, and by association the art tells the story he is attempting. 

[More excerpts from my thesis: “All-Star Grant Morrison: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Twenty-first Century Comics.” This may go on all summer, so please let me know if this is annoying you and I’ll stop. In the meantime, check out the Table of Contents.]

Since his first major work, for the following twenty-five years of his career, Morrison has written more creator-owned books than any of his contemporaries, and has provided memorable runs on the biggest corporately-owned superhero characters in comics from the Justice League, to Superman, Batman, and the X-Men. His work has been so intriguing that he has been the focus of three academic worksand a documentary. University of Massachusetts at Amherst English Professor Timothy Callahan’s book, Grant Morrison: The Early Years, establishes a discussion of the Scottish writer’s early work and how it grew from the pages of 2000AD and thrust him onto the American comic book shore with his best-selling Batman: Arkham Asylum and Animal Man. Callahan takes us right up to Morrison’s career in the mid-1990s where Patrick Meaney picks up the ball and runs with it in his book Our Sentence is Up, which studies Morrison’s masterpiece The Invisibles on an issue-by-issue basis. Both Meaney and Callahan’s works give us a view of Morrison’s talents, but the critical narrative previously ran out with Meaney’s work, which only focuses on The Invisibles, a series that ended in 2000.

What this essay will do is pick up where Meaney left off and discuss Morrison’s twenty-first century work, specifically focusing on his seminal run on All-Star Superman. We will do it with a focus on Renaissance philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, whom Morrison discusses at length in his autobiography Supergods as a seminal ingredient in all of his work. My intent is to show how Morrison uses the principles of Pico’s Oration on the Dignity of Man in his current work. Callahan brings us the early stages of Morrison’s career, where he largely worked with lower class (serf-like) characters like Animal Man and the freakish team of biological rejects called the Doom Patrol. Meaney examines Morrison’s most celebrated work, The Invisibles, which establishes the model that Morrison likes to work with.  Following the end of The Invisibles, Morrison goes on to write forty-two issues of X-Men from May 2001 to March 2004, and provides what is largely seen as the best Superman story of the twenty-first century in All-Star Superman which ended its twelve issues in 2009. His artist is Frank Quitely, who is known for a high level of detail. We will conclude this chain in his historical autobiography Supergods and his rebooting of the comic that started the superhero movement, Action Comics, in September 2011.

So, I’m going to finally start serializing my thesis. Currently titled: “All-Star Grant Morrison: Twenty-first Century Comics and Renaissance Philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.” I’m going to keep the excerpts short, because it is most likely pretty boring for most of my readers. Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think.

The field of Comics Studies has grown and developed into an intellectual movement since the mid-to-late 1980s after the arrival of such critically acclaimed work like Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. Currently, scholars like Hillary Chute, Douglas Wolk, Paul Lopes, and Charles Hatfield focus on the work of Alison Bechdel, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, and other independent comic creators. These critics are doing work to enhance the study of comics in the academy. To begin discussing one of the medium’s foremost writers an overview of the current work of scholars in Comics Studies is necessary. Hillary Chute has written about the work of Art Spiegelman and brings a new interpretation of the form of the comic book, explaining what she means by the phrase “graphic narrative” in her article “Comics as Literature?” Reading Graphic Narrative.” Douglas Wolk, in his book Reading Comics, helps new readers grapple with how comics should be read and presents some values for conducting a close reading of graphic narrative. Paul Lopes talks about the stigma associated with comics. Charles Hatfield, in his Alternative Comics, writes about how alternative comics, specifically the work of the Hernandez brothers, Harvey Pekar, and others relates to how comics have grown into a new kind of literature. From this critical ground we will segue into the body of this essay itself, which will examine the work of Grant Morrison and how Renaissance philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola influences his mainstream work.