Is Grant Morrison Overrated?

When you think of great comic writers, you tend to go for the classic names like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Stan Lee. That's not to say that current writers are bad, on the contrary, there are plenty of big names – Gail Simone, Geoff Johns, and Ed Brubaker – who have made quality work over the years. While these writers are lauded, it's a bit too soon to see how well they will fare in the long run.
One name that is tossed around a lot when discussing the great comic book writers of our time is Grant Morrison. On the other side of that coin, there are a lot of people who hate his work and think that he's overrated.

Being a fan of comics myself, I thought it would be interesting to go through and see if the guy really is as good as some make him out to be, or if it's all hype?

Obviously, personal opinion is going to be a factor, but ultimately, I would say that the answer as to whether or not Morrison is a great writer is both yes and no. Now, before you write this off as a cop-out answer or accuse me of straddling the fence on the issue, allow me to elaborate.

Running the Gamut Part 1: In the Zone

Here's the thing about Morrison, he's very hit or miss. When he's on, Morrison can come up with some great stuff, All Star Superman and Animal Man are two prime examples of Morrison living up to the hype and producing some legitimately great work. I've heard good things about his run on Doom Patrol, but since I haven't read those myself, I honestly could not give my opinion, one way or the other.

Both series are fairly short (12 and 26 issues respectively) and both have been collected into trade paperback collections, so picking these up is not stressful on either a financial or a practical level. Animal Man does get rather meta as it progresses, but it is an example of Morrison's surreal work done well.

All Star Superman doesn't suffer from that. Morrison does pull up some obscure stuff in regards to the mythos, but it doesn't bog the story down and allows the reader to follow along without getting too confused by what's going on.

Running the Gamut Part 2: Big Ol' Meh

While most of Morrison's work tends to fall on either extreme, there are a few of his works that just fall under the category of mediocre.

One example of this, for me, was his run on JLA. I'm sure I'll get flack for this, as his run is cited as one of his greater works. I wasn't blown away by it. Yes, it did get all the big DC superheroes together and had them take on threats that challenged even their great abilities. Beyond that, though, it felt hollow. There wasn't any real meat to the stories.

Now, some characters got to, as TV tropes puts it, "grow the beard". Kyle Rayner, for example, became more fleshed out and it allowed readers of Green Lantern, who had dismissed the character after the way he was brought in to replace Hal Jordan, to see that this character could work. Plastic Man is another character who got to show off his potential as a character during this run. Beyond that though, his run felt like the comic book equivalent of typical summer Hollywood blockbusters.

He also set the stage for the "Bat-god" iteration of the Dark Knight, where the normal human was able to outperform his meta-human compatriots just because he had gadgets at his disposal. Granted, he did it better than others, but it did set a precedent that other writers have abused rather frequently.

I was also left underwhelmed with his run on New X-Men, after it became the new title for X-Men. There were some interesting ideas, but it didn't wow me the way one might hope it would. I want to like Cassandra Nova as a villain, but I distinctly remember not buying that she would pose such a threat to the team.

Running the Gamut Part 3: Oooh, Swing and a Miss!!

Now we come to the point where Morrison is either trying too hard, or phoning it in. His run on Batman, for example, was not good. To be fair, from what I've read of the issues where Dick Grayson took over the mantle, it got better, but the R.I.P stuff and the arcs building up to that were not pulled off well. It was just weird, I'd pick up an issue, read it, and have no idea what was going on. Plot points would pop up and never get mentioned until several issues later when you forgot about it.

Dr. Hurt was underwhelming as a villain and seemed ill suited for being this great challenge. The portrayal of the Joker also fell flat.

This was a point of contention for Morrison fans as they used this run to tout their intellectualism. Anyone who didn't like it, was written off because they "didn't get it". You know what, you're right, I didn't get it and that's a bad thing when discussing a writer's work. It's one thing to create an intricate plot where the reader has to pay attention, but Morrison went beyond that and just created a mess. I'll pass. Give me Paul Dini's run on Detective Comics, instead.

Another series that bears mentioning is, Seven Soldiers of Victory. Like, Doom Patrol this is one I haven't had the chance to read myself. I've heard it's good, heck it even won an Eisner award, but the idea of Darkseid being a crime boss rubs me the wrong way. He's a cosmic embodiment of evil, for crying out loud. Crime bosses are interesting characters, but it seems like such a huge step down. I haven't read it, however, so I will try not to judge the work too harshly, at least until I've given it a fair chance by reading it.

Speaking of Darkseid, that brings us to Final Crisis. This is another work that didn't quite grab me the way I hoped it would. I was actually kind of going along with a lot of it, and then the last two issues happened and I rolled my eyes and said "no".

Going back to the "Bat-god" thing, Batman is the one who kills Darkseid. Even more frustrating, to some fans anyway, is the fact that he does it with a gun.

Beyond that, the final issue has Wonder Woman magically free herself from Darkseid's grasp with nary an explanation (and introducing an idea that Wonder Woman is telling this to children, something which had never come up before).

Then, after Darkseid has been defeated, a new villain shows up pretty much out of nowhere. Now, from what I've read, he played a part in one of the tie-ins, but that was still poorly handled. If you were just following the main seven issue series, you'd have no idea who this guy was or what his connection to any of it is.

I've heard that this series is far more effective in trade, allowing you to read it all at once, and the relevant tie-ins are included where they fit into the story, but I don't really care enough to check it out. I picked up the issues and was not impressed, so upping to the trade doesn't make a whole lot of sense from a consumer standpoint.

Wrapping it all up

With all of this rambling, what can we gather at the end of it all? Like any writer, Morrison has produced some work that doesn't quite hold up. He is, after all, only human. He does have some great works under his belt, but not enough that he warrants a title as one of the all time greats. If he had a bit more consistency, maybe, but as it is now, I don't see him holding the title. As to whether or not Morrison himself is overrated, that really depends on what you're looking at. As a whole, probably, but the stuff he's come up with that worked, worked really well. Those do live up to the hype, but Morrison falls victim to the law of averages in this case.

As a post script to this spiel, I will point out that I didn't include 52 because he was one of four writers on that series, where as all of the ones included here were made primarily by him. I liked 52 though, so if you're curious on that, I do recommend it.