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The Invisibles Vol 7 The Invisible Kingdom Grant Morrison Books

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The Invisibles Vol 7 The Invisible Kingdom Grant Morrison Books

Lots of twists and turns, the series is very abstarct, but rewards the focuses reader. This was a great finale to an ambitious series.


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The Invisibles Vol 7 The Invisible Kingdom Grant Morrison Books Reviews

Here it is, the final book of creator/writer Grant Morrison's Invisibles series. Books 1-3 collected Volume 1, Books 4-6 collected Volume 2, and Book 7 collects Volume 3 in its entirety. The previous two volumes had been over twenty issues each, but Volume 3 was only 12 issues, something which seems to spark much debate, these days.

I have seen many claims that Volume 3 was only 12 issues due to low sales, that DC/Vertigo requested Morrison to wrap up his series in half the time, to cut costs. This is simply not true. Volume 3 is Morrison's full vision; nothing was cut out due to editorial constraints. Here are Morrison's exact words, shortly before beginning Volume 3 "Volume 3 will appear as three four-part arcs-`Satanstorm'; `Karmageddon' and `The Invisible Kingdom'- in 1999. And then it's all done and I can go off and have my mid-life crisis in Tibet. There are some fears that this may not work and that `sales' will be dealt a permanent blow, but I prefer to have faith in all you wunnerful people out there who've stayed on the bus so far, and I'd like to think you'd rather see The Invisibles completed as intended than have me hack it out to meet a monthly deadline."

As it's the final book in the series, you might expect The Invisible Kingdom to answer questions and end the long journey. Unfortunately, you would be mistaken. In fact, most of Volume 3 doesn't even feel like the Invisibles we know and love. Where Volume 1 was slow-paced and focused on characterization, and Volume 2 was focused on action and metaphysics, Volume 3 seems like a totally different series. The main cause for this is that the Invisibles themselves are relegated to supporting-character status; Mr. Six and his Division X pals and archvillain Sir Miles Delacourt instead get the most "screen time," with King Mob, Jack, and Fanny reduced to small parts.

To make things worse, when Morrison DOES feature the Invisibles, instead of using the characters we already know, he instead tortures us with a new Invisible named Helga, who is probably the most annoying character in the series. Morrison obviously doesn't think so, however, as he gives Helga just about every "cool" line and "outrageous" action he can think of, in an attempt to make her cutting edge. Instead, she comes off as an annoyingly pretentious bore, and it doesn't help that Morrison fails to give her any sort of background or emotional makeup. What makes this all the more frustrating is that he uses this character so much, and totally ignores more interesting female Invisibles Ragged Robin and Boy. It's like Morrison ran out of ideas for the main characters, and had to come up with someone new to carry the plot; the problem is, he couldn't have chosen a worse lead character.

That being said, Book 7 picks up with Mr. Six and Division X, last seen in Book 3 "Entropy in the UK." They're still hot on the trail of Miles Delacourt and the monstrous "future king" of England. Meanwhile, Mr. Six strives to help his teammates remember that they're actually undercover Invisibles agents. In addition to this, Six and Helga attempt to deprogram Sir Miles. While this is going on, Jack Frost is in Africa with Jolly Roger, where he comes closer to realizing his Buddhahood. King Mob is mostly out of the picture, off meditating in India, trying to rid himself of the need to kill.

After laying to rest 99 year-old Invisible Edith, King Mob et al reunite for the final showdown with Miles Delacourt and the demonic Archons he serves. This culminates in a satanic crowning of the monstrous king on August 11, 1999, in a horrific ceremony which entails the butchering of children and homeless victims. Instead of an action scene as in Volume 2, the events play out more along the lines of the mystical denouement of Volume 1, with Jack Frost once again proving he is the most powerful human alive.

The above two paragraphs make the events of Volume 3 sound rather simplistic. This is not the case. As I mentioned, since this is the final volume of the series, one might expect Morrison to answer questions. Instead, he chooses to make Volume 3 as opaque and difficult as possible. Even the dialog doesn't help to sort things out; the characters don't talk to each other, they trade "I'm too cool" banter. What makes this all the more grating is that Morrison so obviously has taken his themes and plots from the works of Robert Anton Wilson and Terrence McKenna; but unlike those authors, who always guide the reader through their labyrinthine visions, Morrison instead tosses everything into a blender and hopes it all comes out "cool." Therefore, the chance for any emotional impact is pretty much lost.

Volume 3 is saved by the final story of the series, "Glitterdammerung." Fully illustrated by Frank Quitely, this is possibly the single best issue of the Invisibles. The previous 11 issues of Volume 3 wrapped up the series storyline, but it was up to "Glitterdammerung" to explain what the series itself was all about. Set in 2012 , the story operates more as a metaphysical look back at the series than as a linear tale. It does tie up several subplots, and also ends the series on a defiantly anarchic note, as Jack Frost frees himself from the confines of the comic itself. This story alone gives Book 7 a 4-star rating.

The secret revealed in Book 7 is this (avoid this paragraph if you hate spoilers, though if you know this, it probably wouldn't "spoil" anything, anyway!) the Invisibles is a game, one that is being played by someone (John A'Dreams? Jack Frost? YOU?). Toward the very end of the series, several characters begin to figure this out, most notably John A'Dreams, a white-suited former Invisible who disappeared before the events in Book 1 "Say You Want a Revolution." The idea is that the Invisibles is a reality-model experienced by those who wish to gain gnosis; hence the many, many times the phrase "Remember. It's just a game" was stated throughout Books 1-6. This entails the characters realizing they are not only works of fiction, but that each of them might even be the same person, only playing different characters, or "suits," as one enlightened character calls them. I've always felt this is Morrison's skewed way of interpreting the gnostic "all are one" belief, that all humans share one collective, unconscious soul - aka "God."

The art in Volume 3 is a mess. Volume 1 of the Invisibles was plagued with a succession of artists, some good, some terrible. Volume 2 corrected this in a big way. Unfortunately Volume 3 goes back to Volume 1 territory, only it's worse. Instead of different artists handling different story arcs, multiple artists work on the SAME story. This was a terrible idea on Morrison's part, and I think it backfired on him, as the art was so underwhelming in some places that DC/Vertigo had to have certain pages re-illustrated for this collection. Book 7 starts off promising enough, with Philip Bond and Warren Pleece's cartoonish art, but then it quickly falls to pieces when the "multiple artist" scenario rears its head. Quitely saves the day at the end however, and his art on "Glitterdammerung" is just as phenomenal as his work on Morrison's "Flex Mentallo." Special mention must also be made of Brian Bolland's cover art for this trade paperback. He's "remixed" the 12 original covers he did for Volume 3; one in particular, a "Sgt Pepper's" send-up, would make for a perfect poster.

Even though this review has been mostly negative, Book 7 is still required reading for all those who have made it this far. Morrison finishes the series in the fashion he intended from the start, and the character arcs are unique and inspiring. For example, what other work of fiction would feature a character like King Mob, who realizes over the course of the series that he's degenerating into a killer? Bruce Willis can kill umpteen terrorists in the "Die Hard" films and not once question if he himself is becoming as murderous as his enemies; King Mob instead gains enlightenment, and realizes that all life is precious. Of course, if something like this happened in a mainstream action film, audiences would write it off as tree-hugging schlock. But here it works, mostly because Morrison aimed for something higher with the Invisibles. And most of the time, he succeeded.
Well - am I glad THAT’S over with!

It took me over a month to read this final book. I would pick it up, read a page or two, then put it back down, thoroughly dejected. Some days I would open it up, stare at the page for a moment not reading, barely seeing, and put it back down again. Finally this weekend, I forced myself to get through this so I no longer have to stare at it staring back at me on my desk and so I can say that I’ve read the complete Invisibles series.

Well, I’ve finished it now - but I don’t think it was worth it.

I’d normally try to write a summary of the book and try to contextualise it before the review but, flicking through it once more, there’s no point - I have no idea what happened in this book other than the series ended. Actually I just came across one panel that perfectly sums up the series a “character” is taking pictures of a toilet and calling it the Holy Grail. The Invisibles is a critically acclaimed piece of crap!

Usually by the end of a series, there’s been a storyline building up and you’re looking forward to its resolution but to be honest I’ve never really known what The Invisibles is about. The Invisibles are some abstract terrorist cell fighting conspiracies across the world that happen to be real and in this one they’re supposed to stop the coronation of a monster from another dimension who’s going to be King of England or something. Which they do in about 40 pages of brain-mashing nonsense. So what happens in the remaining 250 pages?

Weeeeell… there’s about 100 pages of gibberish as the various members of The Invisibles train (doing karate, flying jets, doing drugs) while Sir Miles (the villain) is tied to a chair in a windmill (or a time machine) and goes through some weird mental conditioning.

These first 100 pages meant nothing to me. What flying a jet had to do with anything went totally over my head, especially as it has nothing to do with the rest of the book. Doing karate and practicing martial arts? They never use either. Mental conditioning Sir Miles? Useless because he’s some kind of next-level Mason who can withstand the conditioning. So why allow The Invisibles to do this in the first place? It wastes his time, it wastes their time (granted they don’t know it’s wasting their time), it wastes the reader’s time, and neither The Invisibles or Sir Miles learn anything useful. So this first 100 pages is just Grant Morrison wasting everyone’s time, showing us, once again, how learned he is by cramming in reference after reference to all aspects of culture. It’s not interesting, it’s hella boring.

The next 100 pages follows the most tedious “character” in the series, Edith, an old flapper from the 1920s who’s now 99 years old and dying. She was once King Mob’s lover and they spend 100 pages being pretentious together, talking about philosophy and what happens when you die. I honestly just wanted to throw the book away rather than suffer through these issues.

By the way I’m putting the word character in quotation marks because at no point do any of these people feel remotely real. They all sound exactly the same, they all talk the same pseudo-philosophical/spiritual crap, and they’re all flat as pancakes. They also just drop in and out of the story for no reason. Most of the book takes place in England but characters from America and the rest of the world appear out of nowhere and then disappear just as abruptly.

So that covers 240 pages of this 290 page book - the remaining 50 pages, I have absolutely no idea. It’s the end of the world or something and I couldn’t understand a single caption or piece of dialogue. And then it ends with Jack talking to the reader to basically wake up. Good thing too as I’d read these last 50 pages completely numb.

Can you see why it took me over a month to get through this turgid rubbish? By this seventh volume, The Invisibles has ceased to be a comic with any narrative, characters, etc. and has become a bizarre pamphlet where Morrison can spew out his thoughts on this, that and everything. It’s so self-indulgent, it’s unbelievable.

The only reason I’m giving it more than one star is because of the remarkable roster of artists assembled for this final, bloated hurrah - from Frank Quitely to Sean Phillips, Philip Bond to Chris Weston, Cameron Stewart to Jill Thompson, and about 10 other artists, I loved most of the art in this book and was quite often the one thing keeping me going. I was surprised not to see Phil JImenez contribute though, seeing as he’s drawn the majority of this series.

I’m actually a really big fan of Morrison’s work which is why I forced myself through the whole series even though, if I’m being honest, I stopped enjoying it after the first volume! I kept hoping - and other fans of the series kept telling me - that it would get better, it would start making sense, and so on, but it just happened, for me anyway. I’m not saying anyone who likes this series is wrong but for whatever reason it just never clicked for me. But I can see why there have been books written about The Invisibles because, if nothing else, Morrison has crammed all kinds of strange ideas and theories into this title, so there’s a lot of rich material to extrapolate and ponder upon.

The only problem with that approach is that it’s extremely boring to read - replacing things like narrative and characters with half-baked ideas, druggy visions, and an incoherent, experimental style to communicating them that’s almost anti-sober-reader just alienates the audience, as they can’t figure out what the hell is happening.

When you put no effort into creating characters, the reader won’t care about them; when you put no effort into the story, there’s no narrative tension or drive to interest the reader; Morrison just heaps reference upon reference of esoteric stuff that unless the reader is already interested in them, like his views on the Kabbalah or whatever, you’re not going to be remotely engaged with the book.

If The Invisibles is anything, it’s an extended display of Morrison stroking his own ego in front of an audience for seven lengthy books. And it goes from being dull to read, to annoying, and finally exhausting. I’ll re-read other Morrison books but I’ll never come back to The Invisibles.

It’s done - MY sentence is up.
Well, the end of the series was a definite improvement over the previous volume. Where the plot seemed to me to be falling apart, most of the threads were finally pulled back in and woven together, though I still found it a bit excessively disjointed--though perhaps that is a deliberate tactic for keeping the reader off balance, like many of the choices Fellini made for his Satyricon. I'm glad I pushed through, and at the same time I don't think I'll be recommending it frequently; not to say it was bad, just that, even though it uses many elements I like, it's not my thing. I don't like ketchup on hot dogs either.
...but it seems like Grant himself, whom I respect, didn't know how to wrap things up. This TPB is the MOST disgusting one , considering splatter put in the story, and, sometimes plain boring. End is unclear, and reminds me of what Arthur Clarke said once 'I don't explain anything'. Puzzling ending for my fave characters, could it have been better?
thanks
Lots of twists and turns, the series is very abstarct, but rewards the focuses reader. This was a great finale to an ambitious series.