When Grant Morrison wrote your favorite character

[Jackalope89]

My fave is Jason Todd.
His Jason was one of the worst if not the worst Jason up to date.
In a great book, a fun book who was pretty good for Dick, who I also like quite a lot. But I am a big fan of Jason, and Jason was... well, let's just call him an imposter coming from another Earth and let it there with it.

My second fave in DC is Wally West. He wrote him in between other writers for a while with me barely noticing any change. Which is actually a good thing, because that whole run was good for Wally.

Grant Morrison's Jason Todd in "Batman & Robin" was atrocious and his writing was harmful to the character - big time. Even nearly 10 years later Jason still suffers from Morrison's character assassination.
I hope Morrison keeps his hands off the character. I dread the idea of him writing Jason again.

These two beat me to it. Morrison should never, ever, touch Jason Todd again. From the randomly being a red head (doesn't work with post-crisis Jason) to being mustache twirling villain, rather than a vigilante that had a serious hatred for rapists and those that targeted kids (not mutually exclusive, but still), but didn't kill willy-nilly. Morrison's character assassination of Jason still has an effect on the character to this day.

Morrison has done some really good runs on other characters, but was awful when he had Jason.

[Franny6422]

No-one mentioning his 'Animal Man?

[scribbleMind]

It is difficult for me to talk about what Morrison did or did not do for Animal Man because I know little of how Animal Man was portrayed before Morrison. We all know it was an important run in the characters's life, probably the definitive run, but it is hard for me to go any deeper than that. Personally, Morrison's run is center of the "Animal Man" trilogy. I like Lemire's Animal Man the most, Grant Morrison's second, and Vertigo's last. While the vertigo run is still quality, for me, it felt like it was often too edgy for edgy's sake.

[Ascended]

I only ever read one issue of his Animal Man.

It was an interesting issue, but that's all I can say about it since I had no idea what was going on.

[Adekis]

These two beat me to it. Morrison should never, ever, touch Jason Todd again. From the randomly being a red head (doesn't work with post-crisis Jason) to being mustache twirling villain, rather than a vigilante that had a serious hatred for rapists and those that targeted kids (not mutually exclusive, but still), but didn't kill willy-nilly. Morrison's character assassination of Jason still has an effect on the character to this day.

Morrison has done some really good runs on other characters, but was awful when he had Jason.

I think Morrison in general doesn't do well on anti-heroes or anti-villains. He's great with heroic heroes, complex heroes, and incredibly depraved and evil villains - but he's not good with anti-heroes. Didn't he make Magneto just a straight up bad guy after years of him being increasingly morally ambiguous and even approaching "good"?

Red Hood is similar - pretty much inherent to Red Hood is the fact that he's got a point, and that's what makes him a good foil for Bruce and Dick in the first place. Morrison did not entertain that possibility, and turned in a pretty irredeemably awful Jaybird because of it!

[Zaresh]

I think Morrison in general doesn't do well on anti-heroes or anti-villains. He's great with heroic heroes, complex heroes, and incredibly depraved and evil villains - but he's not good with anti-heroes. Didn't he make Magneto just a straight up bad guy after years of him being increasingly morally ambiguous and even approaching "good"?

Red Hood is similar - pretty much inherent to Red Hood is the fact that he's got a point, and that's what makes him a good foil for Bruce and Dick in the first place. Morrison did not entertain that possibility, and turned in a pretty irredeemably awful Jaybird because of it!

Not only that. He turned him into someone who was some Bond-level version of a showman youtuber pre-youtube, if he were a very, very violent Disney villain. It was out of character. Jason is dramatic, just like Bruce. And can talk his antagonists a lot, just like Dick. But not like that. With me marathon-reading, coming from Jason in Under the Hood and Countdown, it was unbelievable that he was supposed to be the same character. I get what he tried to do, but he would've better used other character, imho.

[Vakanai]

I dont really agree with your second point. Its not really the intent to confound. Sometimes it goes overboard and gets too confusing for its own good, but most of the time i find his runs reward multiple readings and come together. Saying creative writing is only for clear communication is i feel too reductive.

To each their own, but I feel like "rewards multiple readings" is more like finding new layers and depths to a story, not figuring out what the heck was going on. But that's just me. Suffice it to say I'm not a fan of the style at all.

[SiegePerilous02]

I think Morrison in general doesn't do well on anti-heroes or anti-villains. He's great with heroic heroes, complex heroes, and incredibly depraved and evil villains - but he's not good with anti-heroes. Didn't he make Magneto just a straight up bad guy after years of him being increasingly morally ambiguous and even approaching "good"?

Red Hood is similar - pretty much inherent to Red Hood is the fact that he's got a point, and that's what makes him a good foil for Bruce and Dick in the first place. Morrison did not entertain that possibility, and turned in a pretty irredeemably awful Jaybird because of it!

With Magneto, he has the in-universe explanation that he's being controlled by Sublime after taking the Kick drug. Sublime is ramping up his worst tendencies. It was sort of Morrison trying to have it both ways, because while Magneto was in more morally gray territory for a lot of his history he has his Silver Age appearances where he's a complete villainous asshole. While I'm largely unfamiliar with 90s X-Men, I know he got up to some villainous stuff there as well. Unfortunately, Marvel did not pay attention and did the Xorneto retcon instead of just resurrection Magneto and purging him of Sublime's influence.

To each their own, but I feel like "rewards multiple readings" is more like finding new layers and depths to a story, not figuring out what the heck was going on. But that's just me. Suffice it to say I'm not a fan of the style at all.

That's fine, not every style clicks with every reader. I definitely disliked Morrison for many reasons at first, and then something just clicked and now he's one of my favorites. I think most of his stories fall into the bolded category.

He does have some issues where I think he just goes a little too self indulgent and makes things almost impenetrable though. For me that's Final Crisis, the last few bits of his Action Comics run and the Mr. Mircale portion of Seven Soldiers.

[Vakanai]

With Magneto, he has the in-universe explanation that he's being controlled by Sublime after taking the Kick drug. Sublime is ramping up his worst tendencies. It was sort of Morrison trying to have it both ways, because while Magneto was in more morally gray territory for a lot of his history he has his Silver Age appearances where he's a complete villainous asshole. While I'm largely unfamiliar with 90s X-Men, I know he got up to some villainous stuff there as well. Unfortunately, Marvel did not pay attention and did the Xorneto retcon instead of just resurrection Magneto and purging him of Sublime's influence.



That's fine, not every style clicks with every reader. I definitely disliked Morrison for many reasons at first, and then something just clicked and now he's one of my favorites. I think most of his stories fall into the bolded category.

He does have some issues where I think he just goes a little too self indulgent and makes things almost impenetrable though. For me that's Final Crisis, the last few bits of his Action Comics run and the Mr. Mircale portion of Seven Soldiers.

And I disagree, of the few books of his I read, I didn't reread them to find new depth, I read them to piece together some basic plot elements and was going on in some scenes. But again, to each their own. I get that he's popular, I just don't get the why. Maybe character trumps story? I don't know. But I don't think I'll warm up to his way of writing any time soon.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Hal Jordan is one of my favorite characters. I'm so over his run on Green Lantern, though. What started out as promising has basically floundered to the point where I don't even know what he's trying to accomplish on the book.