Daredevil Message Board

[Neilan]

This is gonna be long. Sorry.

Well, I just finished The Invisibles, and it was very good. I thank James Castle for the strong recommendation. I have to say that I didn’t find it to be a life-changing experience, but it was certainly an enjoyable one. The heavy volume of lines, concepts and ideas taken from other material, including some of Morrison’s earlier work, was staggering. I recently realized, after reading the Harry Potter series, that just because an author borrows heavily from other sources, doesn’t mean the end result can’t feel original. And, I’m not totally sure, but I think it was Milton Berle who said, “if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best”. There were so many pop culture references crammed into Morrison’s psychedelic, paranoid, violent, sex-filled, acid tripping, time traveling tale, most of them, luckily for me, among my own personal favorites. With the complexity and density of the story, I found myself almost overwhelmed by the vast array of pop references that were flying about. So I started logging the ones that were particularly meaningful to me. Here are some of them:

The first arc and introduction to the story seemed heavily influenced by Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan books, A Clockwork Orange and Peter Max with a V For Vendetta undertone. I have to say that I personally found Castaneda’s books to be, if not life changing, perspective changing, at the very least. This is the only literature that has ever made me think that there could really be spirits walking the earth besides us. And I did not ingest any of the drugs that Castaneda and Don Juan took. The man truly believed, and got others to believe, that he exhibited the ability to tap into the magic of the earth. The scene in the Invisibles, where Mad Tom gets Dane to see through the crow’s eyes as he flies through the sky was a direct lift from Castaneda, but enjoyable none the less. Dane’s misanthropy and disaffection seemed to mirror Alex and his droogs in Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange”. Especially when Dane was sent to Harmony House for an attitude adjustment. I heard an interesting story about the Stanley Kubrick film. People in England got so jacked up from seeing A Clockwork Orange, that the film had to be banned in order to avoid inciting major violent events. A few years before he died, when there was a movement afoot to remove the ban, the leading proponent for keeping the ban against showing the film was Kubrick, himself. In the Invisibles arc, the prayers to the floating head of John Lennon were very reminiscient of Peter Max’s work.

In the second arc, the 2 main influences that came across to me were Doom Patrol and The Matrix. Dane is like the Matrix’s Neo, in that he is the designated one. The next Buddah. A common enough theme, throughout history, from the Bible to Star Wars, but like offering the red pill in The Matrix, the Invisibles have to wake you from the dream that is reality. The thing is, since Morrison’s book predates the films, then perhaps The Matrix was influenced by The Invisibles. The odd characters, weird aliens, and shadowy X-Files type government spooks, were straight out of Morrison’s own Doom Patrol. I found many similarities between the two, but felt The Invisibles sense of humor about the absurd was much subtler than Doom Patrol.

The third arc was a potent cocktail, 1 part Aleister Crowley and 2 parts Marquis de Sade, mixed well with the established drug and time tripping, alien conspiracy story.

The next issue, #10, a standalone, was a particular favorite of mine, an ironic voodoo tale, with the kind of ending you would see in the old Stan Lee/Steve Ditko pre-superhero stories, but much more mature and graphic.

Issue #11 had some Poe, a lot of H.P. Lovecraft and a tip of the hat to 2 great films, Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast and the often imitated The World’s Most Dangerous Game.

Borrowing a story telling device from Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, issue #12 is a thoroughly enjoyable tale that moves at a fast pace and doesn’t feel forced when it circles back to its beginnings.

In the next arc, when transvestite Lord Fanny’s origin is told, the Don Juan comparisons really fly and Dane’s story seems to get a reboot of the Matrix.

The tone and feel of the Invisibles, to this point, had already seemed to invoke one of my top 10 TV series of all time, The Prisoner. The arc of #17-19 featured an obvious homage to the show, which I thought was 1 of the 2 best spy shows on TV, the other one being the Avengers. In the 60’s there was a very popular spy show on television called Secret Agent Man, starring Patrick McGoohan. It was during the heyday of the James Bond era and toward the height of the Cold War. It had a hard driving rock and roll theme song, “There’s a man who lives a life of danger. Everywhere he goes he stays a stranger. . . Secret Agent Man! Secret Agent Man! They’re giving you a number and taking away your name.” Anyway, in the show’s last episode, the secret agent man goes into headquarters and quits his job. The next season, Patrick McGoohan starred in and executive produced a new show called The Prisoner. The show was his idea and only lasted 1 season. In the 1st episode, he storms into his boss’ office, quits and drives home, where he’s gassed. When he wakes up, he’s on an island, in the middle of nowhere. He’s told he now lives in The Village, where no one has a name, just a number. He is #6. He’s repeatedly interrogated by #2, who wants to know why #6 quit his secret agent job. Every week, #6 would almost succumb to #2’s heavy mind games but would manage to turn the tables on him/her. Every week a new #2 would take the place of his/her disgraced predecessor. It was never clear which side ran The Village. #1 was never shown until the existential last episode. I’ve watched this episode more than a half a dozen times and I still can’t quite come to grips with it. This show absolutely blew my mind. Most people from that time period, probably remember Rover, the electronically controlled ectoplasmic bubble, that looked like a refugee from the world’s largest lava lamp. Rover would capture anyone who attempted to escape via land, or sea. It would envelop the fugitive and then head back to its undersea base to deliver the captive. The last issue of this Invisibles arc, #19, also had a snippet of the most intense episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation. It’s the one where Captain Picard is taken prisoner and is subjected to brainwashing where his captor tries to convince him he’s seeing three lights when there are only two. By the end you can empathize with the willingness to just give in.

In issue #21, Dane comes home to his mum, who compares his adventures to Dr. Who. Morrison acknowledges another influence.

Well, I should stop already. Hopefully, you get the drift. There’s a lot that went into this book and if you are the right person and in the right frame of mind, you can get a lot out of this book. I haven’t read any William Burroughs, another ingredient in The Invisibles stew, but my summation would be that in this title, Morrison pukes up so many pop culture references, that if you can get through your disgust, there’s an excellent feast to be had.

Oh and I forgot to mention Gideon Stargrave, a precursor to Austin Powers. And the reference to the Kinks, long a favorite band of mine, and a quintessentially British one. The music from their 3 decades+ career would make a great soundtrack for an Invisibles movie. And in vol. 2, detective sergeant George, who looks like Shaggy, says something about how they “usually have the ghosts caught by now”, a reference to a cultural icon that I wasn’t very fond of, Scooby Doo. It was still funny.

I felt throughout this title that all the diverse elements could never be brought to a coherent conclusion, but issues 4, 3 and 2 in Vol. 3 (the last 12 issues are numbered backwards, from 12 down to 1) had the right combination of legitimate surprise, irony and enough logic, to bring it to a satisfying end. And finally, in the time spanning epilogue, the last issue, #1, reminded me that there were still big questions to which I had no answers to, like where did Barbelith come from and who was the astronaut who may, or may not, have killed it, thus bringing me back to the state of mind that I had been in throughout reading The Invisibles. Or more likely, I have the answers, but just haven’t realized it yet. I will no doubt need to read and reread the last issue before being able to make much sense of it. I anticipate it being like that last Prisoner episode, ridiculously confusing, yet satisfyingly memorable.
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It's never too late to have a happy childhood!

[james castle]

Actually the whole Matrix thing is a bit of a sticky subject. Morrison has always held that the Matrix boys did a direct lift from The Invisibles. I'd have to agree. The themes, plots and style of the Matrix ape The Invisibles way too much for it to be a coincidence. Further than that, though, apparently the Matrix guys admit to having handed out copies of The Invisibles trades on set to "inspire" designers and whatnot.

Morrison's actually pretty cool about it. He just sort of points out that the Matrix guys are idiots for trying to rip him off and makes fun of the second two movies (in which they clearly stray from The Invisibles and therefore suck).

The funniest thing is that Morrison says the thing he hates the most about the whole thing is that he can't dress like he used to. King Mob is based on Morrison himself and therefore Morrison used to actually dress like King Mob does in the comics. But now that The Matrix characters ripped of KM's style Morrison can't dress like that for fear of being thought of as dressing up like a Matrix character.
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JC

So why can't you see the funny side?
Why aren't you laughing?