- Read by: John Lee brings scholarly gravitas to Morrison’s blend of cultural history and memoir, though the shift between analytical and autobiographical registers occasionally asks more of him than the text supports.
- At its heart: myth and archetype, the counterculture roots of American comics, the biography of a creative mind
- Vibe: Intellectually exhilarating in parts, self-indulgent in others
- Short version: An essential document for comics scholars and Morrison devotees; those expecting a straightforward history of superheroes will need to accept the autobiography woven through it.
I started Supergods on a long train journey expecting a history of superhero comics and arrived at my destination having received something considerably stranger and more personal. Grant Morrison is not a dispassionate chronicler. He is one of the most significant writers in the history of the medium he is writing about, the creator of New X-Men, All-Star Superman, The Invisibles, Doom Patrol, Animal Man, and his history of the superhero is inseparable from his autobiography as someone whose imagination was shaped by those characters before he went on to reshape them himself.
The book begins in 1938 with Action Comics No. 1 and Superman, and works forward through the history of American superheroes as cultural artifacts: how they responded to World War II, how they survived the Comics Code Authority’s near-destruction of the medium, how the counterculture transformed them in the 1960s, how the darkness of the 1980s produced Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, and how the subsequent decades have seen superheroes migrate from niche subculture to global mythology. This first half is the book at its best: learned, enthusiastic, occasionally visionary in its readings of specific covers and story arcs.
A Closer Look at Supergods
The second half is where opinions divide sharply. As Morrison moves into the contemporary period, the historical narrative gives way to memoir, his own career, his experience writing for DC and Marvel, the period of magical practice and psychedelic experimentation that he credits with unlocking his most ambitious work. One reviewer, writing from the perspective of a longtime fan, describes this section as genuinely illuminating: Morrison’s first-person account of how he moved from the formal experimentation of Doom Patrol to the occult framework of The Invisibles to the grandeur of All-Star Superman reads as a primary document of one of contemporary culture’s more interesting creative processes.
Another reviewer, less sympathetic, describes it as a series of stories about getting high and writing comics punctuated by self-congratulation. Both accounts are recognizing the same thing. Morrison’s self-mythology is inseparable from the creative vision, and whether you find that compelling or tedious will determine your experience of the book’s second half significantly.
What Makes Supergods Worth Hearing
John Lee is a skilled narrator of demanding nonfiction, and he handles the tonal variability of Morrison’s text with competence. The analytical chapters, where Morrison is working through the cultural history of a specific era or reading a specific cover in detail, benefit from Lee’s ability to maintain analytical momentum without losing the underlying enthusiasm that makes Morrison’s criticism distinctive. The memoir sections require a different register, and Lee negotiates the shift with reasonable grace, though the more self-mythologizing passages occasionally land with less conviction than the historical ones.
At nearly seventeen hours, the full scope of Morrison’s project is substantial. This is not a book to approach looking for a quick survey of the genre’s history. It rewards listeners who come with some prior knowledge of the medium and the specific works Morrison discusses, and it is significantly richer for those who have read his comics.
Things to Know Before Starting Supergods
Morrison writes about his own experience of time spent in Kathmandu following an apparent contact experience he describes as alien communication. He presents this without irony and incorporates it into his broader framework about superheroes as genuine mythological entities active in the cultural imagination. How seriously any given reader takes this dimension of the book will depend on their tolerance for the kind of mystical pragmatism that Morrison has always brought to his work. For some readers it is the most interesting thing in the book; for others it marks the point at which the project loses its analytical grounding.
Who Grant Morrison Is Writing For
Listeners with a serious interest in comics history and theory will find the first half of this book essential. Fans of Grant Morrison’s work specifically will find the autobiographical sections an invaluable companion to understanding the creative decisions behind his major works. General readers who are curious about why superheroes have become the dominant mythology of the 21st century will find plenty to engage with, provided they accept that Morrison’s account is never purely objective. Those looking for a straightforward historical survey without the personal dimension should look at accounts like Gerard Jones’s Men of Tomorrow alongside this one.
Good to Know
Do you need to be a comics reader to get value from Supergods?
Some prior knowledge of superhero comics helps significantly, particularly for the second half of the book where Morrison discusses his own work in detail. Complete newcomers to the medium will find the history accessible but may miss the resonance of specific examples.
Is John Lee’s narration a good fit for Morrison’s distinctive voice?
Lee provides professional, clean narration that serves the historical sections well. Whether he captures the specific quality of Morrison’s prose personality is a matter of individual taste, listeners who know Morrison’s interviews and public speaking may find the match imperfect but functional.
