Thoughts on "The Invisibles"

"Initiation never ends."

Today I finished reading Grant Morrison's hypersigil series, The Invisibles. I started reading these graphic novels probably a year ago but it took me this long to get through the seven books because the sheer quantity of information contained within is incredible and my brain can only download it bit by bit. Also, the books are somewhat hard to find as many of the entries were nicked from my local library, they are simply not carried by Barnes and Noble, and would generally have to be ordered from an independent bookstore. I'd say do what you can to take a look at the print copies, but if not, while writing this blog I came across an online database of the comics at http://www.jayfrankenberger.com/invisibles/ This series comes highly reccommended, not only for the quality art and metacomic style but also for its ability to fracture one's ego. I'd say most readily comparable to Gaiman's "The Sandman," which is known for its well crafted narrative dimension, The Invisibles proves itself through its conceptual play and psychadelic pomp.

The action centers around a group of five anarchist freedom fighters who each take a role representing one of the five classic elements and opens with their leader King Mob (who is essentially a tantric assassin reproduction of Morrison himself) seeking out a replacement for a recently vanished team member. This leads him to Liverpool where his is told he'll find the next Buddha in the form of a foul-mouthed, delinquent youth, who gradually comes to accept his fated place in the group under the codename Jack Frost. Jack is initially trained in the basics of esotericism by a crazed vagabond on the streets of London, Tom o' Bedlam- yes a play on the King Lear figure-, who is in fact a skilled green magician that commits suicide by jumping off a building and simultaneously introducing Jack to the Invisible College which exists in a separate dimension on the outer reaches of the universe. The Invisible College serves as a counter faction to the Outer Church, a malevolent, sickened dimension of evil where some particularly nasty demons are attempting to usurp control of Earth through steady invasion and subversion of socio-political institutions. Throughout the seven entries of the series, the Invisibles, who are a rather large group existing across space and time, operating individually or in these cells of five members, come to battle the various agents of the Outer Church who have, amongst numerous other power structures, the US military on their side. The battle against the Outer Church revolves amidst a fantastic variety of subplots and side stories, hinging on the achievement of time travel by another main character, Ragged Robin, an LSD-dropping sorceress from 2012 who travels back to '88 to write herself into a story she reads called "The Invisibles" and hence ensure the success of the team, enabling the future to progress more smoothly.

The story mostly takes place in the '90s and at times ventures into the 1920s, 2000s, fringes of space-time reality, and culminates with the evolution of mankind out of 4-D existence on 12-22-2012 which is facilitated by a benevolent placenta-like satellite residing on the dark side of the moon. The variety of main and supporting characters visit locales around England and the US including conspiracy hotbeds Dulce, NM, and Glastonbury. Much of the narrative centers around events in Varanasi, India, the Invisibles' training academy in North Africa, plus plenty of alien abduction sequences.

One thing's for sure, Morrison's not shy about sexuality. Glorifying the philosophies of Wilhelm Reich through the character of the Marquis Desade- transported into the present day after being rescued by the main cast from the guillotine during France's perverted Age of Reason- and giving Hindu tantrism a starring role, Morrison experiments with the degree to which sexuality would play in configuring a utopia/dystopia, even including Stanislaw Grof's theories as means of explaining the connection between sex and cognative restructuring of emotional trauma. While rife with all sorts of different nude forms, the emphasis is on the futility of sexual gratification in a futurized version of the 2000s where much of the population exists for the sake of pornography which has merged to become synonymous with the media. Rightly though, Morrison ends the series without ever professing any ideological stance on the topic, having introduced characters who range from trannies to celibates to fetishists to playboys and everything in between (literally, there's a character who is a "non" as in without any sex).

The true skill of Morrison though is not in his inclusion of concepts from just about every single philosophical, mystic and religious tradition one can think of, but in exploring the depths of specifically language, space/time, and the ego. These ideas are most succinctly summarized in the series by a character called the Blind Chessman whose only three or four brief appearances always directly touch on the quintessence of these realities which plague our existence. The revelations are brain shattering in addition to some interesting monologues by the character Mason Lang, a Bruce Wayne-esque wealthiest man in the world who finances the operations of the protagonists' cell and the creation of the time machine, all the while enlightening the group and reader to the esoteric meanings of a number of Hollywood films. Make no mistake though, in navigating these heavy concepts, the storylines of the characters do not suffer. Intricately developed and pivotal to the development of the plot, the core group of Invisibles along with their main nemesis, Sir Miles Delacourt, a 333rd degree anti-Mason with security clearance higher than all the leaders of the world combined, consistently struggle with the complexities of love and their own emerging and vanishing compassion. Fueling the ever-developing progression of the characters' understanding of reality in the increasingly self-aware condition of the universe is the inevitable blending of opposites into nonduality as the Invisibles ultimately coalesce with the mass population and the remnants of the Outer Church into a new being as the series concludes, epitomized in the final line, "We made God and jailers because we felt small and ashamed and alone. We let them try us and judge us and, like sheep to slaughter, we allowed ourselves to be...sentenced. See! Now! Our sentence is up."

I must speak a bit on the art as well. The team Morrison has assembled for this project is as epic as their endeavors. Splicing the talents of nearly the entire Vertigo payroll into a cohesive work is no small task. Shifting seamlessly between locales, continents, eras, dimensions, realms, perspectives, memes, interfaces, intoxications, realities, etc. the stylistic expertise is evident from issue 1 to the final comic, also ironically issue 1. In addition to the alternatively beautiful and grotesque art, the expansive layouts, frequently tweaked lettering, and ingenuitive covers add the perfect touches to Morrison's ultra-conspiracy.

Well if you haven't read the comics, check them out at the link in the first paragraph, or for the abbreviated version of Morrison's madness, search google video or youtube for Grant Morrison at DisInfo Con. He gets a bit into sigil magic, which I don't quite understand and have never really tried since I practice a different sort of cultivation that's centered on ridding oneself of attachments and sigils seem to reinforce them. Let me know if I'm wrong. Also, if you have read the comics let me know what you've thought of them or feel free to give some reccomendations of similar works. Peace!