The Unpublished Grant Morrison - Creator Owned Titles

PANTHEON (1993)

One of a trio of interlinking super-hero tales that would make up a 12 issue series intended for Image, the other two being The High Five and Mister Ink. The series' came about after Morrison finished his Flex Mentallo scripts for DC and stem from the ideas and concepts of that series.

"The twelve issue series is the widescreen, commercial expression of what I'd come up with," said Morrison in a 1993 interview, "and the Flex story is the pure, undiluted essence of what superheroes are about and what they are capable of communicating".

As Morrison's only work for Image, issues #16-18 of Todd McFarlane's Spawn, was published soon after the interview, we can only assume that the setup there was less to Morrison's liking than he originally hoped, despite rumours he earned a staggering $1million in royalties for the 3 scripts.

Concievably, the underlying concept of the Pantheon may have evolved into Morrison's JLA, well-publicized to be based on the Gods of Greek mythology. "These are the myths of the DC Universe, the pantheon." (Comiquando 24, 1996). Perhaps the roots of the Image-esque Hyperclan characters featured in the first JLA arc have their origins here also. The interlinking mini-series idea later surfaced in Seven Soldiers.

Speaking in Wizard Magazine of his plans for his then-upcoming WildC.A.T.s series with Jim Lee, Morrison mentioned an upcoming storyline called 'Gen 23' which would see the introduction of new characters including "Boss Drum, Baby Universe, Machine Elf of The High Five and more", possibly as part of a revamped Wetworks team. The 'Machine Elf' name comes from a term coined by Terence McKenna to refer to entities you apparently might encounter while high on dimethyltryptamine. In the end, Morrison and Lee never made it past one issue of WildC.A.T.s and Machine Elf never made an appearance.

BIZARRE BOYS (1993)

From The Time Is Now: DC Comics' Editorial Presentation 1994 -

"VERTIGO does what it does best in VERTIGO VOICES - a new umbrella title for four distinctive one-shots - where four of VERTIGO's most creatively deranged writers give voice to their most outrageous, gripping and graphic imaginings. Each "VOICE" delivers its own sound, in turn hyperreal, darkly disturbing, irreverent, and biting. FACE is the first "VOICE" to be heard, followed by KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND, and closing with BIZARRE BOYS. These are stories with sounds all their own, tearing a jagged rip through reality.

BIZARRE BOYS, VERTIGO VOICES' most irreverent title, is a story within a story within a story. It's about some fictional characters called the Bizarre Boys, and about the writers who write them and about the writers who are writing about the writers... There are two voices telling the tale of BIZARRE BOYS, and they don't agree with each other at all.

BIZARRE BOYS is a comic about a comic and about the process of putting together a comic. It's a sparkling tapestry of post-modernism and a fast- moving breathless chase across time and space.

It all takes place - naturally - on Bizarre Boys Day, when writers Peter Milligan (SHADE, THE CHANGING MAN) and Grant Morrison (THE INVISIBLES) join forces with artist Jamie Hewlett (SHADE, THE CHANGING MAN, Tank Girl) to tell the tale of two writers called Millison and Morrigan, and their fabulous creations, The Bizarre Boys. Echoing James Joyce's Bloomsday, whatever events happen on Bizarre Boys Day also happen in the comic.

As the two writers begin their quest for the fantastic Bizarre Boys, whose sweat contains miraculous healing and hallucinogenic properties, these latter-day Brothers Grimm weave some dissolute modern fairy tales, take the wraps off the creative process itself, and tell a joke or three.

"I think it's a breakthrough piece," says Milligan, and that could well be the understatement of the year.

At some point between the solicitation for the Vertigo Rave promotional one-shot in June 1994 and the magazine's appearance on the stands three months later, Bizarre Boys was cancelled, replaced in the schedule by Peter Milligan and Dean Ormston's The Eaters. From a webchat Morrison took part in at the now-defunct Next Planet Over site in 1999 -

"Pete Milligan and I did half of the script (32 pages), then Jamie Hewlett dropped out and we all lost interest. The half that was done is hysterical and very dark. I can't imagine it being published right now at the new Ned Flanders-approved Vertigo but times change and who knows?"

INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN (2000-2004)

Originally conceived as the final part of a "hypersigil" trilogy comprising this, The Invisibles and The Filth, Morrison teased this project for a number of years after the conclusion of The Invisibles but remained tight-lipped about its content. The project was abandoned after Morrison realised he had aready explored many of the series key themes in his 1993 Flex Mentallo mini series.

Indestuctible Man was possibly intended as an update of/homage to Gerry Anderson's 1960's Supermarionation TV show Captain Scarlet. The contemporaneous Filth was heavily influenced by Anderson's creations, both the TV and comic book versions, with Morrison singling out Ron Embleton's lush painted artwork on TV Century 21's Fireball XL5 strip as a paticular favourite in a column on his old website.

LE SEXXY (2003)

After completing his run on Marvel's New X-Men in 2004, Morrison returned to DC, both to play in the sandbox of the DCU and as an avenue to publish his creator-owned properties through the Vertigo imprint. His first wave of titles included The Filth, Seaguy, Vinamarama and WE3. Speaking at a panel in San Diego in 2003, Morrison described Le Sexxy (or LeSEXY) as the story of "a former rock-star opening an 80s-themed café in Glasgow; mayhem ensues". Originally a TV series pitch, the series was rejected by Karen Berger as both too culturally specific to the UK and too thematically similar to The Filth.

Cameron Stewart was to handle the art chores on the title, which he described as "set in a disturbingly weird David Lynchian town in the north of Scotland, inspired by great British horror films like the original Wicker Man and Don't Look Now". The scripts for at least two issues were completed, but Cameron Stewart confirmed to me on Twitter recently that he didn't get started on any artwork before the project was abandoned.

According to Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters column, after DC rejected Le Sexxy Morrison shopped it around other publishers, including Marvel's MAX line (though this seems unlikely given the circumstances surrounding Morrison's departure from Marvel), Image and Avatar. Reportedly, the scripts were so explicit every one of them rejected it as unpublishable. Johnston also claims that Berger's refusal of Le Sexxy directly led to Morrison being offered All Star Superman as a consolation.

Le Sexxy's Scottish setting and Lynchian overtones suggest there may be some thematic parallels between it and Morrison's similarly unrealized TV project Bonnyroad.

THE SAVAGE SWORD OF JESUS CHRIST (2004)

Another title from the aborted second wave of creator-owned comics announced by Morrison following his return to DC, Savage Sword was a spiritual sequel to the earlier controversy-baiting New Adventures of Hitler. Presumably Savage Sword's barbed satire would be directed at the state of America under Fundamentalist Christian George W. Bush, as New Adventures' was aimed at Thatcher's Britain in the late eighties.

Teased on the short-lived Crack Comics website, Morrison recently revealed in a 2011 interview with Judge Dredd Megazine that Savage Sword was never finished, at least partially because he no longer felt such a strong urge to provoke, at least not to the heady heights of tabloid furore and questions in Parliament that he reached with Hitler.

The Savage Sword of Jesus Christ will finally see print in the pages of the Morrison-edited Heavy Metal in 2017, with chapter one scheduled to appear in January's issue #284.

C.O.O.L. (2005)

Teased by Morrison as part of his ill-fated second wave of Vertigo exclusive output, following The Filth, Seaguy, WE3 and Vimanarama in 2004. C.O.O.L., with art by Morrison's Dare and Really and Truly collaborator Rian Hughes, fell by the way side as Morrison's time was monopolised by his DC Universe projects, first 52 and then Batman and Final Crisis. The other books in this second wave were presumably Warcop, The Savage Sword of Jesus Christ, The New Bible and Joe The Barbarian, the latter being the only title that has so far seen publication.

THE NEW BIBLE (2008)

A collaboration with artist Camilla D'Errico intended for Vertigo, The New Bible was to showcase the bad-ass spy exploits Atomika Bomb, the daughter of James Bond villain Dr. No.

Previously referenced by Morrison as both Poison Pink and Me & Atomika Bomb (or Me & Atomika Bohm), the series would re-purpose some of the ideas that had gone into the aborted Sean Murphy collaboration Warcop.

After working through ‘...about five different versions of the of the first-issue script’, Morrison told Coilhouse in 2009 that he'd settled on "a new type of comic storytelling that would be a bit like a blog, and that became the idea of The New Bible. It’s about the last outsider, about the characters surrounding him, and about the end of the seventh day of creation and what happens next ."

From a 2009 Publishers Weekly interview -

"It’s turned into my experimental psycho-sci-fi Western manga and it’s the one I’m most excited about right now as I’m writing the first issue at last and just imagining her incredible artwork bringing it to life. It’s aimed at people who like the kind of social-Surrealist work I do when I get the chance, like The Invisibles and The Filth."

In 2011, D'Errico designed a San Diego exclusive cover for the DVD of Patrick Meaney's Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods documentary, commenting that she would still love to work with Grant but as yet hasn't seen any sign of a script for the series. D'Errico has now removed any mention of the series from her official bio.

Sources:

Grant Morrison, Final Crisis and the Superhero Genre by Jeffery Klaehn, Publishers Weekly, 20 January 2009

Interview by Leonard Pierce, The AV Club, 22 July 2009

Embracing The Apocalypse in Coilhouse magazine, issue #4, December 2009

Camille D'Errico's website, 2010-11

WARCOP (2009)

A proposed six-issue miniseries, to be published by Vertigo, with a title from an unused movie pitch Morrison wrote for Madonna in the early 90's. "I thought it was a good title, so I came up with a new take on it, and turned it into something else that's going to come out next year," said Morrison in 2009. A continuation of Morrison's bleak look at the world and its prevalent attitudes post 9/11 (see also Final Crisis, Joe the Barbarian), Warcop was a near future tale "about the atmosphere of war and terror, and making a mythology out of it,"

"So it's about a guy who's testosterone-enhanced to be the ultimate soldier -- guys sniff his sweat, he's so much the ultimate man. He's been bred for war, and he wins the war, but now that he's won the war, he needs a new one. So he starts looking for other enemies. He's become paranoid and he's imagining conspiracies."

The series dealt explicitly with consumerism and youth cults, with Warcop's kid sidekick part of a group called the Inside Outers, swapping the labels of their designer goods for stickers with their own name on. "If you like a particular candy, you pin the label on your jacket so your friends know what you're into," Morrison explained in a 2009 interview with MTV's Splash Page. "And you put a sticker with your name on it on your candy or your Coke. So for instance, I would be drinking 'Grant' not Coke. I would be wearing 'Grant,' not Versace.".

With its pumped-up super soldier and outsider kid protagonists, "you've got a real odd couple," Morrison said. "And they're targeted by those who want to exploit that oddness. I don't want to say more than that just yet, because it's very high concept and someone might steal it, but together, they find what the new war is."

Sean Murphy was at one point attached to pencilling Warcop but switched instead to Joe The Barbarian, trading near-future explorations of attitudes to war and terror for a sword and sorcery approach to the same.

From a 2009 interview with Newsarama -

"The Warcop thing just didn't work. It was a bunch of great ideas but I couldn’t make it come to life. It seemed too sci-fi, it wasn’t grounded in the way that I like things to be, so it’s never quite worked out yet although there was a whole bunch of notions attached to that name over a long period of time”