I don’t know why I find this quote, from Grant Morrison’s Flex Mentallo interview on CBR, so weirdly affecting:
I suddenly realized that Flex is one of the characters that I really wanted to own but I didn’t. And because he appeared in “Doom Patrol” first, which was a DC book, he kind of became a DC character even though every single character in the miniseries was basically created. It’s kind of like a creator-owned book but it isn’t.
He could show up anywhere. Geoff [Johns] could put him in the Justice League. I have this strange fear that he is going to appear somewhere someday… The character seems so attached to me, so probably no one would do it. Geoff had him in “Teen Titans” very briefly. He was in a poster on the wall at the Doom Patrol HQ. But maybe in a couple of years, everyone will realize they can use him — but that would be horrible.
In a year when the idea of “creator owned” work seems to be becoming one of the predominant conversations about comics online, reading such a fan of company-owned superhero franchise characters as Morrison – whose Supergods is practically a love letter to that idea, after all – say that it’d be “horrible” for one of his characters to become part of that group feels particularly powerful in a way that I wouldn’t have expected. Is it just me?
April 11th, 2012 at 10:15 am
I think it’s a reflection of where Morrison is at right now. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he said this not long after his first Image book was announced.
At Image Expo, the founders talked about regretting giving new characters to the Big Two. I think we’ll see more and more of that if creator owned books continue to sell.
April 11th, 2012 at 10:56 am
Sigh… he finally gets it… and I finally feel a bit stupid for getting defensive when people bash him (although I at least kept it to myself for the most part). It’s tempting to say he owes us a retraction for his Siegel/Shuster comments, isn’t it? Maybe his problem is just that he was too incapable of saying “no comment” to avoid being put on record as defending DC’s treatment of them.
April 11th, 2012 at 11:40 am
I wonder how long before it’s announced that DC is doing a “Before Flex Mentallo” series, with JT Krul writing and Liefeld drawing.
April 11th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
@Bosch: The man doesn’t owe us shit. He’s right to believe whatever he wants.
April 11th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
“Geoff [Johns] could put him in the Justice League.”
Well, it’s not like you could talk to him about it or anything. It’s not like you two are both exclusive to DC or anything.
April 11th, 2012 at 8:27 pm
Isn’t this a typical Morrisonism, though? He has no problem taking liberties with anyone else’s toys but he doesn’t like his being messed with. X-Men being a prime example. He had no problem killing off main characters or destroying major elements of the mythology durinf his run but the second he left for DC he began whining about all of his work being “undone” Yes, the mythology of superheroes is perennial and cyclical- except when Morrison makes changes- those are supposed to be permanent!!
April 12th, 2012 at 12:07 am
This comment definitely surprises me – Morrison usually seems to want people to play with the new characters he creates – but it doesn’t change my views much, either way.
April 12th, 2012 at 5:22 am
Another one who can dish it out but can’t take it.
April 12th, 2012 at 7:55 am
I don’t know all the backstory on this, but i do remember during the publicity for 7 soldiers him making statements about hoping that others would use the characters he created for that series.
April 12th, 2012 at 10:15 am
I think Morrison’s thoughts stem from how personal Flex is for him. Anyone who has read Supergods or seen his biopic can see just how much Morrison put himself and his ideals into the story.
April 18th, 2012 at 7:34 am
Morrison, for all his faults, is a highly creative individual – albeit one that has spent his creative career in the stifling confines of a mercenary corporate environment. Locked within that system, some are forced to rebel against it, and some are forced to accommodate themselves to it by making excuses for it. For years, Morrison has done the latter – reframing the way that corporations like DC and Marvel pillage artists’ creations as some wonderful organic artistic experiment, as if the corporate system that resurrects the shambling, undead corpse of Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck for a “Fear Itself” tie-in were some kind of hippie art commune. Is it any wonder, now that something as personal as “Flex Mentallo” is seeing the light of day again, that he’s getting creeped out by the notion that something he poured his heart into is owned lock, stock, and barrel by the people who distributed Battlefield Earth?