Nameless is both the series title and the \u2018name\u2019 of the lead character in this ongoing series Illustrated by Chris Burnham and published by Image Comics.\u00a0 To call Morrison\u2019s storytelling non-linear doesn\u2019t do justice to the dream-within-a-dream method by which he stiches a large array of Jungian archetypes together.\u00a0 I suppose I could warn of spoilers to follow but I doubt it.\u00a0 His basic method is to lay it all out there and let suspense be the guiding principle rather than surprise.<\/p>\n
The basic motifs employed are ones of horror, ancient ruins and elder gods, philosophical revulsion, and the kind of righteous indignation only an alienated, existentialist can exhibit.\u00a0 I get the notion that Morrison sees himself in the role of the nameless protagonist.<\/p>\n
Issue #1 open with a connection of world-wide violence to sinister other-worldly forces reminiscent of Lovecraft\u2019s mass hysteria episode in The Call of Cthulhu<\/em>.\u00a0 Particularly graphic is the scene with the father who has brutally slain his family before ending his own life just after he posted to Facebook.<\/p>\n The phrase \u2018Zirom Triam Ipam Ipamis<\/em>\u2019 is one of these common motifs that links the visual story telling together \u2013 much like a hidden object game.\u00a0 The language in which this phrase is expressed is Enochian<\/a>, the language of angels.\u00a0 The source of the otherworldly and sinister influence is Xibalba<\/a>, the Mayan home of fear wherein exists there underworld.\u00a0 In Morrison\u2019s telling, Xibalba is a large asteroid heading for a collision course that will wipe out all life on Earth.<\/p>\n Of course, the asteroid bears a sigil warning of the evil inside.<\/p>\n Nameless finds all this out (maybe) as he finishes a job retrieving a Dream Key from the Veiled Lady.<\/p>\n What exactly is a Dream Key and why the Veiled Lady has it is not very clear at this point.\u00a0 What is clear is that the theft commissioned by a billionaire by the name of Paul Darius, who then offers a position in his save-the-world mission to Nameless since the latter has now proved his \u2018cred\u2019 to the former.<\/p>\n Nameless is soon whisked off to Darius\u2019s moon base, which will serve as a staging area before they journey to intercept and divert Xibalba.\u00a0 Upon his arrival, Nameless learns why he was summoned \u2013his predecessor has been murder at the hands of another uber-genius in the employ of Darius.<\/p>\n Again the Enochian phrase \u2018Zirom Triam Ipam Ipamis<\/em>\u2019 is present at a scene of horrific violence (Cthulhu F\u2019htagn<\/em>).\u00a0 During some subsequent briefing, all is revealed<\/p>\n and we find that the Dream Key opens a box that contains a splinter from our solar system\u2019s lost 5th<\/sup> world of Marduk, which was destroyed in an epic conflict between angels and demons dating back into time immemorial.<\/p>\n Undaunted by all these revelations that team readies their plan (some absolute nonsense in the way of science fiction here) to use a conventional bomb to slow the asteroid and then their anti-gravity tractors to move it away from Earth.\u00a0 So they have anti-gravity tractors, implying that they\u2019ve harnessed quantum gravity, but they can\u2019t obliterate the asteroid outright.<\/p>\n As the team gathers for their journey to Xibalba.\u00a0 Each, horronaut (my phrasing) is outfitted with occult protection in the way of symbols and signs on their suits<\/p>\n and off to the asteroid they go.\u00a0 Here the story slows down and the pacing becomes overbearing.\u00a0 We are treated to frame after frame of ominous warnings with nothing more than \u2018happy drugs\u2019 administered by the suit to explain how the crew continues to stay calm and ignore their senses.\u00a0 How they can\u2019t get the clear warning from the asteroid\u2019s landscape is beyond me.<\/p>\n Even when they figure out that Xibalba is a prison where the angels bound the worst demons and that the Threescore Stone they possess is a key to open the locks and let the evil out they continue their mission.<\/p>\n Lots of gruesome corruption of mind, body, and soul ensues and then the really trippy part begins.\u00a0 Nameless begins dreaming dreams, within dreams, within dreams, and so on.\u00a0 He\u2019s suddenly in a doctor\u2019s office being treated for some type of post-traumatic stress.<\/p>\n Note the Sephiroth<\/a> in the background compose of organs (perhaps hearts) \u2013 yet more visual semiotics in play.\u00a0 The stress that Nameless is trying to forget is a botched s\u00e9ance years before in which he and twelve others tried to make contact with the entity found within Xibalba using the Threescore Stone.<\/p>\n It is during this long-winded diatribe that Nameless realizes, with complete philosophical revulsion, that the lifeform that the head researcher is taking is God.\u00a0 And here Morrison jumps the tracks and let\u2019s his hostility to religion get the better of him.\u00a0 God in the Western Tradition is too large to fit within the Universe as a whole let alone be imprisoned on an asteroid.\u00a0 Each of the s\u00e9ance participants is from the Western tradition and yet none objects or points out Aquinas\u2019s statement that God is not in a genus<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t require that any of the participants believe in God but simply that they actually showed up in college when they taught college.<\/p>\n Anyway, shots of the doctor dream and the s\u00e9ance dream are interspersed with Nameless\u2019s suffering within Xibalba (whether this is also a dream is unknown)<\/p>\n Sure looks like Mickey Mouse as the top of that torture pillar with a grinning Donald Duck below.\u00a0 Perhaps Morrison was scared by the Matterhorn or Space Mountain on a visit to Disney Land as a kid, perhaps he hates Disney Corporation for its success, who knows or cares.<\/p>\n As Issue #5 closes, we once more see the Veiled Lady playing a role in Nameless\u2019s physical, mental, and psychological suffering.<\/p>\n Where the story goes from here I\u2019m sure I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 All I do know is that a set of interesting premises, intriguing symbols, and inspired visuals are aimlessly flopping around under the creative direction of Grant Morrison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have a sort of love\/hate relationship with Grant Morrison.\u00a0 I generally like his trippy, out-there concepts and the way he links and connects symbolism from various sources.\u00a0 I suppose… Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":605,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions\/605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"http:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/The-Family-that-Dies-Together.jpg\")
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