Grant Morrison is one of the most inventive comics creators out there right now, which is both his strongest suit and his biggest weakness. The self professed Chaos Magician has been criticized over the years for taking simple stories and adding so much symbolism, meta-commentary, and obscure facts so as to make them impenetrable. One of the ways to curtail this habit is to give Morrison a big enough canvas that he could spend a lifetime filling it, such was the case with DC: One Million in 1998. Set in the 853rd Century, when Action Comics would have hit issue 1,000,000 before the “New 52” mucked everything up, DC: One Million told the story of the present day Justice League meeting their future counterparts and battling Vandal Savage and other time-traveling foes. Combined with the 4 issue weekly series written by Morrison, every book “jumped ahead” to its 1,000,000 issue and showed what the legacy of all the DC heroes would be. It was a chance for Morrison to reinvent the entire DCU and all its iconography, a task so fitted to Morrison that if Warner Bros had demanded Morrison pay them for the right to write the book he probably would have signed up without a second thought.
DC is putting out an omnibus of the DC: One Million event containing the main series and every tie in plus bonus features making the book come in at over a thousand pages according to the book’s Amazon listing. One feature that is drawing attention is some sketches by Grant Morrison himself, showing not only his own artistic ability but just how deep he got into the design of some of these characters. Usually the design is left up to the artist with input from the writer as to what they would like to see, but in this case Morrison took it upon himself to help directly craft the look of the book and it looks like much of his input made it into the final product. The omnibus is set to drop in early November.
So, will you be picking up the DC: One Million Omnibus? Let us know in the comments below and throw in your favorite Grant Morrison story for good measure!
