Kid Eternity [Paperback]

Grant Morrison (Author), Duncan Fegredo (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2006

Comics visionary Grant Morrison reimagines the unique character of Kid Eternity, a young man who died before his true time and returns to Earth as a ghostly spirit, along with his guardian Mister Keeper.In this 144-page trade paperback, illustrated by Duncan Fegredo, KID ETERNITY follows the terrifying night of aspiring stand-up comedian Jerry Sullivan as he joins Kid Eternity on a quest to free his Keeper from Hell.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 11 Up–Stand-up comedian Jerry Sullivan is used to dying onstage–but not in a hospital bed. After a violent car accident leaves him in a coma, he meets supernatural traveler Kid Eternity. Killed before his time in World War II, Kid Eternity was granted the power to conjure up historical figures simply by chanting the word eternity. Along with his friend Mr. Keeper he has been condemned to hell for misusing his powers, and now he needs Jerry's help to get himself and Mr. Keeper out of the underworld. Through Fegredo's swirling and dreamlike painted images, readers are pulled down into hell and in and out of Sullivan's consciousness. Morrison's plot is disorienting and scattered, allowing readers to slowly piece together a sometimes-confusing narrative. Having the feel of Dante's Inferno on psychedelic drugs, this surreal story may be wholly unsatisfying and overly obscure to some readers. But those who can see past the holes into the lusciously bizarre art and deeply complex plot may find a heteromorphic tale of horror, myth, and survival. Dark, violent, and nightmarish, this volume would be best suited to those collections that include Neil Gaiman's entire Sandman oeuvre (DC Comics). Not for the timid, but a solid supplemental collection for public libraries that seek edgier selections.–Jennifer Feigelman, Goshen Public Library and Historical Society, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Now that Morrison is a key figure in DC's current campaign to overhaul its superheroes--most notably in Seven Solders of Victory (v.1, 2006)--the publisher is bringing much of his earlier work back in print. This 1991 project drastically revamps a benign 1940s character. Back when, Kid Eternity was a guy untimely killed by Nazis, for which the heavenly powers atone by returning him to Earth with a supernatural guardian, Mr. Keeper, and the ability to summon any historical or mythological figure by uttering the word eternity. In Morrison's radical revision, a wised-up Kid has escaped from 30 years in Hell but returns to the inferno to rescue Mr. Keeper. The mission reveals that, rather than having gained his powers divinely, he has been a pawn in a cosmic battle between the lords of chaos and order. Fegredo's densely painted artwork suits Morrison's chaotic tale well, though if any fans of the wartime original remain, they'll be dumbfounded. Morrison's many fans, however, will savor revisiting this characteristic early effort. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Vertigo (February 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401209335
• ISBN-13: 978-1401209339
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 0.3 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #666,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A BIZARRE REVAMP ON AN OLD CHARACTER, April 17, 2006

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kid Eternity (Paperback)

Kid Eternity collects the three issue mini-series written by Grant Morrison in 1991. This was during a period when a number of lesser known characters were being revamped at DC. Morrison had previously taken over the reins of two other titles Animal Man and Doom Patrol to great critical success. Kid Eternity would be his next challenge and here was an indeed a rather forgotten character. Kid Eternity was originally published by Quality comics and made his debut in 1942. The origin at the time was that the kid was traveling on a boat with his grandfather that was sunk by a German torpedo. However Heaven made an error, and the kid was not supposed to die for another 75 years. The "Keeper" in Heaven granted the boy certain powers to use for 75 years to make up for the error. By saying the word "eternity" the kid could summon up historical figures from the past to aid him. Quality Comics sold their line to DC Comics in the mid-1950's and there Kid remained, relatively forgotten outside of a few cameo appearances until Morrison's dark revision in this mini-series.

Like most of Morrison's works the book is heavily metaphor-laden and one gets the feeling that Morrison has all sorts of secrets that he's reluctant to relate to the reader. This was a Pre-Vertigo release but for all intents and purposes it should be considered a Vertigo comic and as such aimed at a far more mature and sophisticated audience. The Kid's origin is thoroughly revamped and turned completely inside out. He now finds that he was never in Heaven in the first place but in Hell. This was all a part of a plot by the Lords of Chaos to use Kid as their unwitting agent in order to set up their Chaoshere engines to hasten humanity's evolution. They plan this as a gift to God to get back in his good graces and return to Heaven from where they fell. Kid discovers that Mr. Keeper was, in reality, a demon all along, as were the many historical figures that he could summon up over the years to aid him.

The Kid believes he and Mr. Keeper were capture and imprisoned in Hell and he has escaped and sought out the help of a two-bit standup comedian named Jerry Sullivan who has been critically injured in a car crash after being pursued by demons called Shichiriron. But it's when the Kid and Jerry (in spirit) wind their way through Morrison's industrialized version of Hell that Kid finds out about his true origins.

The plot tends to meander a great deal cutting back and forth between various plot elements with little explanation, as was often a trait of many of Morrison's earlier works. The events are really secondary to the revelations about Kid Eternity's true origins as his past is changed just as radically as Swamp Things was just a few years earlier, and in much the same manner although by the more accomplished pen of Alan Moore. Duncan Fegredo's painted art is appropriately dark, moody, and abstract and a perfect complement to Morrison's words.

It's hard to believe that it's been 15 years since this came out. Morrison, so well-known in his earlier career for taking over these lesser known titles has of course gone on to do many mainstream projects such as the JLA and the New X-Men. Perhaps a bit conceptual for the sake of it, Kid Eternity was still an enjoyable new take on a character that otherwise would be gathering dust.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

4.0 out of 5 stars "There's only one joke worth laughing at and it's the joke of existence", November 9, 2011

By 

Arcadio Bolaños (Lima, Peru) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kid eternity (Perfect Paperback)

"There's only one joke worth laughing at and it's the joke of existence". Too existentialist for you? Well, if it is, I strongly advise you to take a few classes of contemporary philosophy and come back to Grant Morrison's KID ETERNITY. This is not your average retcon or your regular miniseries about an obscure character of the DC Universe. This is a metaphysical adventure that involves super-powered beings, hereafter metaphors and even hell itself, albeit a hell so chaotically ferocious only Mr. Morrison could have come up with.

Kid Eternity was one of those characters that wouldn't have escaped oblivion if not for Morrison's attempt of bringing it back for a more postmodern audience. But what does postmodernism has to do with it? Well, our era has strengthened the exscinded subject. We live in more schizophrenic times than, say, a century ago. Kid Eternity is the battlefield in which the never ending struggle of unconscious versus "conscientious I" carries on. I'm not suggesting that this work is less complex than others, but certainly at first glance it might look a bit more complicated, which is why I think psychoanalytic theory can come in handy, specially Lacanian theory. Jacques Lacan stated that there is no `I' in the subject. The `I' is the ego, and as such can remain pretty much consistent throughout time. The subject, on the other hand, as the very words implies, clearly derives from subjectivity and it's prone to alteration and constant modification. Kid Eternity is both: `I' and `subject'. However at the beginning of the story there is no divisiveness, the kid is still whole. As the story moves on changes are put into place and the reader discovers along with Kid Eternity that identity relies heavily on the gaze of the other. After all, the only question that matters is "what am I in the eyes of the other?".

Much has been said about deconstruction; nonetheless Morrison takes upon a rather different approach which I could denominate de-configuration: the fragmented narrative lines, the seemingly chaotic order, the focus on multiple unrelated moments have but one goal which obeys a carefully orchestrated tapestry displaying different characters experiences and interpretations of what's going on. In the end nothing is random: Kid Eternity, Jerry, the Priest and the Woman will each play a fundamental role in chapter three; for the readers, though, this grand design might make little sense in the first pages. The Scottish writer's work in this case is more akin to such films as David Lynch's Mulholland Drive which requires a much larger amount of work and concentration; these authors will not spoon-feed the public, quite the opposite indeed. De-configuration then is the key to understand what Morrison is trying to do in this miniseries.

It's up to you, the one holding the book, to come up with the answers. All necessary hints are provided within the 144 pages lavishly illustrated by Duncan Fegredo, an amazing artist that creates remarkable images. Why is it that "Kid Eternity" goes very much unnoticed by most Morrison fans? If only for the art alone this is a miniseries deserving of praise. Perhaps it is the complexity of underlying themes, from Saussure's linguistics (signifier versus signified): "there is no meaning, the sound is the meaning" to the apparently inconsistent nature of Kid Eternity. It is then necessary to understand that consistency has no place in this tale, because as the kid learns while facing the Unnamed Five, reality can dissolve and reconfigure very easily. The audience with the Five, arcane creatures of uncanny power, reveals a number of things: first of all, Kid Eternity has spent years fighting for forces he did not know at all, he will then be shocked as he understands who has he been secretly serving all this time; but it's not just a dramatic anagnorisis, this information changes everything about him. Thus the `I' and the `subject' become exscinded as required by postmodernist guidelines. In the same way Kid Eternity's subject has been built upon safety blankets, id est, repressing the traumatic memories of his childhood (he had been sexually abused by a pedophile captain), his identity had also been built upon false pretenses, thus the impact of the truth threatens to destroy the very `self' of the character. Rather than deconstruction I'd like to think of this as a much needed de-configuration of a character that otherwise would have remained forever forgotten.

3.0 out of 5 stars It should be three and a half, September 6, 2007

By 

J. D. Estrada "Jokersurfer" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kid Eternity (Paperback)

Don't think that 3 and a half stars is a bad rating. Sincerely consider this a middle of the road rating for a peculiar graphic novel that might or might not appeal to you. Pretty ambiguous suggestion huh? But hear me out. The storyline demands that you put attention to detail and to take each page and soak it up in its entirety. This might or might not be a good thing for some people, but seeing as I really enjoyed the artistic sense of the novel, I consider it a pro rather than a con. Kid Eternity is a weird title, no doubt about it. But guess what, there are people out there who love weird titles. I'm a big David Lynch fan and it might seem moronic to love works of film I don't fully understand, but I just try to take an experience and inspiration with it, and Kid Eternity, like Lynch, offer a lot of material to mull over and think about. It's not as surreal, polished or beautiful as the Sandman series, but it is thought provoking and I enjoyed it enough to know I'll re-read it. The 3 star rating focuses on the story arc because it feels jumpy and maybe that's what the author was going for, but at times you can't help but need to go back two pages to re-read something just to be sure. In general, a good title for anyone into fantastic noir motif literature with a unique and darkly beautiful artistic style.