Customer Reviews

The Mystery Play

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

THE MYSTERY PLAY, written by the pheonomenally talented Grant Morrison and painted by the equally brilliant Jon J Muth, opens with the murder of God, or, rather, the murder of an actor playing the part of God in "The Mystery Play," the titular play performed annually in a small town. An eccentric detective from the city comes to investigate the murder, only to find that the answers he seeks lie far deeper than he may be willing to dig.

It's not hyperbole to say that Grant Morrison is one of the finest, most brilliant minds to ever write comics. His work on DOOM PATROL, ANIMAL MAN, and THE INVISIBLES is extraordinary and so far ahead of the majority of comics in terms of intelligence, originality, innovation, and pure storytelling genius that it's almost pathetic to read most non-Morrison-written comics. Hell, even some of his "lesser" masterpieces like FLEX MENTALLO, KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND, and, yes, THE MYSTERY PLAY blow most other comics out of the water. Simply put, Morrison is great.

And THE MYSTERY PLAY just so happens to be one of his finest short works (the aforementioned DOOM PATROL, ANIMAL MAN, and THE INVISIBLES being some of his excellent longer works) and one of the best graphic novels in the medium's history. On the surface, it appears to be a fairly complicated but not terribly deep murder mystery -- a man is killed in a small town and a detective comes out to investigate. However, the brilliance of THE MYSTERY PLAY lies in what is under this somewhat mundane surface. Beneath the "simple" murder mystery veneer lay dozens of clevor allegories, symbols, allusions, and metaphors. In short, loads and loads of depth -- this comic requires considerable patience to read and it requires that the reader be willing to plumb its considerable depths again and again, because there will always be something new, something fascinating for he/she to stumble upon.

Jon J Muth's haunting painted artwork provides a stunningly realistic vision of Morrison's story, but there's enough of a hint of something more unusual, something more surreal, something almost supernatural at the edges of his artwork that this artwork transcends mere photorealism. Many of the book's dreamlike images will no doubt stick with you long after you close it and set it down.

THE MYSTERY PLAY is a story full of subtle details and small nuances, and it's allegories, symbolism, metaphors, and allusions wrap around and through each other in so many breathtaking ways that the end result bears more resemblance to the literary equivalent of a knotted-up ball of yarn. Yet the fun lies in unwrapping and untying this ball of yarn, trying desperately to reach the core. Chances are, you never will -- this enigma of a comic will doubtless continue to puzzle you until you die. If you're in the mood to truly see comics as art, to see a work of art more mature, more sophisticated, and more complex than virtually anything in most other mediums, you simply must read Morrison and Muth's THE MYSTERY PLAY. It's a subtle, unsettling, moody, complex, multi-layered masterpiece that will leave you thinking long into the night.

This, like Arkham Asylum, is not Morrisson's best. It still is good though, though it is not very clear what happened, why the murder. Mabye inferring and guessing are parts of his intentions but that is simply nothing for me. The story has fantastic high points... and parts impossible to understand. I know people tend to get all excited about not understanding, thinking that the writer is very clever and that that is the reason we do not underdstand, but no I don't think that is an ablity I think it is very easy to write something no one can understand and give it an aura of mistery. Some people, like with Arkham Asylum, are blown away by the art, which is fantastic. But great art does not make a great story, never has and never will. Still, the characters are well created and the atmosphere and dialogues some times are very good.

I wanted to like this book a lot. I do like the artwork, watercolors of exceptional skill. I showed a page to a friend and her first reaction was "Oh, photography." The book is well printed, so all of Muth's artistic care comes through.

If the story had lived up to the visuals, this comic would have been among my all-time favorites. It centers on a murder in a church play, giving a paradoxical "God is Dead" message. Although clues are scattered throughout the story (as a crossword junkie, the crossword puzzle stood out for me), I just never caught a real sense of suspense.

This book may help round out a collection of comics, but probably won't be a center-piece. I recommend it to Muth fans and to people who value a comic's art over its story. On the whole, though, "Mystery Play" doesn't rise much above the ordinary.

Comic writer extraordinairre Grant Morrison (The Filth, Doom Patrol, New X-Men, JLA; come on, you know the list by now) weaves an interesting, often thought provoking tale with The Mystery Play; in which an actor playing God in a town play is murdered, and the investigation led by a mysterious detective which follows. Without giving too much away, Morrison presents a setting and characters which are not what any of them seem to be, and the final result ends up being a twisty thriller that may not rank up there with Morrison's best work for DC/Vertigo, but is a worthwhile read nevertheless. The real star of The Mystery Play is the starkly painted artwork by Jon J. Muth, which helps make this graphic novel all the more haunting. All in all, The Mystery Play is a dark and somewhat moving excursion from the great Grant Morrison, and even though it doesn't come close to the amazing works he's crafted in the past, it is still definitely worth a look for Morrison and/or Vertigo fans.

Disappointing due to a false inciting action that is a sleight of hand to distract from the real story, shallow character motivation and lack of commitment from realism, to magical realism, surrealism to parable.

I liked the book for about ten pages, then the unrelenting grimness of the storyline began to strike my funnybone. Oh please! And then began the endless, or nearly endless train of Christian metaphor that would strike a sophomore as being slightly sophomoric. You could tell on page 10 that our detective would cut his palm accidentally, allowing the artist to show him as stricken with the stigmata of Christ. And nearly every other development you could see coming a mile away. Since the entire storyline rests on an act of lynching in an English country town, I did some research to see how many lynchings have happened in England since the Industrial Revolution began. The answer was, zero, so it confirmed my idea that Grant Morrison was really over-reaching on this one.

It's not that over-reaching is wrong, but shouldn't bright reporter Annie have tumbled that something was strange about our detective sergeant when she idly turns over the crossword puzzle he's been doing while they've been chatting, and we get a closeup of a puzzle completely filled with unreadable words, without vowels, words spelled backwards, HP Lovecraft type of words? No, she just puts it down without comment and goes on to her next interview.

I did like the watercolor work of lead artist Jon Muth, but it could use some variations. It's either super washed out, as though English rain has been drizzling on it steadily for months, or a strange, but hypnotic photorealism that leaves you wondering if it is a photo or not. I've never been into necrophilia, but Muth's full-page rendering of the first victim's naked corpse laid out on the autopsy table stunned with with its beauty and I pressed my full wet lips upon the flesh, up and down, everywhere they could fit, till the page was soggy with my exertions.

Not one of Morrison's best, but still a good story.

Incredible watercolor artwork by Muth... 'nuff said

I'm a huge fan of all of Grant Morrison's work, from Zenith to the Invisibles. His work will make you think in a way that you never have before. If you're a fan of his work like I am, you should check out Brian Caldwell's novel, We All Fall Down. It's the Biblical Apocalypse done right- full of sex and violence and an angry young man who smokes and swears too much. I mention all of this here because the Antichrist in the novel has the peculiar name of Richard Grant Morrison, and when he begins talking about how humanity has to realize that they are five demensional creatures growing in the soil of space/time, you'll realize that that name isn't a coincedence. Check it out after you've read all of Grant's stuff.

This fine graphic novel is among the best that medium has ever seen