DISCLAIMER: The Following covers a very graphic book with multiple graphic images. Spoilers for Nameless and Event Horizon.
There is a horror movie that I put off watching for a long time. A movie that I heard such mixed things about, that I honestly had no idea what to expect when I finally sat down to watch it. That movie is Event Horizon. Now, this isn’t a review or analysis for that movie because it already has such a cult following that I feel it has been covered enough. There is nothing I could bring to the table to really make it worth looking into. However, I knew that when I finally sat down to write about Grant Morrison’s Nameless, that I had to at least briefly cover it. Cause you see, these two properties have a lot in common even if it’s not intentional, though I do think it was intentional to some extent.
The movie follows a crew that are set out to recover the ship called Event Horizon after it has been missing for 7 years. At that point they have no clue that the Ship has literally been to hell and back and it has brought something with it. There is something about the combination of Sci-fi mixed with religious or spiritual horror that really speaks to me. It’s such an odd combination that feels like it shouldn’t work but when it is done right, it really works. I do have to say though, with Event Horizon, it doesn’t really work…
Event Horizon is a movie that I wanted to be better than it is. The concept is there and, to me, the concept is very solid. The script at times isn’t even that bad and for the most part stays true to that original concept. The acting throughout the movie is good for the most part. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Sam Neil performance that I have hated and I enjoy watching him no matter what the project is. Where my issues with the movie come from is everything else. The first warning sign for me was the name of the Director on the project; Paul W.S. Anderson.
I don’t want to talk negatively about someone I don’t really know. I know nothing of his personal life or where his interests lie. I do, however, know that I really haven’t enjoyed any movie of his that I have ever seen. The exception of course being Mortal Kombat but even that is kind of tongue in cheek. His style and lack of substance in his films usually leaves me feeling empty mentally afterwards. He usually leans more towards action films and even when trying to do something like Sci-fi horror, he and the script still can’t shake those roots and that does nothing but hurt the horror elements of the story.
Another issue with the movie is that it was clearly directed in the 90’s with a lot of 90’s tropes. When the end credits start rolling, I shit you not, a loud, super dance techno song starts blasting that completely contrasts with everything else in the movie for no other reason than it was the 90’s and I guess that’s just what you ended your movie with back then.
So, why am I talking about Event Horizon so much in a post about a comic book called Nameless? Because, not only do they have similar plot elements. So many that I can’t help but believe that Grant Morrison was inspired by the film when writing the comic book. I think they also share one other thing as well and that is the theme of guilt. So let’s get to it and see if I can bring this all together by the end of this post.
Honestly, part of me dreads ever saying I would cover this book in this newsletter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing comic. Especially if you are a fan of cosmic horror. However, this is still a Grant Morrison book and may be the most Grant Morrison book that Morrison has written since Flex Mentallo (Another book I want to cover in the future.) For those who might not be familiar with Grant Morrison, maybe I should add some clarity on what I mean by that statement.
Also, feel free to take a shot every time I say Grant Morrison.
Grant Morrison is probably one of the most abstract and oftentimes confusing writers in comic books today. His stories, especially his creator owned projects, are almost always a mind-fuck. A lot of his stories usually leave me with one of two outcomes after I have read them:
That was amazing, such a mind blowing experience.
or
What the fuck did I just read?
Let me be clear, I am a huge fan of Morrison. He has created stories that I honestly feel have changed me and had some form of impact on my life. When I started getting back into comics when I was in college, I always picked up any Morrison book I could get my hands on and there are A LOT of Grant Morrison comics. The dude is a workaholic, so of course not everything he writes is going to be a masterpiece. I will say that the great stuff far outweighs the not so great stuff. Even in his weaker books, there is still always something to take from it.
So, is Nameless one of the weaker books? Nope. It’s actually pretty amazing and is absolutely terrifying at times. So why did I say I almost dread writing about it? Well, the answer is because I don’t really know where to begin. I guess I’ll begin with the man himself, Grant Morrison.
(Takes a shot of vodka.)
One thing to know about him is that he is an occultist. Seems comic book creators really do love occultism and it makes sense. The mixture of words/language with images/sigils to achieve a desired effect seems like the perfect medium of anyone who is interested in magick and occultism. Morrison, to some degree, has kept occultism an important theme in almost everything he has ever written. Even the stories where it doesn’t feel that it’s there.
He also can write extremely dark, disturbing stories. The graphic nature of some of his books can sometimes leave you feeling pretty uneasy. There is one particular panel in this book that might be one of the most disturbing images I’ve ever seen in a comic. I’m not going to show it here because I don’t want to ruin the visual impact of it outside the context of the story itself.
One thing I find interesting about his comics being so dark is that Morrison himself seems like the complete opposite. When you hear him in interviews he always seems like such a happy, joyful guy. Always has a huge smile on his face and speaks about life in such an optimistic way in that thick, Scottish accent of his. It leads me to wonder if these dark, twisted stories that he writes helps him purge the negative energy out of his daily life. Reminds me a lot of Junji Ito, who also writes really disturbing stories but is always so optimistic in interviews.
While Morrison has always had a tinge of horror in his comics throughout his career, I feel that Nameless might be his one, pure horror comic. Books like Animal Man, Arkham Asylum, We3 and many more have elements of horror in them, but the way they are presented is usually done in a non-horror style. With Nameless, Morrison goes head deep into the genre and comes out with one of the greatest horror comics in modern history.
So, now that I have rambled on and on about the book without really talking about the book, I guess I should attempt to try to go over the plot but, be warned, I’m probably going to fail. A lot of times in a Morrison comic, things are not what they seem. I have read many theories online that cover what people think the story is about and they are all over the place. Some of them I agree with and others not so much. I’m not even going to attempt to do a beat by beat telling of the plot because not only would that be pointless, it wouldn’t make any sense. So I’ll give the short version.
Nameless follows an occultist without a name, who is on the run after a bad incident. The details of that incident come clearer as the story goes on. He is recruited by an Elon Musk type character named Paul Darius that needs Nameless to help him and his team to stop a demonic asteroid that is coming to destroy earth. As the asteroid comes closer, many people are starting to lose their minds and are becoming murderous. Nameless joins the team but nothing goes right on their mission and in short, it’s a failure. They all pretty much die and realize that Darius was possessed by the same evil force that is causing all of the murders. After the mission has completely fallen apart, Nameless is snapped back into reality.
So, that crudely covers a majority of the book but did any of that actually happen? It doesn’t seem likely. That bad incident I mentioned seems to be where the actual plot happened in this book. See, in reality, Nameless was actually recruited by Paul Darius to a supposedly haunted house to make contact with an alien demonic being. When him and the other mediums begin making contact, the spirit takes over Nameless and causes him to brutally murder everyone in the house, including Darius. Afterwards Nameless is on the run. Not only from those that are chasing him, but also from himself, hence the name Nameless.
See, at the heart of this extremely confusing book, I think what it is really about is guilt. Nameless can’t live with himself and what he has done. One could make the argument, “but he was possessed” but I don’t think that matters. He opened himself up to things he didn’t fully understand and allowed it to work through him. It’s like saying the addict isn’t to blame for their behavior because they were under the influence. It reminds me of the movie Blue Velvet when Kyle MacLachlan’s character finds the severed ear in the park and becomes obsessed with finding why it was there. His curiosity leads him to a dark underworld of crime that begins to infect his own character and he starts doing things that he wouldn’t have done before.
Nameless is to blame for what happened in that house and he knows that. His guilt drives him further and further away from his own identity until the point he’s become completely delusional. Why be the horrific killer that murdered a house full of people when you can be the last hope for humanity on some insane space mission. He so badly doesn’t want to be the villain of the story and instead wants to be the hero but even he knows deep down this is a lie. The mission in his head fails because his guilt wont allow him to be the hero. He can’t escape it.
Out of all of the comics that Morrison has written with occult themes in them, I don’t think he’s ever went in as heavy as this one. I think that is very intentional too. Mysticism and occultism is all about the person’s mindset they have going into it. If you are a happy, optimistic person like Morrison himself, then it can be a strong powerful tool in helping to better your life. However, if you aren’t prepared it can also be very dangerous. I think that is the warning Morrison is trying to give us in Nameless. Be careful what you open your body and mind to and never lose control, because if you do, then you might end up doing things you can never run from.
Like I’ve said, Nameless is a very graphic book and not for the faint of heart and Chris Burnham captures every meaty, bloody detail of it. At first glance, his style seems very similar to another frequent Morrison collaborator, Frank Quietly. They both have similar facial structures in their characters and both are open to experimenting with insane panel layouts. Where Burnham takes this book though, I feel is a lot different if Quietly had illustrated it. Quietly has the big shots, that make his characters feel larger than life and sometimes in beautiful poses. Burnham, however, shows every raw humanistic feature of all of his characters. These aren’t picture perfect shots of wonderful scenes. These are flash images of brutality and gore that you wish you could look away from but can’t seem to. In short, he was a perfect choice for this book.
One thing I would like to address is the type of world building Morrison uses, or really, lack there of. A lot of his stories just kind of throw you into their world and they don’t hold your hand. This is a major factor in the confusion that people have when reading a Morrison story. Some people hate this, but I personally enjoy it when it’s done right and Morrison almost always does it right. We see this in other books of his like Flex Mentallo and Seaguy and it really helps to add to the surreal nature of his books. I will say that I never read a Morrison comic whenever I want to just kick back and relax. This was one of the reasons I put off reading Nameless for so long. Just looking at the cover of three astronauts walking towards me with strange sigils painted on their helmets, I knew that I was going to be in for a strange ride and needed to be mentally prepared. This book took me multiple reads to just feel like I had the slightest grasp on what it was saying. I was about to just give up whenever I saw our main character being chased by a group of men that all have fish heads. Something so strange and out there made me feel like it took away from the horror of it all because it wasn’t relatable. I mean, I’ve never been chased by a gang of fish head goons. However, I should have known better that there would be more to it than that and of course there was.
So, let’s get back to Event Horizon. As I stated earlier, the plot revolves around a crew on a mission to recover said ship that has been missing roughly 7 years. While most of the crew appear to be average, almost blue collar like workers, the one character that stands out is Dr. Weir, played by Sam Neil, who created the missing ship. At first the film, like Nameless, portrays Dr. Weir as our protagonist. We as the viewer, spend the most time with him and one thing we learn rather quickly is that he misses his wife. When he wakes up in the mornings, the first thing he does is reach for her photo. At first, this could be seen as that he just misses her because he has been away from her in space, but it’s later revealed that he suffers from a deep sense of guilt and is trying to cope with her suicide. The ship ends up using that guilt to turn what appeared to by our main protagonist into the villain of the story.
Now I’ll confess that I have only watched Event Horizon once and I really don’t plan on watching it again. But I see a lot of people say the ship “possessed him” and I didn’t really get that from it. I guess in a way you can say it was a possession but I kind of saw it more like it convinced him to join it’s side. This ship was originally his creation, his baby. It can also be believed that his obsession in making the ship could have been the thing that kept him from his wife when she needed him the most. Unlike the other characters in the movie, he has nothing to go back to. This ship cost him his life and he has nothing else besides it. He is drawn in by it’s possibilities that he doesn’t want to lose it too. That thirst for knowledge and possibilities goes too far and he hits a point of no return. While they are totally different in their emotions towards their situations, he in this way is very much like Nameless. Driven by their curiosity and their guilt. Both characters even want to remove their eyes after the horrific visions they have both experienced. Perhaps that could even be seen as them trying to run from their own guilt as well.
A lot of times, these collections or graphic novels will have a piece written by the author that gives more insight on what the book is about or what it means to them and Nameless is no different. However, in Morrison’s piece, you won’t find any clear answers as to what the story is about. I mean, you will find answers, it’s just he goes really deep into the occult imagery and symbolism they chose to tell in this story. He will point you towards a lot of reference text and things such as that which can help lead you to some clearer explanations of everything in Nameless. Just occultism is very much like science and religion in that it can get complicated and muddled down. Also, while I know a little about occultism, I am nowhere on the level of Morrison and at the risk of sounding dumb, some of what he says in this piece goes over my head. I will though, share this little expert where he describes Nameless;
“Nameless was to be a work of nightmare logic, incorporating within its sticky web a number of horror story tropes; possession, home invasion, cosmic monsters, visceral gross-out scenes, existential nihilistic despair, a seance in a haunted house, serial killers, Hell and the breakdown of civilization into barbaric chaos, among other classics of the genre.”
And I think that this is a pretty accurate description of Nameless. Maybe guilt is just too simple of a theme for Morrison or maybe I am completely missing the book and what it’s about. That’s just what I took away from it.
So, I think I’ve rambled on enough and it’s probably about time to wrap this up. I feel like I have let myself down on what I set out to say about this book. I knew it was a horror masterpiece of comic book writing and I really just wanted to talk about it, but in that process I realized I was struggling to find the words I wanted to say. I guess that has been the theme of 2021 for me. I have been wanting to write, to say something of importance and when I finally sat down to do it, I just couldn’t find those words. I have had a lot of guilt over the amount of, or lack thereof, writing that I did over this past year. As if there is a time limit that I have set up against myself which caused me to just lock up and get nothing done. I know this is a pretty common problem a lot of writers face and it’s just extremely hard to push through.
So, without knowing what I was really going to say about this comic book, I knew that I had to write SOMETHING. No matter if it was good, bad or just a bunch of rambling nonsense. I had to get it out there so I could move past it and onto the next project. I haven’t made a post on here since October and I wanted to have at least one more under my belt before the year ended, so here it is. There is a fear in putting something like this out because not only are you scared that it’s bad but also that no one is really going to even take the time to read it. I have to try not to worry about those things anymore. I want next year to be a more productive year and for that to happen, I have to get over that crippling fear.
So, if any of you are reading this, or have made it this far into this already way too long post, I want to share this; If there is something you want to do or something that is important to you. Just do it. I know that’s easier said than done but try not to worry about others perception or any other outside forces you can’t control. Just do it because it makes you happy while you still can.
I hope everyone had a good and safe holiday. I hope next year treats everyone with the love and care that we all so desperately deserve. Please be safe and see you next time, hopefully sooner than later.
Love ya,
Michael Chance