Grant Morrison, Batman, and (Re)Cycles of Pain: More from a Post-Traumatic Christian

By Matthew Brake As I’ve written before, I have not given up on my Christian faith. In many ways, at least creedally, I think many of my friends and colleagues would find me surprisingly orthodox. But emotionally and spiritually, I have described myself as a “post-traumatic” Christian, riffing on Grant Morrison’s notion of Batman as…

All-Star Superman as Religious Creed

By Matthew Brake All-Star Superman recently began to trend when James Gunn announced that the upcoming DC movie slate would be inspired by many of the works of comics writer Grant Morrison. While not taking place in DC Comics’ “main continuity,” the story of All-Star Superman is a quintessential Superman tale, combining all the elements…

Grant Morrison, Superheroes, and The Post-Traumatic Christian

By Matthew Brake I was talking the other day to a friend, and the topic of our spiritual journeys came up. This person told me about the burnout and discouragement they felt, not only being involved in different churches, but in the whole “Jesus thing” in general. I then relayed my own story: involvement in…

Anti-Life Justifies My Ignorance: Evangelicalism and the Pandemic

By Matthew Brake Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis billed itself as “The Day Evil Won.” The evil New God Darkseid had finally attained the long sought for Anti-Life Equation, a macguffin that gave him the power to control and subjugate the minds of others. In Morrison’s story, Darkseid’s coming is heralded by a “Religion of Crime”…

Matthew Brake Discusses Animal Man on Deconstructing Comics

Hello everyone! Recently, Tim Young of the Deconstructing Comics podcast had me on to talk about Grant Morrison’s Animal Man comics run from DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint (now Black Label). Those of you who know me know that I love Morrison as a writer, and I often use him comics in my Religion and Literature class….

Evil and the Bat, Part Three: The Meaning of THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE

By Raymond Lam (Read Part Two of this blog series here) In this third and final exploration of Batman and the “theology” constructed by Grant Morrison over the decade of 2008–18, we dive into The Return of Bruce Wayne (RBW) (2010), one of Morrison’s finest Batman works and one that elevated the idea of Bruce Wayne to…

“HAPPY!” CHRISTMAS: POSSIBLY THE WEIRDEST ADVENT BLOG EVER

I (Matt) recently had a chance to contribute a piece to our friends over at Sacred & Sequential on the SyFy series Happy!  It’s Christmas themes and overall message make it a perfect if bizarre Advent tale. “As I said, Happy! is an odd little story, but it is a Christmas story, and it captures…