Comics Review: NAMELESS by Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham

NAMELESS by Grant Morrison, writer and Chris Burnham, artist (Image Comics, March 2016) Hardcover, 192 pages. ISBN # 1632155273 / 9781632155276 

Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .

Nameless tells the story of a down-at-heel occult hustler known only as "Nameless" who is recruited by a consortium of billionaire futurists as part of a desperate mission to save the world. A massive asteroid named Xibalba — the "Place of Fear" in Mayan mythology — is on collision course with the planet Earth. 

If that wasn't trouble enough, the asteroid has an enormous magical symbol carved into its side and is revealed to be a fragment of our solar system's lost fifth planet, Marduk, destroyed sixty-five million years ago at the end of an epic cosmic war between the inhabitants of Marduk and immensely powerful, life-hating, extra-dimensional "gods." 

One of those beings is still alive, imprisoned on Xibalba, dreaming of its ultimate revenge on all that exists. When Nameless and his teammates inadvertently unleash this malignant soul-destroying intelligence, the stage is set for a nightmarish, nihilistic journey to the outer reaches of human terror. 

My Three-Star Review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

    I read this as part of a monthly book club (Zoom meeting) with Captain Blue Hen Comics in Newark, Delaware. NAMELESS is a book that incorporates so many genres and mythologies into the mix that it is difficult to describe, but it was fun to think of "elevator pitches" to encapsulate the essence in a quick sentence with references that listeners could understand . . . .

"The Exorcist meets Apollo 13" - - - John Carpenter's "In The Mouth OF Madness" meets "Event Horizon". I had heard a rumor that Morrison was jealous of the commercial success of fellows Mark Millar and Garth Ennis - - so he wrote HAPPY in their styles. With that in mind, I postulated that Morrison also wanted to obtain some film royalties like his counterparts, so that NAMELESS is nothing more than the rejected draft of a screenplay for the movie "Armageddon". 

     The story in NAMELESS centers around the efforts to divert the path of an asteroid hurtling towards Earth. The asteroid is a prison for a godlike being, and the group of astronauts who land on the asteroid release this dark entity. 

     There's a whole lot more than just that going on: a non-linear narrative style; dreamworlds and nightmare-scapes; Mayan, Polynesian, Egyptian, and Sumerian mythologies; occult theories; nihilism, etc. Morrison is a self-described chaos magician, and it seems like he threw everything that interests him into the mix. 

     The art by Chris Burnham is really something to behold, incorporating imaginative use of panel placement and colors, intricate detail, panoramic views, and some truly horrifying and bloody images vivid enough to cause nightmares. If you admire the art styles of Frank Quitely, Geoff Darrow, and Steve Skroce you will enjoy the work of Burnham. 

     NAMELESS might have been scarier for me if it wasn't so confusing. I love the imagery and imagination on display here but it seems like the creative team tried to jam way too much, with too many esoteric references in the mix - - resulting in a clusterf*ck of a story. I actually enjoy when authors challenge readers, but not to this extent. 

     The trade paperback edition does include an extensive afterword by Morrison that attempts to detail all his influences and references chapter by chapter, but there's so much detail crammed in here it causes heads to spin and overwhelms. 

     I would rate this 3.5 stars but Goodreads doesn't accept fractions.