Morning Glories #5 – Review

by Nick Spencer (writer), Joe Eisma (art), Alex Sollazzo (colors), and Johnny Lowe (letters)

The Story: Backed into a corner, Casey and Zoe try to evade their pursuers while doggedly continuing on with their rescue attempt.

What’s Good: This was my favourite issue of Morning Glories since the series debut blew me away.  It’s compulsively readable and it’s a book that keeps you on the edge of your seat, flipping the pages, marveling at Spencer’s expert storytelling.

Let’s start with how he structures and plots this issue.  Spencer alternates between a monologue by the rather intimidating Mr. Gribbs and the actual action at hand.  Gribbs, we learn, is very different from Daramount, but no less intimidating.  He does something terribly disturbing in the most mundane fashion at the end of the conversation that is guaranteed to haunt you.  More than that, his dialogue is simply superb and unveils Gribbs to be a fully realized character and a very different antagonist from Daramount.

Better still, however, is how Spencer has Casey’s plan unfold.  At the end of the issue, it’s hard not to be blown away by how things work out.  By the end of this issue, Spencer reveals that he has misled us just as Casey had misled the teaching staff.  We were led to believe exactly what they were.  When we’re told what the plan really was, it’s absolutely brilliant and causes us to respect Casey and, of course, Spencer by extension.  It’s a genius piece of misdirection by Spencer and one that makes us question the faith we have in the text itself; we readers can be tricked just the same as the characters we’re reading about.

Morning Glories #1 – Review

by Nick Spencer (writer), Joe Eisma (art), Alex Sollazzo (colors), and Johnny Lowe (letters)

The Story: We meet six sixteen year olds as they arrive at the mysterious Morning Glory Academy and get to know one another.

What’s Good: While it may not be an outright explosion of a first issue, make no mistake: Morning Glories’ first issue is a rousing success.  The key reason for this is that it manages to ask a great deal of questions, wrapping itself in a cloak of mystery and outright weirdness.  Yet, unlike a great number of first issues that try to do this, it completely avoids feeling confusing or incomprehensible.  It manages to intrigue rather than befuddle, and given just how many questions it poses and how many bizarre occurrences transpire, that really is a major feat that Nick Spencer cannot be commended enough for.

The clearly defined cast is one of the major means through which Spencer accomplishes it.  The six students provide a solid core amidst all the strangeness, anchoring the reader’s experience.  Despite each following a high school stereotype, all of these characters are likable, well-realized, and incredibly distinct from one another.  Each has his or her own voice and I think that readers will all have different favorites; despite their differences, there’s a sense of equality among the six in that each of them feels equally defined, lively, and special.

Furthermore, the fact that each character gets his or her start from a high school stereotype also means that the six are already looking like a well-oiled machine in how they all fit together.  There’s perfect synergy and chemistry between them all.  When they interact with each other, it’s fun and it’s genuine and it’s already clear that each one of them will have a fun and unique dynamic with each of his or her classmates.  The characters are likable enough on their own, but it goes up threefold when they come together.

While the characters serve to anchor Spencer’s book, so does the Academy itself, providing a single, contained atmosphere for all the weirdness.  The end result is a greater feeling of control, making the book feel more accessible, while also lending Spencer’s world a kind of conspiratorial claustrophobia.