This is Part 7 in a series of posts looking at why Alan Moore doesn’t like Grant Morrison.

Part 1: Grant Morrison’s First Ten Years of Comics (1978-1987)

Part 2: Karen Berger, the Berger Books, and Vertigo (1981-1993)

Part 3: Grant Morrison Writes Spoofs About Alan Moore and Says Nice Things (1980’s-2010’s)

Part 4: Comics Written by Alan Moore, then by Grant Morrison (1980’s-2010’s)

Part 5: Grant Morrison Says a Lot of Things about Alan Moore (1980’s-2010’s)

Part 6: Alan Moore Says What He Thinks of Grant Morrison and Morrison Issues a Fierce Rebuttal (2012)

Part 7: Alan Moore Describes the “Persistence of Grant Morrison” and Morrison Shuts Up About Moore (2014-2018)

In 2014, Alan Moore gave a long interview (that was really more of a rant) where he went into detail about some things that had been bothering him regarding mainstream comics journalism.

He provided in-depth responses over concerns of racism expressed by a photographer as well as concerns of racism and sexism expressed by a vocal Batman enthusiast. He also discussed his frustration over a journalist who spoiled the ending of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century prior to its release.

Eventually, Moore honed in on what he called “the herpes-like persistence of Grant Morrison.”

(The entire interview can be found here. Portions of the part where he talks about Morrison are reproduced below.)

Moore on Meeting Morrison in the Mid-80s

ALAN MOORE: As to his conversation, he was quite forthcoming in his praise for my work, telling me how much inspiration it had provided […]

I thanked him for his compliments […] and told him that I’d look out for his work in future. Short of perhaps adopting him on the spot as my ward and rather elderly boy sidekick, I don’t see what more I can be expected to have done for a complete stranger on such a brief acquaintance, although it may be that he came from a background with a different set of expectations and thus felt slighted in some way by the encounter. Certainly he gave no indication of this at the time, and I’m only speculating based upon what I perceive as his subsequent peculiar and creepy behaviour.

Moore on Morrison Trying to Get the Same Gig Writing Marvelman

I was approached by Skinn with an on-spec submission from Grant Morrison, a Kid Marvelman story as I recall, which while I had nothing against the story or its author did not fit into the storyline which I was attempting to establish. Additionally, I was the author solely responsible for Marvelman’s reinvention and was as puzzled by Skinn’s actions as I’m sure Steve Moore would have been if presented with a script for a spin-off Zirk story by an untested new writer. I held none of this against Grant Morrison, and simply told Skinn to explain to him that the story didn’t fit with my plans for the character. […]

Zirk by Steve Moore & Brian Bolland from Warrior #3 (1982)

I can say with some degree of certainty, however, that Grant Morrison’s colourful account of the threatening letter which he purported to have received from me on the subject is entirely the invention of someone whose desperate need for attention is evidently bottomless.

Moore on Recommending Morrison to Karen Berger

Since at this time I was still on good terms with at least Karen Berger, and had only comparatively recently passed on to her the work of Neil Gaiman after he’d interviewed me for a men’s magazine, she’d asked me to recommend to her any other new British writers of interest whose work I happened to chance upon. I mentioned Grant Morrison […]

While I have no idea whether my recommendation played any part at all in the decision to subsequently employ Morrison, I can’t see that that it would have hurt.

Moore on Morrison Talking Trash

I had called to my attention a number of unpleasant comments and insinuations regarding me and my work which Grant Morrison was making in the promotional platform/fanzine column that he was selflessly providing for one of these publications. […]

[He] had decided to connect himself with my name by simultaneously borrowing heavily from my work and making studiedly controversial statements about me in comic-book fanzines […]

I decided that the best thing I could do about this needy limpet was to ignore him and everything connected with him, reasoning that acknowledging his existence by replying to his allegations would only be assisting his strenuous scrabble for notoriety […]

On the rare occasions when his name came up in interviews, I would give the formula reply that since I didn’t read or have any opinions about his work, it would be unfair for me to comment upon it. […]

A number of statements by Grant Morrison […] including his no doubt well-intentioned observation that there is apparently a rape in every single comic series that I have ever written […] are obviously the equivalent of receiving a gift-wrapped turd through the mail, since Grant Morrison seems to have spent as much or possibly more time discussing me and my work over the years than he has his own, they are not, by this point, entirely unexpected. […]

As I recall there was a particularly amusing piece where he’d suggested I should put a naked picture of myself on the front cover of Promethea. […]

While I understand that there is a large section of the superhero comic-book community who can see nothing at all unusual in one man being unable to stop talking about another, nor even in making a ‘jocular’ request to be allowed to look at his genitals, they should probably be made aware that from the recipient’s perspective this will obviously start to look like a genuine and long-sustained clammy infatuation which is (barely) sublimating its sexual component in saucy Carry On-style banter. […]

He expressed some mild regret that this had for some reason led to me not wanting anything to do with him, but in validation of his unusual method for attaining fame without noticeable ability, he pointed out that it had worked. The end, at least in the Morrison household, would always seem to justify the means.

And although he certainly implied that he’d only employed this ugly technique during his disadvantaged entry into the field, as far as I can tell he never actually stated in so many words that he’d stopped.

Moore on Morrison Swiping Ideas

I remember some several months after my announcement of the fractal mathematics-based Big Numbers, or The Mandelbrot Set as it was originally known, I had someone call my attention to a Mandelbrot set that had been spuriously shoehorned into the plot of an issue of Grant Morrison’s superhero comic Animal Man. This may, admittedly, have been no more than trivial and unimportant coincidence […]

FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH ALAN MOORE PUBLISHED JUNE 1988: “Another Mad Love project is set to be Alan’s true follow up to Watchmen. Forget all the hype about the The Killing Joke, just wait until The Mandelbrot Set is unleashed. A forthcoming twelve-issue series dealing with ‘shopping malls, mathematics, history and skateboards,’ The Mandelbrot Set starts from the premise that nothing is more fantastic than real life.”[2]

SIX MONTHS LATER IN ANIMAL MAN: A brand new villain shows up and pontificates about the fractal “Chiricca Set” to Animal Man (the image in that third panel is literally a Mandelbrot Set). Animal Man #6 by Morrison and Truog (December 1988).

I announce From Hell and in short order he ‘has the idea’ for a comic strip account of a historical serial murderer. […]

I remember Eddie Campbell advancing the theory that Grant Morrison had arrived at most of his published works around this time by reading my early press releases concerning projects which it would take me years to complete and then rushing into print with his limited conception of what he thought my work might end up being like. […]

LEFT: From Hell by Moore and Campbell (1989-1997), about the infamous unsolved British serial murders of Jack the Ripper

RIGHT: Bible John by Morrison & Vallely (1991), about the infamous unsolved British serial murders of Bible John

What I at first believed to be the actions of an ordinary comic-business career plagiarist came to take on worrying aspects of cargo cultism, as if this funny little man believed that by simply duplicating all of my actions, whether he understood them or not, he could somehow become me and duplicate my success. […]

I imagine that there is a very strong likelihood that he will contrive to die within four to six months of my own demise, after leaving pre-dated documents testifying to the fact that he actually predeceased me.

Moore on Not Wanting Anything to do with Morrison

This was evidently someone who I didn’t want anywhere near me, and who I could never have any reason to notice or take an interest in if he wasn’t, metaphorically speaking, continually masturbating on my doorstep. […]

I particularly wish to avoid all of those who have struck rebellious or radical poses while always remaining careful not to offend their employers or to make any kind of moral or political statement that may later jeopardise their career prospects; all of the rebels without a scratch. […]

To be brutally honest, I’d prefer it if, as with the Before Watchmen re-creators, their associates and their readers, admirers of Grant Morrison’s work would please stop reading mine.[1]

Ty Templeton’s take on Moore’s above interview (2014)

Morrison Shuts Up About Moore (2014)

After that, Morrison continued to promote his Charlton/Watchmen mash-up Pax Americana leading to its release later that year.

GRANT MORRISON: So Watchmen was a very useful tool to then go back and use that on the characters which were part of the original inspiration for Watchmen.[3]

LEFT: Watchmen #1 by Moore & Gibbons (1986)

RIGHT: Pax Americana #1 by Morrison & Quitely (2014)

Morrison explains: ”There’s a peace sign on fire – you know, Watchmen had the smiley face with blood? […] We’re taking the peace sign, which is the equivalent to the smiley face, and setting it on fire, which is equivalent to the blood.”[4]

And Marvel released the All-New Miracleman Annual, which included the story Morrison had written all those years ago when he had wanted his break into mainstream comics to be writing Marvelman alongside Moore.

LEFT: Johnny Bates, Miracleman Book 1 by Moore & Leach (1982)

RIGHT: Johnny Bates, All-New Miracleman Annual #1 by Morrison & Quesada (2014)

But other than that, Morrison basically stopped poking at Moore in interviews.

If Alan Moore’s goal with his long rant had been to get Morrison to finally shut up about him, it had worked, as Morrison hasn’t said anything about Moore for about five years (by far the longest he had ever gone).

And If Grant Morrison’s goal over all those years had been to affix his name like an asterisk to Moore’s, perpetually tying the two writers together in the minds of the comics reading public, then this had also worked.

First by bombarding Moore for decades with a barrage of mimics, spoofs, self-comparisons, and headline-grabbing controversial quotes (in a tone Morrison has described as “the snotty whippet-thin snideness of the hipster”[5]).

Then, in 2012, with a new narrative where Morrison declared himself to be “the victim of a genuine grudge that seems quite staggering in its sincerity and longevity” at the hands of Moore, suffering “clear, persistent, and often successful attempts to injure my reputation, for reasons of his own.”[6]

By manufacturing and steadily nurturing one-sided antagonism since the 1980s, and with Moore eventually snapping back in the 2010s, Morrison had successfully established a “feud.”

It was now “a thing.”

Fan media and infotainment sites tossed out various articles and listicles about their “rivalry” in a fun-fact manner.

Here’s a comics review YouTube channel that explains the differences between Moore and Morrison’s approach to superheroes, prefacing the discussion with:

These writers have had a little bit of a feud going on for a while now, and basically it boils down to Alan Moore talking a lot of shit about Grant Morrison, and Grant Morrison feeling the need to defend himself.[7]

Nonsense “wizard battle” articles sprung up, focusing on their shared interest in the occult. Sweeping under the rug Morrison’s decades-long campaign of attaching his name to Moore’s with spoofs, imitation, and controversial statements, these articles narrowed their points to conclude that “magick” must be at the heart of it all.

Here’s an article celebrating the idea that Moore and Morrison are the magical yin-to-each-other’s-yang:

THE TAO OF ALAN MOORE AND GRANT MORRISON: For my own part I not only don’t care who is “right,” I disbelieve in any such animal, at least in this particular conflict. […] I’ve come to see this antagonism as a perfectly natural consequence of a metaphysical duality. They seem to me to be two sides of the same coin, a janus head locked in a discordian entanglement, the diametrically opposed Hodge & Podge of the Erisians’ Sacred Chao. […] Their duality is explicitly evident even in just the plain fact of their contrasting visages, the mythically shaggy Alan Moore and the gleamingly shorn Grant Morrison. […]

Morrison for his part seems somewhat aware and encouraging of the view that he and Moore are a dichotomous pair, as evidenced by his description of their contrasting approaches to the superhero genre in his book Supergods. […] I see these as perfectly compatible perspectives, Moore’s art imitating life & Morrison’s life imitating art, functioning as a virtuous feedback loop.[8]

Here’s one that explains how Morrison’s Pax Americana is simply the latest magic spell cast in an ongoing wizard feud.

TWO OF THE GREATEST COMIC BOOK WRITERS HAVE BEEN IN AN OCCULT WAR FOR 25 YEARS: Moore’s very loud statement of declaring himself a Magician [in 1993] may just have been a factor in motivating Morrison to go whole-hog with the ‘occult comic book’ thing, when he started on The Invisibles in 1994. […] I am an expert on occultism. And I can say this: the war between Moore and Morrison isn’t just a writers’ fight, it’s a wizards’ feud. […]

Once again, Morrison has turned a comic book into a spell. Pax Americana itself even deals with the nature of time, and the keys to the universe in the number 8; he even magically over-rides Watchmen’s base-3 (9 panel) format with a base-4 (8 or 16 panel) format. It’s like a wizard crafting a more powerful magical square-talisman than his rival. […] By playing with time in this way, and using the older characters Moore’s Watchmen was based on, Morrison’s comic-spell is essentially trying to retroactively change history, and to neuter Moore’s claim that he was there first. Pax Americana isn’t just an amazing comic – it’s an amazing spell.

For his part Moore hasn’t responded to this latest volley quite yet [but] Alan Moore’s magical duel with Grant Morrison won’t be over until one of the two is dead. Maybe not even then.[17]

Here’s one that – I kid you not – was literally posted yesterday! (I just stumbled upon it right now while gathering the links for this post.)

ALAN MOORE AND GRANT MORRISON’S INSANE REAL WIZARD WAR: It gets really interesting when it comes down to their beliefs in magic and who would win in a wizard fight, because you see, Morrison is a self-proclaimed sorcerer as well. […] They have challenged each other to see who can perform more powerful spells and supposedly threatened to hex each other, and no matter what you believe about it is all rather entertaining at the very least. For the casual reader here, though, you might be wondering at the end of the day who would actually win in an actual magical battle between the two? […]

It is unclear what exactly has started this decades long feud or how much magic actually plays into it all. […] However, it is interesting that in this day and age two grown adult, famous icons of their industry, can be engaged in such a seemingly petty, some may even say ridiculous, battle of magic with each other for all to see. Who will win this bonkers wizard battle once and for all? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.[12]

The idea of a “magical war” between grumpy Alan Moore and superhero-loving Morrison has become a meme to the extent that people have dressed up like them and filmed a battle:

Opening line: “And so… The Gods of All Comics came forth to do battle for the fate of the universe…”[9]



(And try finding a discussion online about Moore and Bolland’s The Killing Joke that doesn’t have someone chiming in with “Grant Morrison’s theory” about the end.)

So What About Now?

In late 2018, Morrison’s “feud” with Moore was placed in the spotlight once again, this time with a third narrative:

Moore was just upset that Morrison didn’t like Watchmen.

This came in the form of an interview excerpt, released to the media a few months ago (Dec 2018), where Morrison “opens up” about Moore. In this version of events, Morrison had been the only person who dared to criticize Watchmen, and this had infuriated Moore.

GRANT MORRISON: I was the first person to say Watchmen wasn’t very good – in fact, the only person to ever say that. And that made him angry so then I would get worse. I said that Watchmen was the 300-page equivalent of a sixth-form poem. That kind of trash talk, I’d brought from being in the band because that’s what you’re like in a band. I’d brought all that across with me to comics and it didn’t go down well. I think it genuinely upset him.[10]

He explains what he disliked about Watchmen, presenting it as the reason Moore doesn’t want anything to do with him.

GRANT MORRISON: I’ve read Watchmen many times. The reasons that I hated it when I was 25 are still there, but now I kinda like it because I’m older and I like the structure and I’m quite in awe of the absoluteness of it. But for all the same reasons, I hated it.

The fact that none of the characters were allowed to be smarter than the author, that really drove me nuts. The world’s smartest man is an idiot. He makes a plan all his life that is undone by the end of the book in an instant. The psychiatrist sits with Rorschach for five minutes and Rorschach tells a super banal story of how he became a vigilante and the psychiatrist cracks. If you’re a criminal psychiatrist who deals with men in prison, you’ve heard a million of these stories. It was all to make a specific point about how the real world isn’t like superhero comics.

In my school, I was taught in this Scottish Presbyterian way that structure is hidden: you don’t see the writer’s mechanics. Watchmen, you can’t turn the page without him saying “Look at me, look at me, look at me.” […]

Alan Moore didn’t speak to me after that and would take his own little shots. He called Arkham Asylum a “gilded turd.” Since then, I’ve had nothing to do with him and he’s got nothing to do with me.[10]

Morrison also takes the opportunity to clarify a few points he wants people to take away from the whole situation:

It’s the fans who think there’s a feud, not Morrison, he doesn’t really care that much…

GRANT MORRISON: A lot of comic fans like to think there’s some feud but a feud would actually need to involve people’s interest.[10]

If “feud” is the wrong word, then a better term is “archetypal struggle”…

GRANT MORRISON: It was the archetypal struggle, and it wasn’t fair, ‘cause I love his work. Well, there’s a lot of it I don’t like, but of course, he’s great.[10]

They’re simply two writers who definitely both read each other’s work…

GRANT MORRISON: I read his stuff, he reads my stuff – he pretends he doesn’t, but he does.[10]

Unsurprisingly, this led to a number of fresh articles that sensationalized their “feud” even further while also reframing everything with the “Moore was just upset that Morrison criticized Watchmen” narrative:

2018 ARTICLE “GRANT MORRISON OPENS UP ABOUT FEUDING WITH ALAN MOORE AND WHY HE STILL DOESN’T LIKE WATCHMEN” [This article is currently the top hit if you search their names together]: Much like Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, two icons of old Hollywood who were notorious for their longstanding rivalry, comics giants Grant Morrison and Alan Moore have never been great at keeping one another’s names outside of their mouths. […] We’ve got an exclusive excerpt [of] a lengthy interview with Morrison about his life, his career, and of course, his beef with Moore. […] For Morrison, it’s not all that difficult to recall what led to his falling out with Moore–and what it was (and continues to be) about Watchmen that doesn’t sit well with him.[10]

2018 ARTICLE “GRANT MORRISON STILL DOESN’T MINCE WORDS ABOUT ALAN MOORE’S WATCHMEN”: IDW Publishing interviewed Morrison for the next volume of their 200-page quarterly comics magazine. […] The full interview won’t be available until February, but io9 scored a long excerpt filled with fodder for another three decades of feuding between the two comics titans. […] He went on to talk about how his public dislike of Watchmen was what originally set off their “feud.”[14]

2018 ARTICLE “GRANT MORRISON ON WHY HE HATES WATCHMEN”: In the latest volume of Full Bleed, a quarterly comics magazine featuring original artwork, analysis and in-depth conversations with comics creators, The Green Lantern writer discussed his issues with Moore and why he dislikes Watchmen. […] He also claimed the reason for the animosity between he and Moore was because he was the first person to publicly express his dislike for Watchmen.[15]

So Grant Morrison criticized Watchmen and Alan Moore got super pissed off? Watchmen isn’t so good that it’s above criticism, despite what Alan Moore apparently thinks – get over yourself Alan Moore!

That’s not, however, an accurate account of events.

It’s true that Morrison has said negative things about Watchmen, but this is merely a sliver of, and easily the tamest of, the many, many things Morrison had said about Moore over the years. Moore has never indicated that he cares whether or not Morrison, or anyone in particular for that matter, likes or dislikes Watchmen. The idea that Moore’s fragile ego couldn’t take someone criticizing Watchmen, or even that Morrison was the only one brave enough to make such criticism, is ridiculous on its face.

And for someone who so proudly proclaims he hates Watchmen, Morrison’s actually plucked quite a few of things from it over the years, as well as use its name as a soundbite to hype a number of his own projects:

MORRISON ON 1986’s ZOIDS: It’s probably the closest I’ll come to something like Watchmen; I put everything into it.[18]

MORRISON ON 1987’s ZENITH: We announced to the world that Zenith was intended to be as dumb, sexy, and disposable as an eighties pop single: Alan Moore remixed by Stock Aitken Waterman. […] Watchmen had its ‘Keane Act’ banning superhero activity, and Zenith had the International Superhuman Test Ban Treaty.[5]

MORRISON ON 2004’s SEAGUY: This is my “Watchmen,” really. This is where I’m really getting to talk about the idea of the superhero.[19]

MORRISON ON 2010’s 18 DAYS: In comic book terms, it does for ‘epic fantasy’ what Watchmen did for superheroes.[20]

MORRISON ON 2014’s ANNIHILATOR: Rian Hughes challenged me to design something as intricate as Watchmen, and I said “No way!” But I went away and I got into this idea of doing something based around a black hole and the thing in the guy’s brain. So it came from that challenge from Rian Hughes.[22]

But here’s the weird thing: when the full interview was published months later, it was said to have actually been a never-before-seen “long lost” interview from 2011, not a new one as it had initially been promoted. If this is true, it presents an even stranger order of operations.

This would mean that in 2011, Morrison went on a long spiel about how he would talk trash on Watchmen, specifically to anger Moore, and this made Moore so upset he severed all communication:

2011 GRANT MORRISON: I was the first person to say Watchmen wasn’t very good – in fact, the only person to ever say that. And that made him angry so then I would get worse. I said that Watchmen was the 300-page equivalent of a sixth-form poem. […] I think it genuinely upset him. Alan Moore didn’t speak to me after that.[10]

Then only one year later, Morrison went on an even longer spiel (his 2012 red font narrative from the previous post) where he doesn’t even mention anything about Watchmen and paints himself as Moore’s victim for unknown reasons:

2012 GRANT MORRISON: I don’t believe I ever tried to get “famous” by insulting Alan Moore. It doesn’t seem the most likely route to celebrity. […] As I’ve said, it’s far easier to make the argument that Moore continues to indulge in clear, persistent, and often successful attempts to injure my reputation, for reasons of his own.[13]

In either case, Morrison in the 2010s has now presented two conflicting, headline-grabbing narratives as the origins of his “feud” with Moore. Not only do these narratives contradict each other, but neither narrative holds up when compared to the thirty years of imitations, spoofs, and controversial statements that preceded them – the actual tactics through which Morrison manufactured the whole “feud” in the first place.

Simply put, Moore’s annoyance with Morrison is this:

ALAN MOORE: [He] had decided to connect himself with my name by simultaneously borrowing heavily from my work and making studiedly controversial statements about me in comic-book fanzines.[1]

Does Moore’s assessment hold up?

From Morrison’s first major work in 1987 to his self-described “Citizen Kane” in 2014 (writing the Charlton characters in the style of Watchmen), he has in fact borrowed heavily from Moore’s work:

Admittedly aping Moore’s style (Animal Man, Miracleman, Pax Americana)

Swiping Moore’s plot points (Zenith, Future Shocks, Doom Patrol)

Various other examples featured in earlier posts such as spoofs, meta-commentary, rehashing Moore’s old storylines, and working on more comics-that-had-previously-been-written-by-Alan-Moore than any other creator has

And in thirty years of interviews with fanzines, Morrison has in fact made a lot of studiedly controversial statements about Moore:

Accusing Moore of plagiarizing, selling out, and being obsessed with rape

Stating that he wants to see Moore naked and claiming that Moore secretly reads his work

Various other examples featured in earlier posts such as routine self-comparisons, interjecting himself as relevant Moore’s classics, condescending remarks about Moore’s career choices, and the overall manufacturing of a feud followed by two attempts to retroactively rewrite what had happened

To Morrison’s credit, unless there are any more “long lost” interviews where he again opens up about Moore that are waiting to surface, these juicy never-before-seen quotes released a few months ago could very well be the last “studiedly controversial statements” we’ll see from Morrison.

But what about “borrowing heavily” from Moore’s work? Was Morrison still doing that in any way?

The Green Lantern (2018)

By Grant Morrison & Liam Sharp

Meanwhile, at the very same time the excerpt of Morrison “opening up” about Moore was released, generating sensationalized headlines about their “feud,” the first issue of his new Green Lantern series was hitting the stands.

His biggest project in years, Green Lantern was also one of the last remaining DC titles that Moore had previously written that Morrison hadn’t yet.

GRANT MORRISON: I always find that you don’t know what your themes are, but they’re always there in the first issue. They kind of develop and suddenly you realize “Oh god, that’s the story I’ve been telling all along!”[17]

Morrison’s first issue alone contains:

ONE: A reference to “chained demons,” an event that occurred in Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #2 in 1986.

TWO: An appearance by the blind Rot Lot Fan, an obscure Green Lantern created by Moore and Bill Willingham in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3 in 1987.

LEFT: Rot Lop Fan, created by Moore & Willingham in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3 (1987)

RIGHT: Rot Lop Fan, featured in Morrison & Sharp’s The Green Lantern #1 (2018)

THREE: Floozle Flem, “a super intelligent all-purpose virus,” a brand new Morrison creation.

…which is virtually identical in concept to…

Leezle Pon, “a super intelligent smallpox virus,” created by Moore and Dave Gibbons in Green Lantern #188 in 1985.

Leezle Pon, an invisible “super-intelligent smallpox virus,” created by Moore & Gibbons in Green Lantern #188 (1985)

Floozle Flem, an invisible “super-intelligent all-purpose virus,” created by Morrison and Sharp in The Green Lantern #1 (2018)

FOUR: On a page laying out what appears to be the overarching conflict for the series, Morrison reveals that “the Book of Oa may no longer be trustworthy.” The Book of Oa, which contains the past, present, and future of the Green Lantern Corps, was also created by Moore and Willingham in Green Lantern #188 in 1985.

LEFT: The Book of Oa, created by Moore and Willingham in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3 (1987)

RIGHT: The Book of Oa, featured in Morrison & Sharp’s The Green Lantern #1 (2018)

FIVE: But what could have tampered with the Book of Oa in this new series?

Morrison provides a clue in the center of that same page, smack dab in the middle of the Book of Oa itself:

A blue hydrogen symbol.

LEFT: Doctor Manhattan adopts the hydrogen symbol, Watchmen #4 by Moore & Gibbons (1986)

RIGHT: A blue hydrogen symbol is a central clue in the new Green Lantern series’ apparent overarching mystery, The Green Lantern #1 by Morrison & Sharp (2018)

NEXT: Epilogue – Danny the Street

SOURCES

[1] The Last Alan Moore Interview? (2014)

[2] Alan Moore Interview with Strange Things Are Happening (1988)

[3] Grant Morrison Interview with Comics Alliance (2015)

[4] Grant Morrison Interview with Mandatory (2013)

[5] Supergods by Grant Morrison (2011)

[6] Alan Moore and Superfolks Part 3: The Strange Case of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore (2012)

[7] Alan Moore vs. Grant Morrison – Pop Culture Philosophers (2016)

[8] The Tao of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison (2018)

[9] Grant Morrison vs. Alan Moore by Patrick (H) Willems (2013)

[10] Grant Morrison Opens Up About Feuding With Alan Moore and Why He Still Doesn’t Like Watchmen (2018)

[11] The Comics Cube’s My Thoughts on Multiversity (2009)

[12] Alan Moore and Grant Morrison’s Insane Real Wizard War (2019)

[13] The Strange Case of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, As Told By Grant Morrison (2012)

[14] Grant Morrison Still Doesn’t Mince Words About Alan Moore’s Watchmen (2018)

[15] Grant Morrison on Why He Hates Watchmen (2018)

[16] Two of the Greatest Comic Book Writers Have Been in an Occult War for 25 Years (2017)

[17] Grant Morrison Interview with GameSpot Universe (2010)

[18] Grant Morrison Interview with After Image #6 (1988)

[19] Grant Morrison Interview with Comic Book Resources (2009)

[20] Grant Morrison Interview with Newsarama (2010)

[21] The Comics Cube’s My Thoughts on Multiversity (2009)

[22] Grant Morrison Interview with Newsarama (2012)

The images above are the property of their respective owners and are presented here for not-for-profit, educational purposes only, under the fair use doctrine of the copyright laws of the United States of America. The lyrics at the very top are from the song “Blame It On The Tetons” by Modest Mouse.