The Invisibles, Vol. 4: Bloody Hell in America

The Invisibles #4

by Grant Morrison, Phil Jimenez (Illustrator), John Stokes (Illustrator)

In a world where paranoia is a survival skill, the only hope for humankind is a group of unconventional occultist freedom fighters called the Invisibles. In this collection, the team launches an assault on an underground New Mexico lab to free the cure for the AIDS virus from the alleged inventors of the disease: the U.S. government. Collects Volume 2, Issues #1-4

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy, Comic Book

104 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Grant Morrison has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, after beginning their American comics career with acclaimed runs on ANIMAL MAN and DOOM PATROL. Since then they have written such best-selling series as JLA, BATMAN and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as THE INVISIBLES, SEAGUY, THE FILTH, WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, they have also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS.

In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set a year after his torture session with Sir Miles, King Mob is resting up in America with Robin while the others swan about New York City. They meet Jolly Roger, leader of another Invisibles cell, who has lost all of her team members after a failed strike against an underground government facility where they discovered the cure to AIDS, and decide to team up to liberate the cure.

Changing tack from the last volume, Grant Morrison gives us a slim, faster-paced volume collecting four issues of a singular storyline rather than the usual eight-issue volumes that gleefully jump about the place. And I suppose that’s a concession and/or appeal to make The Invisibles more appealing to a larger audience, but it’s only a half-hearted one that doesn’t quite work because Morrison just can’t do dumb action - he has to to throw in elements of history, cross-cultural magical rites, semi-philosophical discussions, and so on!

But you can more or less follow what’s happening - the Invisibles storm a Bond villain hideout and win, basically. This involves an interesting mix of stereotypical and original moments like lots of guns being fired while running around and messing about with plastic explosives, while also psychically battling a midget in a noh mask and masturbating to bring about a deadly hail storm.

I like that Morrison’s expanding the world a bit more by introducing other Invisibles cells who’ve only been mentioned so far and, besides Jim Crow, we haven’t seen yet. Phil Jimenez’s art is outstanding as well with incredibly imaginative layouts and awesome character designs - I particularly liked his rendering of King Mob’s hairy war mask that makes him look like both Han Solo and Chewbacca in one!

But there’s a lot of things about the book - and I suppose the series so far - that irritated me. We’re over the halfway point now and though we’ve gotten to know some of the characters a bit, they’re all still pretty much undeveloped. Robin in particular remains a complete blank but she’s now been made the new leader and features prominently in this volume. Yet all we know about Robin is that she’s apparently eight years old (but looks to be in her twenties), she wears clown makeup (ironically parodying makeup in general?) and she’s now in a relationship with King Mob (which, if she is really eight, makes him a paedo!).

The problem, for me anyway, goes beyond knowing very little about the characters - what little I do know about them just isn’t very endearing. When Lord Fanny, Jack Frost and Boy make their entrance (and it is an entrance), they stand in the doorway, posing and yelling out their arrival as if they should be greeted with a standing ovation. Throughout the book the characters do “cool” things like going to “spiritual” places and drop LSD while talking about visions they’ve had; other times proving how progressive they are by showing up ordinary peoples’ prejudices against trannies and/or homosexuals; they have tantric sex (because regular sex isn’t chic) and talk about the movies of the day and their secret meanings. Basically I realised the Invisibles are very self-aware that they’re “cool” and come off as obnoxious showoffs that in real life I would cross the street to avoid.

The book, and series, is very dated, especially in that scene where they’re talking about current movies like Speed, Pulp Fiction, and Independence Day, not to mention the recurring mentions of “smart drinks” (a staple of the 90s rave scene, which Morrison was a part of) and Kula Shaker records (Bing it). It’s not just the films though, it’s the banal interpretations of the films that I think a lot of readers of this comic would have already heard - that Marsellus Wallace’s soul being in the briefcase, etc. - being repeated, or else ascribing an overly-intellectual meaning to a piece of shlock, like saying Speed is an allegory about the end of the world. It goes back to not liking the characters and because they’re coming off as more and more pretentious. And you can’t get more dated than an actual date that was the future then and is now the past to us - Morrison puts the apocalypse down as December 22, 2012…

Morrison continues to pursue the theme of individual identity over conformity but fails to develop it further. The same arguments are brought up as they were earlier in the series. King Mob guiding one of his crew into reminding them of their training to overcome the mental conditioning of the evil government types, while the baddies sit around and talk about how they want everything to be homogenised and sterile. It’s getting repetitive now and has the opposite effect that Morrison’s going for - it’s become a stale and tired message.

The story didn’t grab me, partly because I’m not really into conspiracy theories so “shockingly” revealing that they’re true didn’t make it more exciting to read, and partly because there’s not much of a story here to begin with. It’s straightforward dull action featuring anti-heroes I’m increasingly becoming ambivalent to against cliched bad guys behaving in over-the-top evil ways, most of whom are actual monsters! I can understand what’s happening but I’m not really that invested in it or anyone in the book.

I think at this point in the series, if I’m not liking the characters, I don’t think I’ll ever like them - that might change, and I hope it does, towards the end, but I’m going to bet that it doesn’t. I’m starting to get the creeping sensation that The Invisibles will go down as one of those Grant Morrison titles that simply wasn’t for me. I’m still going to see where the series ends though (not least because I’ve bought the remaining three volumes already!) and hope I’ll become more drawn in as we near the end.

By the way, the correct Oppenheimer quote is “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” not “shatterer of worlds” - what a weird thing to get wrong!

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the fourth installment the Invisible penetrate a top secret facility controlled by the enemy and said to have been responsible for the AIDS virus (this was back in the late 90s when AIDS was arguably seen as more of threat than today). Jolly Rogers, queen of the lesbians, has lost her Invisibles cell group and joins up with King Mob and the others to spread mayhem against some bad people which means it's totally okay. It's a shorter volume than the others but it has a lot more gore and over the top action. Probably because the series got moved to an American audience. The artist, Phil Jimenez, makes me stop and take extra notice so better artwork than usual.

A guard has the high moments of his life flash before him seconds before he dies to paint an image. A love affair starts between two of the Invisibles (and yeah with their sexual tastes it could be any combo, right?). As advertised on the back cover this is truly an Avant garde adventure. The dwarf with the comical mask turns out to be more than expected but few should be surprised if they've read the previous volumes. This is considered one of the classics and was said to have shaken up a stagnant period for comics/graphic novels. BBC started a TV series but it never saw the light of day. This series may have very well influenced movies like THE MATRIX and other such types.

ARTWORK: B plus to A minus; STORY/PLOTTING: B to B plus; CHARACTERS/DIALOGUE: B to B plus; THEMES/INNOVATION: B to B plus; WHEN READ: mid March 2012 ; OVERALL GRADE: B to B plus.

[Googz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Also read around the time of the 4th of July weekend, and with a title like BLOODY HELL IN AMERICA, how appropriate! As stated, the INVISIBLES titles are confusing even to the most practiced of comics-readers, and that's the point, and you really have to embrace that you're not going to completely understand every aspect of everything that's happening. I reckon this is pretty much true of everything you might read, just to lesser degrees than I've experienced with THE INVISIBLES. Anyway, it's clever enough to keep me readin', so it's got that going for it.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this once, years ago. It was the only volume of Invisibles that I'd read and, I think, the first thing I'd ever read by Morrison. I didn't like it, and I didn't get it. Now that I've read the first three volumes of Invisibles, and know a bit more about Morrison, I can certainly say that I liked it. But did I get it? More than I did the first time I read it, at least.

[Miguel Angel Pedrajas · Rating 5 out of 5]

El cuarto tomo de la saga es el más breve de todos. Su arco argumental discurre en Estados Unidos y gira, una vez ya recuperado King Mob de sus heridas, en la infiltración de Los Invisibles en una base secreta de la Conspiración.

Es, hasta ahora, el que tiene una estructura y una narrativa más convencional, menos extraña y con una acción muy peliculera. Te tiene enganchado desde el principio y, aunque sigue desvelando más elementos de este particular universo de Morrison, es complicado perderse.

Como en el anterior tomo, al final del mismo se incluyen unas notas del autor que explica que las ventas y la recepción del público a los primeros números no ha sido la esperada. Achaca que la complejidad del argumento y el estilo narrativo, al no ser el convencional, puede haber echado atrás a muchos lectores. También los cambios de dibujantes según las tramas e historias que quería contar parece que no cuentan con el beneplácito de los seguidores. Es cierto que particularmente, si yo tuviera que seguir mensualmente la salida de cada capítulo de esta saga, probablemente la habría abandonado hasta que se hubieran publicado más números y entender de qué va todo esto y si va a ser o no cancelada. Porque lo cierto es que, al ser una idea tan transgresora, no las tendría todas conmigo respecto a su viabilidad y recepción. Grant Morrison puso toda la carne en el asador y apostó fuerte en el éxito de esta historia. Pero es curioso saber que, como en otros muchos casos no solo del cómic, este clásico estuvo a punto de ser cancelado.

[Deniz · Rating 5 out of 5]

İlk ciltte aldığım tada geri dönüş var.
Gerçek hayatta birkaç yıl, hastalıklar, maceralar ve zorluklardan günümüzde ise bir iki saniye süren aradan sonra bu ciltte artık Amerika’ya geliyoruz. Matrix before Matrix dedikleri hadiseyi bu ciltte okuyoruz.
“Post-modernizmin” zaferi burada!
Cildin kötüsü de Poison Pussies ismindeki bir lezbiyen örgüt, lol. Bilirsiniz drag queen’lerle lezbiyenler pek anlaşamaz zaten :p

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seemingly more straightforward than other volumes, for better or worse. It was a tight story, but not super interesting. I think 3 has been my favorite so this felt like a tangent from the stuff I was interested in from the previous volume.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Invisibles, Vol. 4: Bloody Hell in America is the shortest and probably the least satisfying volume of The Invisibles. The back cover describes it as, 'the ultimate introduction to one of the most provocative series in modern comics', which offers some explanation. It jumps forward a year to the team recuperating from the events of The Invisibles, Vol. 3: Entropy in the U.K. in a luxurious American safe house. This mansion is owned by Mason, a rather tiresome millionaire who is convinced he was abducted by aliens as a child. On the bright side, we also meet the awesome Jolly Roger and learn more about Ragged Robin, who was my favourite character when I first read the series.

The main event is an attempt to steal the cure for AIDS from a secret military base, which rapidly goes wrong. The most striking spreads are nearly-colourless representations of the Other Side, where the Archons come from. These reminded me of the intensely creepy visuals in the John Carpenter movie They Live. The military base has an eerie futuristic design that contrasts neatly with the locations the Invisibles inhabit. The battle of chaos magic vs interdimensional authoritarianism proceeds with explosions and dramatic fight scenes. Although it isn't as substantial and thought-provoking as the rest of the series, volume 4 is still compelling and distinctive.

Oh, I almost forgot. The introduction states that the apocalypse will happen on December 22nd 2012. You have to admit that would explain a lot about the last ten years.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely the zippiest Invisibles arc.

[Titus · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the most streamlined, focused and consistent volume of The Invisibles so far, but it's also the least interesting.

This is evident in the art as well as the story. This is the first volume where all the art is by one team, with pencils by Phil Jimenez, inks by John Stokes, and colours by Daniel Vozzo. They do a solid job: none of their art here is anything special, but none of it's ugly either, which is more than I can say for the previous volumes.

Furthermore, the four issues collected here tell a single, coherent episode in the ongoing adventure, without any significant digressions. There's also less psychedelic craziness and esoteric philosophizing. Unfortunately, the digressions, psychedelia and esoterica are the most interesting parts of the series. Indeed, there's little of the imagination and originality that redeem the earlier issues, and what's left is a pretty pedestrian 1990s-style action comic, complete with cheesy quips, hyper-sexual leather costumes and loads of explosions.

As in all the previous volumes, the characters mostly remain one-dimensional and uninteresting, though they're not as outright annoying as earlier in the series. That really sums up this whole volume: the problems that have plagued the series so far are less evident, but so are the strengths that make up for them.

[Tobin Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

My second—and very likely last—exposure to Grant Morrison's writing. I love Phil Jimenez's art and it was almost...almost...enough to help me forget a lot of the dumb stuff Morrison had the characters jabbering on about.

There's a story in here somewhere, but you have to hack at all the self-indulgent crap that Morrison throws in—pop psychology examination of movies, discussion about bleeding edge tech (he tries to out-Warren Ellis Warren Ellis and fails...no one talks tech like Ellis) and he populates the Invisibles with edgy characters (he tries to out-Garth Ennis Garth Ennis with out there characters and fails...no one writes edgy characters like Ennis).

Overall, for such a slim volume, despite the gorgeous art, I had far too many "get on with it" moments over the pages and pages of Morrison trying to show how clever he can be.

Decades ago, I read Morrison's Arkham Asylum and remember loving it at the time. This time around, not so much.

[_Liebert · Rating 4 out of 5]

nutty, nutty lore

[Devon Munn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4 stars

I did take a break between the last volume and this and I did reread the previous series to catch up and it was pretty solid. The artwork by Phil Jimenez was amazing

[Jack Herbert Christal Gattanella · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a part of me that thinks I should rate this is a tiny bit lower just because of how short it is...but DAMN what a strong volume for one so slim! In this tale the Invisibles raid a facility in the Southwest that has the possible Anti-Virus for HIV that the government (surprise surprise) has had since 1978(!) What makes this compelling is how the tension builds during the raid, and the very deranged/bizarre shit that goes down when they get deep into the compound (some of those drawings could have been drawn, or wish they'd been drawn, by Escher - with a tab of E). And there's still character development, plus the introduction/expansion of some others, like the more straight-laced businessman of the group (who also expounds about the existential motifs of Speed and Pulp Fiction), and a rather mean but gets-shit-down Lesbian who has a history with King Mob. And while it's a year later after the third volume (technically this is the first of "volume 2" of the series after the first 25 issues, I guess), there's still implications from Mob's torture, and Robin's rise in the Invisibles as Mob's lover.

oh, and Jack Frost is a hoot.

[J.G. Keely · Rating 2 out of 5]

Morrison seems always to be over-extending himself. The fellow simply does better when he sticks to something more simple. His greatest downfall is always his attempts to be meaningful. Morrison seems to always hover around the same level of meaning, the result of which being that the more he tries to be meaningful, the more his ideas become overt and tautalogical.

He also tries to fit in too many sources and concepts without streamlining them, which often results in incorrect facts. He followed the old wive's tale about bats being blind in Animal Man, he Misquotes Oppenheimer in this series, and also indicates that Byron would have known of Blake's work. I know there are some others I can't recall, and perhaps it is the nature of the fast-paced script writing, busy schedule, and ill-health of Morrison which resulted in such oversights, but it breeds little confidence in a reader to give him the benefit of doubt.

My Suggested Reading In Comics

[Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here we are, trade paperback number four and the first installment in the second volume of "The Invisibles".

This book was more of the same greatness that we've come to expect from the series. Although, Morrison has changed up the series a bit here and I don't think it's coincidence that when our favorite freedom fighters come to America, they go all "action film". This collection is much like the others, with the same subject matter, but the volume is slim, full of explosions, and seems designed to storyboard an American action film.

Don't let that description throw you, though. Phil Jimenez' amazing art is back, making this volume not only a soul-piercing read, but great eye-candy, as well... And Morrison still treats us to things such as an explanation of what the HIV virus is, a Tarantino-esque diner scene, shamanic rituals, and what REALLY happened at Roswell, all shot through with sex and a bit of the old ultra-violence.

This volume and the whole series are a must-read.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a sloppy mess. I loved every minute of it. At this point, Morrison could have the Invisibles start a softball team on the moon and it would still be great. The narrative is out of control, but Morrison understands it--he's just begging your brain to race with his own. Robert Oppenheimer and Robin's breasts make guest appearances. The little masked guy is a thing of nightmares.

[Tanabrus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un po' troppo "supergruppo" questo primo volume della seconda serie.
Non capisco perché la ristampa sia partita da qui, in passato avevo letto i primi volumi della prima serie, con il reclutamento di Jack, e li avrei visti molto meglio per introdurre la serie.

[Coral Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this but it did take a while to get into. I thought the premise was excellent but I was confused as to what was going on at first. However, I loved the end reveal and would like to explore the series further.

[Keith Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Try to describe all that you are. Simultaneously discern the logical flaw in what I've just said. Now! Feel the white flame." Nice and smooth

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can you count how many heads exploded in this volume? More strange shit but at area 51.

[Koen Claeys · Rating 3 out of 5]

The A-level artwork by Jiminez makes the psychedelic, ultra-violent story easier to swallow.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a review of the series as a whole. Vol. 4 just has my favorite cover. The Invisibles is my favorite comic and probably always will be. It's very near and dear to my heart.

The Invisibles is ultimately about what Morrison believes comes after death. The ego peels away as consciousness joins the “supercontext”: a timeless hyper-moment of unified thought. This experience is at first intensely frightening. Everything not-self appears monstrous—oneness experienced as assimilation into a churning insect hive. But on the other side of ego-death is pure bliss, unconditional love.

Morrison introduces their vision as a binary war waged in secret between diametrically opposed armies: the freedom-loving Invisibles and the fascist servants of the Archons of the Outer Church. But in its final volume, The Invisibles transforms: we're told it is not and never was a war. It has always been a rescue mission. The Invisibles must liberate all of humanity, even the enemy, from the prison of the individual.

If I have one criticism it's that Morrison too often explains their complex beliefs in the text, usually in hints peppered throughout the series, to the detriment of ambiguity. There is still a lot of effective surrealism but the philosophy-heavy dialogue can be frustrating—it’s Morrison nudging us toward their desired interpretation. (Morrison is a lot more comfortable with ambiguity in their other surrealist masterpieces, The Filth and Doom Patrol, neither of which hinge quite so directly on their belief system.) But Morrison’s enthusiasm is infectious; reading the comic is like listening to a really smart, charismatic person work through the intricacies and contradictions of their most deeply held beliefs in real time. The reading experience is never dry, emotional/sensory effect is never sacrificed. The narrative is vital, funny, scary, and thrilling the whole way through.

Morrison and their collaborators' genius, and what keeps me coming back 20 years on from the first time I read it, is their ability to approximate the experience of ego-death in the language of comics. Morrison's frenzied theorizing on the nature of time and space combines with comics' unique ability to present multiple timeframes, durations, and locations in a single image--the comics page--to overwhelm the reader's linear mode of thinking and, like the nonlinear editing in a Nicolas Roeg, instill the sense that all times are one. The Invisibles also resists presenting itself via a singular aesthetic. Morrison teams with many artists, each with highly individualistic styles (Phil Jimenez, Jill Thompson, Steve Yeowell, Philip Bond, and Frank Quitely, to name a few, couldn't be more different), to create the sensation of peering into a prism of competing perspectives, much like the experience they posit awaits us after death. One of ongoing comics’ greatest weaknesses—the lack of a unified aesthetic due to the time constraints of the monthly publishing schedule—becomes arguably The Invisibles’ greatest strength. The Invisibles reinvents itself almost every issue, finding deep meaning in its experiments with comics form as Morrison moves toward their goal of helping the reader gain a new perspective on death.

[Jean-Pierre Vidrine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume that brings the crew into America is a pretty cool continuation of the series, but for one colossal flaw. I know this is a series all about counter culture fighting against oppressive authority, so some amount of conspiracy theory in the story is probably inescapable.
Conspiracy theories are things that once fascinated me. Even when I outgrew being able to believe in them even as remote possibilities I could still enjoy them in works of fiction, for a time. Having encountered too many people who could not distinguish between a compelling work of fiction and a statement of real-world plausibility, I quickly tired of the very idea of conspiracy theories. I couldn't even continue watching X-Files anymore.
Here, the dropping of the first atomic bomb becomes, in effect, an act of magical summoning that indirectly leads to the Roswell military base, leading to all sorts of dirty dealings. That itself is an out-there idea that is incredibly compelling and bearable. But the part of the story that that talks of the government creating HIV, hiding a vaccine for it, and even talking of sinister motives behind the polio vaccine, was so ridiculous it may as well have come from a frothing fool on YouTube. I'm sure it wasn't Morrison's intention to cater to paranoid idiots, but such elements in a story are likely to appeal to few other people. Doing so is irresponsible, to say the least.
Despite this giant problem, the volume reads like a springboard for what I hope are great stories to follow. As I go on with the series, hopefully the problematic issues will be addressed in some way. Or perhaps they will seem less ugly as I continue reading.

[Eric Stodolnik · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really awesome Volume.
It was incredibly, disappointingly short compared to the other "The Invisibles" collections. In fact, I'd have to say that this Volume is a mere 1/3rd of the other Volumes so far... (if that!)... *womp womp*

But to make up for it's brevity, the artwork in this by Mr. Phil Jimenez... is... mother... fucking... AAA... MAAAZE...ZIIINNG!!!!! AMAZING!!!! Fucking beautiful! The sheer detail in it is just on another level from the books that came before it! I really loved the artwork SO SO SO MUCH!!! I really hope that he keeps doing such high quality artwork for The Invisibles!

And the whole story of the base in New Mexico, Mr. Quimper, and, finally, Ragged Robin's origin story begging to be revealed!!! ... LOVED IT!... I can't wait to see more about her story!

Really, in my opinion, I think this series just gets better and better as it goes. It kinda find's it's voice and it's style, and it just gets stronger and stronger!

Can't wait to read Vol. 5! :D

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Invisibles have relocated to the States, with Jack, Boy and Fanny working in New York City while Robin and King Mob take to the American Southwest. King Mob and Robin take up residence in the mansion of wealthy Invisible benefactor Mason Lang who connects them with fellow agent Jolly Roger, who proposes they launch an assault on Dulce Base. The small team of Invisibles ends up on the receiving end of a massive psychic battle with agents from the Outer Church, leaving Robin with a little token from the attack that'll be relevant in the coming issues.

Blood Hell in America is definitely one of the less elaborate volumes of the series, perhaps more so because it's just four issues. The Phil Jimenez artwork does make for some of the series' best artwork (he also contributed art on three issues collected in Entropy in the U.K.), but aside from the spectacular visuals, this arc remains a little lacking on the story progression front.

[D.C.P. Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Invisibles Vol. 4: Bloody Hell in America is about The Invisibles infiltrating a secret U.S. government facility in Dulce, New Mexico in order to retrieve an HIV vaccine kept under wraps.

Bloody Hell is right. The blood and gore are dialed up to 11 in this one.

Add in remote viewing, ceremonial magick, weather dancing, and mind control, and you've got a recipe for an exciting yarn. Plus the fact that Oppenheimer was a secret priest of Azathoth.

Oh, and we find out what they recovered at Roswell, and it's tied to Oppenheimer's creation of the atom bomb. Morrison doesn't mention the other tie of Roswell to the bomb--the first responders at the Roswell crash were the 509th bomber group, the same group that dropped the first atomic bomb. (This is true! The military has never disputed this.) But he may have known about this connection nonetheless.

A fun and very quick read. It should take you less than two hours to read this one.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bloody Hell in America presents an adventure-filled expansion to the Invisibles, but I found one plot-point in particular to difficult to read during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas Entropy in the Uk establishes mind-control is possible through language, Bloody Hell in America posits that mind-control can occur as the result of immunizations. Given the rise of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories during the pandemic, the seemingly absurd nature originally present in the comic becomes recontextualized for readers as a Q'Anon fever dream conjured up decades in advance. This volume's ability to replicate Q'Anon thinking may be a testament to Morrison's efforts to create a comic series wherein every conspiracy theory turned out to be real, but it also undercuts the provocative nature of this volume's critiques about government's relationship with science.

[Vittorio Rainone · Rating 4 out of 5]

La realtà è contesa fra due forze: gli Invisibili, anarchici insurrezionalisti favorevoli alle bizzarrie dell'umanità, e l'Oltre chiesa, che al posto degli uomini vorrebbe degli automi del conformismo e del controllo. C'è tutto Morrison in queste storie, ma non si arriva agli abissi di incomprensibilità che il Nostro ha saputo raggiungere. Divertente, ipercinetico ma con spazio per squarci "filosofici". Personaggi forti che sanno prendersi la scena. E la "minorenne" Ragged Robin che vince a mani basse il premio "icona sexy". Grazie agli ottimi, davvero ottimi disegni di Phil Jimenez.

[Chris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic - prescient for The Matrix and Twin Peaks: The Return, but still very much a unique thing. The double spread of Quimper’s “breakdown” is an astonishing tribute to Steve Ditko at his most mad and paranoid, and reminds me that Morrison knows just as much of comic history as Moore but wisely doesn’t let that knowledge destroy the pacing of the story (as in LOEG which ends up as moribund Peter Kaye-esque references to every arcane bit of British pop culture he can cram in this side of Fred Bassett and the Gambols)