(7) NICK SPENCER –

MORNING GLORIES (Image Comics 2010 – ?!)

“What did you see when your eyes were opened?”

Well, for one thing, I saw Morning Glories, an ongoing series from Image Comics that had me enraptured from the first issue I read. In the tagline of its writer Nick Spencer, it’s Runaways meets Lost (without the ending of the latter, or indeed any ending at present).

In my eyes, it’s as if the Illuminati had a high school – or perhaps more aptly, since it is referenced by name, as if Grant Morrison’s Invisibles had a high school. Or if Night Vale WAS a high school, given that it has one. Indeed, Nick Spencer shows a positively Morrisonesque flair for twists and turns of storyline, at times even coming close to Morrison’s unrivalled hand at those fabulous comics one-liners or that juxtaposition of word and image.

The Morning Glories (or just Glories) is the nickname for the protagonist group of six new students, selected for the prestigious Morning Glory Academy – selected, that is, for a very particular and peculiar set of selection criteria. Which may or may not explain that they all seem to manifest mysterious abilities or future selves, and that they all seem to have dark or strange pasts (including – perhaps – the occasional homicide).

It doesn’t explain why the location of the school is kept mysterious by drugging each new student before arrival – or why their parents don’t even seem to remember their very existence when they call them from the school (with one notable exception, which necessitates the most unfortunate consequences). It certainly doesn’t explain the “mysterious and shadowy purpose of this dizzying boarding school of horrors”, which remains mysterious and shadowy except only that it seems to be the tip of a global conspiracy – or conspiracies.

Not to mention the other paranormal phenomena or time travel within and without its walls. (In one of my favorite Morrisonesque one-liners from the series, a student enquires as to the trippy design of a time machine – “Who built it?” “You did” is the reply).

Nor does it explain the sadistic faculty staff, led by the unseen headmaster behind the scenes – who don’t hesitate to resort to progressive mind control techniques, extreme physical discipline and the occasional sacrifice.

After all, it’s “for a better future” and we all have to make sacrifices. Literally.

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)