Grant Morrison has been busy proving that there's still life in the 3-issue miniseries, and Vimanarama is the latest bit of evidence to that effect. It's just as bizarre and visionary as Seaguy and We3, just as beautiful to look at and just as much fun, and yet the concepts and characters are completely different. This time out, instead of washed-up superheroes saving sentient lunchmeat or cybernetic killing machines trying to get home, we've got a young Indian boy falling headlong into the unleashed forces of darkness and the superheroes who are going to stop them, all against a backdrop that would make Bollywood proud. Delightfully insane and yet surprisingly easy to follow, Vimanarama is another example of Morrison's current hot streak and a welcome art appearance from the highly underrated Philip Bond.
Coming up with concepts that sound bizarre is easy. Anyone can do it all day. But it takes someone like Grant Morrison to say something like "I just liked the idea of taking all the pomp and high holiness of one of the world's great religions...and turning it into a Jack Kirby comic" and actually deliver on the wit and imagination that such a concept promises. But that really is exactly what Vimanarama is. A teenage boy is arranged to marry a girl, but on the way to meeting her, he accidentally unleashes the forces of darkness and comes face to face with the superheroes who stopped them in ancient times. Except that these forces of darkness and the superheroes are based on concepts that Morrison read in Islamic religious literature. What's amazing is that the book comes off as fun and light, even using such weighty material as its basis, much like Lee & Kirby's Thor was a light superhero read despite its basis on the dire tales of Norse mythology.
Morrison gets credit for his wild ideas, but what I've come to love about his work of late is how he mixes wild ideas in with a dead-on sense of comic timing. The conversation that Ali's father has with Omar at the beginning hints at the wacky sitcom nature of the story, Ali's promise of suicide if his arranged wife is ugly and the rationale he uses to explain why this is his only choice are over-the-top hilarious and there's some wonderful interaction between Ali and Sofia as well. The story is wacky without being stupid, out there without being too bizarre (except for comic effect) and actually has a couple really strong characters at its core.
Then there's the artwork, and while I give Morrison all due credit for his work on Vimanarama, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this comic couldn't have happened without Philip Bond. His depiction of city life is impressive enough from the start, and that splash page, evoking all the pomp and circumstance of Bollywood musicals even though it's really just a snapshot of modern life with convenient poses, is a thing of beauty. However, things really get going when Ali delves into the underground world beneath the store. The strange, antiquated technology look of the creature that warns about releasing the dark ones and the amazing two-page splashes showing the Dark Ones' starships or the sprawling magical city are larger-than-life, allowing Morrison's story to take on an epic scope in just one issue. Bond also does an amazing job of combining Kirby style and Indian culture to create the look of the Ultra-Hadeen. In addition, Brian Miller's colors are gorgeous, bright and lush and perfect at setting the mood, whether it's in the rain-soaked streets of Bradford or in the brightly lit underworld at the end of the book.
As I read Vimanarama, I laughed out loud several times and was taken in by the infectious sense of wonder that Morrison and Bond have created. It's a romantic comedy structure mapped onto a Lee and Kirby plot filtered through the sensibilities of Bollywood. Which sounds like the kind of thing that couldn't possibly work, but with these talented creators at the helm, it definitely does. 10/10
