We're the new power, come to replace the old. Cameras in the head, children with microchips, spin doctors rewriting reality as it happens.
Grant MorrisonRead
American writers often say they find it difficult to write Superman. They say he's too powerful; you can't give him problems. But Superman is a metaphor. For me, Superman has the same problems we do, but on a Paul Bunyan scale. If Superman walks the dog, he walks it around the asteroid belt because it can fly in space. When Superman's relatives visit, they come from the 31st century and bring some hellish monster conqueror from the future. But it's still a story about your relatives visiting.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Superman symbolizes the universal struggles we all face, magnified by his extraordinary abilities.
In this quote, Grant Morrison explains that Superman, despite his immense power, embodies the same familial and personal challenges that ordinary people experience, albeit on a grander scale. He illustrates how the extraordinary elements of a superhero's life can serve as metaphors for more relatable issues, suggesting that the essence of storytelling lies in our shared human experiences, even when dressed in fantastical garb.
Themes
SupermanMetaphorStrugglesFamilialStorytelling
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech to emphasize that everyone, regardless of their status, faces difficulties.
More from Grant Morrison
All quotes →A comic will always be more 'personal' than a DVD or CD, both of which require electronic 'players' to decode their content. With comics, the reader is the player so the engagement with the material is always more fundamental and dynamic. Reading comics is a much less passive activity than consuming CDs and DVDs.
Grant MorrisonRead
Gayness is built into Batman. I'm not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There's just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he's intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay.
Grant MorrisonRead
I'm the evil mastermind behind the scenes. I'm the wicked puppeteer who pulls the strings and makes you dance. I'm your writer.
Grant MorrisonRead
Adults...struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it's not real.
Grant MorrisonRead
A cannon fires only once but words detonate across centuries
Grant MorrisonRead
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