SUICIDE SQUAD #58 DC Comics, 1991

"Welcome to the Suicide Squad, Grant Morrison! Hope you survive the experience!"

Yes, comic book rock star Grant Morrison himself appears in the pages of Suicide Squad #58. Writer John Ostrander and Kim Yale slipped Morrison into the Squad line-up - and promptly kill him off - in what is either sly mockery or affectionate piss-taking, or both.

In this comic, an obligatory tie-in to DC's 1991 War of the Gods crossover event, the sinister anti-hero Black Adam enlists the help of the Suicide Squad for an attack on a witch's island chock full of Uzi-toting Amazons and werewolves. I mean, even Black Adam needs help with shit like that.

Squad leader Amanda Waller assembles a small army of Squaddies and second stringers for the assualt, including "The Writer," a pale emo dude who can alter reality just by writing in his laptop. I don't know what version of FinalDraft he has, but I want it.

"The Writer" first appeared in the now famous Animal Man #26 (DC Comics, 1990) , written by Grant Morrison. At the end of his brilliant head-trip of a run on Animal Man, Morrison broke the fourth wall big time by introducing himself in the comic itself to Animal Man as his writer, his creator and ultimate adversary. It was a very well done issue with a surprising emotional resonance that transcended what could have just been a cheap Twilight Zoney storytelling gimmick.

Ostrander and Yale figured, hell, if Morrison appeared in an issue of Animal Man, then he's part of mainstream DC continuity, right? Fair game, right? In Animal Man #26, artist Chas Truog depicted Morrison / The Writer as a ghostly pale British mod, and Squad artist Geoff Isherwood follows form, although here The Writer is dressed in more practical field attire.

The Writer explains his situation to Firehawk and Silver Swan:

Once their ad hoc superhuman army is assembled, the Squad attacks Amazon Werewolf Island, no doubt to weave some plot point into the narrative tapestry that was War of the Gods, which they should have named Yaaawn! instead.

Our man Grant Morrison is doing pretty good, typing away on his metareality laptop and blowing people away just with the power of Story! Robert McKee would be stoked.

You may have seen this coming, but The Writer gets Writer's Block and then he gets Writer's Killed by a werewolf who has probably never even read The Invisibles and wouldn't appreciate good writing if he ate it. What kind of fucked up world do we live in, where a great writer like that can just get killed by an ignorant werewolf? It's depressing.

Maybe it's not a good-natured diss at G.M., maybe Ostrander & Yale are reminding us that the sensitive, the creative, the odd are always at the mercy of the brutal and the stupid.

I think we've all got some thinking to do, don't we? About how you picked on that one Debate Team guy in Jr High just because he was different and maybe he crapped his pants? Or perhaps you were like Grant Morrison getting attacked by werewolves? How does that feel? Talk about it, let it out.

Thank you, Suicide Squad. Thank you for taking us places in our heads we didn't even know we needed to go.