The Filth [Paperback]

However, the forces on the side of change aren't the cool, stylish revolutionary heroes of "The Invisibles." At best, they're neurotic, self-absorbed and puerile; at worst, they're vicious thugs. All of them want to change the world to suit their needs.

Opposing them is the Hand, an interdimensional police/sanitation agency dedicated to keeping things as they are. They know what nightmares lurk in other dimensions and timelines, and maybe the world's better off without them.

The lead character tries to decide whether he's really a deeply mundane "dodgy bachelor", a world-changing revolutionary or a reality cop. The dream of changing the world becomes complicated once you realize there are so many ways to screw up the world and so few ways truly to improve it.

Morrison ends on a humanist theme, suggesting that even small benevolent acts, like trying to keep your sick cat alive, change the world.

Some of the stuff in the middle feels like rehashed material from Morrison's run on "Animal Man", but once you drill down a few layers, there's good stuff.

As explained in the description, you have a regular, older-than-middle-aged guy who used to be a top agent in a top-secret organization known as the Hand. (Not Elektra's old employers; different comics company anyway) Now he's had his memory wiped and he lives quietly in England. Picture James Bond being brainwashed to believe he's a UPS driver in Des Moines, Iowa and you'll have a pretty good idea of what this setup is like. The basic premise of this episodic 13-issue collection is that the Hand takes care of all sorts of gnarly dangers to the world.
Ned Slade is an agent but he prefers the quiet life that they have made up for him, but now they need him back.
Among the other agents of the hand are a communist, human hating Chimp who can boast that he shot JFK.

Now that's the basics, but of course, nothing's ever basic in the world of Vertigo. Morrison tacks on some truly out-there stuff that is a bit difficult to understand, including a metaphysical breakdown of the fourth wall involving a spandex clad superhero who's tragically lost his way. Fans of the Doom Patrol will probably get this part -- I honestly didn't. A few re-reads may change that.

There are massive amounts of sex and violence. If the Filth were made into a movie, I don't know if it could get an R-rating. But the biggest stumbling block that readers may have is that by the 11th issue it just gets too murky, and the ending may leave some unsatisfied. But I will give it points simply for continuing to deliver the atypical, earth-scorching, rebellious attitude that makes Vertigo as valuable as it is.

It takes roughly ten pages for the story to erupt into utter weirdness. Before that mark we follow the life-pattern of one Greg Feely, a cubicle serf with a peculiar taste in pornography and a co-dependant affection for his cat Tony. One night he finds a naked black woman in his shower; he half-wittingly engages in a day-glo romp session with the vixen and Feely's 'para-personality' is stripped away to reveal his 'true' self, Ned Slade, a policeman - or, more technically, a garbageman - for the Hand, an underground organization which cleans up and disposes all aberrations, perversions, and social threats to the Status:Q. Unfortunately Slade is an amnesiac: due to a severe trauma during a previous assignment, he has regressed so severely into his Feely persona that he's now forgotten the details of his existence. . . or so he is told over and over by the mysterious minions of the Hand.

Like the Invisibles and other media of this nature, *The Filth* benefits immensely from a re-read or three (or, as I did, read the first four issues and start over) - information is given erratically, with purposeful intent, and certain visuals/dialogue will only make sense after one has progressed with the main text. Overall *The Filth* reminded me strongly of a Philip K. Dick novel, or more precisely a conglomeration of the Horselover's stranger entries like *A Scanner Darkly*, *Ubik* and especially *The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich*; the time-distortion/control-resistance/drugs/schizo themes updated with mainstays of 21st century pulp, particularly nanotechnology and the smirking post-modern deconstruction of genre boundaries (a literal deconstruction, in this case). Morrison is no copycat, though, and the Filth abounds with willful debauchery and overt bizarreness: a dope-smoking chimpanzee KGB assassin with a vocal distaste for human beings; nanotech I-Life existing upon a "bonsai planet"; brainwashed children compared to ants; and, among the more vulgar moments, a porn-star who possesses black semen of high fertility rate - a seed captured and transformed into a viral weapon by Tex Porneau, a film 'auteur' obviously based on Max Hardcore (the most overt L.A. reference in the book, IMO). Morrison tackles alternative dimensions, conspiracy theory, bacterial influence, identity crisis, comic-book critique (possibly a reaction to his stint on mainstream titles like X-men and JLA??), and much, much more in this kitchen-sink 13-issue series. But the question remains: does it _work_?

Unfortunatly, no. . . not quite. From a recent interview, Morrison states: "...The Filth can be seen [sic] a healing inoculation of grime. I'm deliberately injecting the worst aspects of life into my reader's heads in small, humorous doses of metaphor and symbol, in an effort to help them survive the torrents of nastiness, horror and dirt we're all exposed to every day - especially in Western cultures, whose entertainment industries peddles a mind-numbing perverted concoction of fantasy violence and degrading sexuality while living large at the expense of the poor of other countries." Yeah, I agree, Grant. However, while *The Filth* does bring up some nice points and climatic thought-caps to the wretched build-up of humanity at its nadir, Morrison neither captures the truly _worst_ aspects (censors wouldn't allow it, though any and all are easily accessible these days via the Pandora's Box that is the Net), and, more importantly, his revelations are too few, too far between, and too sparse in content to really make an effective impact. I blame the kitchen-sink approach. There is so much here to digest - not a bad thing in itself - but the side-tangent stuff tends to bloat and lessen the overall intent. The comic-book deconstruction elements are a good example, as they seem to me almost unnecessary. I understand what Grant was getting at here, in the metaphorical sense of perfect ideal/stasis superman vs. the corrosion of realty alongside the 'need for suffering' drive; I just don't feel he achieved it as well as he might have in so limited a space, so crammed a vessel. The art is nothing spectacular, either, very workmanlike and lacking most of the innovative framing and visual/symbolic depth of the *Invisibles,* although according to the author this was intentional.

It's difficult not to compare *The Filth* with Morrison's past conspiracy-theory magnum opus: when done so, I'm afraid this graphic novel really does far short of the mark *The Invisibles* set. But, as an artist myself, I fully understand and support the need to grow, to take a directional change. . . at least as long as it delivers in a new and interesting way. . . and this comic certainly does that in spades.

Four stars.