Page 45 Review by Stephen
In its time, so contemporary. Twenty-five years on and it's still so relevant that it appears positively prescient.
There was one particular boy-band manager who was notoriously gay. And not just notorious for being gay - for being casting-couch gay. Pop star Zenith's manager Eddie MacPhail is much less predatory but he seems to have annoyed U.S. Intelligence's Phaedra Cale.
"Okay! I've had enough of this 'Monty Python' stuff! Zenith's coming with me and I will not be dictated to by some old Scotch fairy!"
"Excuse me!"
Indignation.
"It's Scots, if you don't mind. 'Scotch' is a drink!"
Well played, that man, Morrison!
Powers, politics and some of the slickest superhero art of all time. Reprinted here, it's so glossy it glows. I used to dream that my hair was drawn by Steve Yeowell. And - to be fair - my hair at the time did look as if it had been drawn by Steve Yeowell. I spent an hour each day making sure of that.
ZENITH Phase One was a beauty to behold but here Yeowell really takes flight, loosening up from what I presume was a John Byrne fetish to become its own flexible thing. My presumptions come from a couple of the poses and the reflective circles of light in young Robert's eyes. My preference for Yeowell stems from his infinitely keener, contemporary fashion sense and a line which is looser, more humane.
You know how some people wonder which actor they'd like to portray their biopic on screen? I think of that in terms of comicbook artists: I'd like Steve Yeowell to depict me.
Okay, for the set-up, please ZENITH Phase One.
Robert is a pop star whose sales largely centre around him having superhuman powers and a bloody great quiff. He's not a superhero, mind. He's not in the hero business at all. He's all about those singles' sales so when called on to help out he needs some persuading. Here's a particularly effective lure: the truth of what happened to his parents.
Zenith is the first pure-bred superhero, resulting from his birth from two others: he's ingested none of the metamorphic drugs designed to create superhumans from scratch. He is unique. And targeted. And he's about to meet Daddy.
Meanwhile Richard Branson has set up shop and is about to unleash the most monumental assault on Britain's sovereign soil on record. Did I say Richard Branson…? It must be the balloon sweaters. I meant Scott Wallace, obviously. Nobody sue me, now.
Includes some of Morrison's ecological arguments which would manifest themselves far more extensively in ANIMAL MAN and WE3, both recommended.
