Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Invisibles Vol. 7: The Invisible Kingdom by Grant Morrison:

This trade paper volume collects all twelve issues of the third and final Invisibles series. New characters are introduced, and the boundaries between the various conspiracies motivating the action become ever more porous as the eschaton is immanentized.

The closing series of the comic—especially its last issues—suffers from a surfeit of artists. It gets to the point where a single illustrator rarely has contributed more than two or three pages in sequence. In some cases, a shift of artistic style seems to be deliberately communicating a shift of perspective, but these seem to be the minority, and the visual idiolects are so divergent that the reader must struggle to identify characters and settings in panel after panel.

Once in a while, I would pause and try to bring “beginner’s mind” to bear on the dialogue of the book (especially the pronouncements of “expert” protagonists like King Mob and Helga), and I found that it was mostly sesquipedalian gibberish. For better or for worse, though, it’s the sort of gibberish that my conditioned mind understands and enjoys.

These comic books were originally issued in 1999 and 2000, and they are very much a product of their time. No one could or would write this sort of thing today. Even though the essential fears expressed here remain in force, our political context has rather dampened and shifted the corresponding hopes. Another book from the same period that has dated similarly is Hakim Bey’s Millennium. I would contrast Morrsion’s more concentrated and coherent effort in The Filth, which addresses many similar themes. [via]

The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.