Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe Free

FREE FLEX MENTALLO: MAN OF MUSCLE MYSTERY DELUXE PDF

Scottish superscribe Grant Morrison has told some of the greatest stories ever with iconic superheroes including Superman, Batman and Wolverine, but what really distances him from his contemporaries are meta-fused, surrealistic projects such as "The Invisibles," "The Filth" and "Flex Mentallo. Following his page-stealing yet limited appearances in Morrison's counterculture hit "Doom Patrol" inFlex Mentallo was featured in his own self-titled miniseries in Long a critical darling, the miniseries was unavailable to a generation of readers as it remained out of print and uncollected -- until now. Emblazoned with "YOU! In part a parody of the classic Charles Atlas comic book advertisement from the sFlex Mentallo is a wild ride of epic storytelling and at the same time a small, tender piece which will break your heart at several turns. Morrison himself counts Flex Mentallo as one of his favorite creations and in this exclusive interview with CBR News, the writer shares his thoughts on the character's secret origin, explains how Muscle Mystery works and teases literally teases the possibility of "Before Flex Mentallo. Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe Morrison: Oh yeah. I was really happy to see it. And Pete Doherty has done such Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe great job on the new coloring. It's like a whole new book. I guess. I would like to have seen it done back in the '90s but Charles Atlas got in the way. It was more to do with the fact that we had a court case. And even though DC won the thing, I think it was very much a sensitive book. I kind of imagined it might never be seen again after that. And this year, he's finally doing a lot of these books that he's wanted to do and this is one of them. You pose the eternal question of "where do ideas come from" in the pages of "Flex Mentallo. That was really the main question of the book. And it's one of the questions that writers always get asked. And I thought in that book, I would at least try and answer it. Ideas come from a race of action superheroes that live in all of our heads, so I guess that's where they come from. I have to believe. I've been making a living off of them for the past 30 years. I better believe. Did you have a Man in the Moon lamp on your nightstand growing up in Glasgow that inspired you as a young writer like the one in Wally Sage's bedroom? No, I didn't have anything specific like that. I had a lot of little, weird totems and things that came off my Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe fur coat -- these weird little heads of minx and foxes. Those were kind of my things. I didn't have the Man in the Moon lamp. That was actually owned by a friend of mine. And it was something that he had when we were a little bit older. I just kind Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe threw it into the story because I had seen it recently at the time. Why did you feel it was necessary to delve even farther from the beaten path and unleash a character as bold as Flex Mentallo? It was the nature of the book. If you look at the stuff I've done over the years, it's always about, "What's this book about? And if it's Superman, you try to get to his classical heart. If it's Batman, you try to do something very intricate. It's a detective story but it's very creepy -- almost a horror, gothic story. And Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe Justice League, it's big mythological things. I have always looked to explore the core of the feature. And with "Doom Patrol," it was the craziness and the strangeness. I was really trying to get to the heart of the absurdity. I knew the opportunity Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe very much welcomed and Flex gave a completely new way of looking at that. When he first appeared in "Doom Patrol," he was a very positive character. He described himself as America's merriest crimefighter. He was really a very simple superhero figure. He was just that guy that never lets you down. He's just a good guy who is almost like your big brother or your Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe or someone. He's so pure and he doesn't have hang-ups. He doesn't have problems but he plunges into this world where everyone else does and we get to see how he reacts to it. Obviously, comics in the '80s were following a kind of a deconstructionalist path. Books were under a heavy influence of "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight," which were both completely different ways of looking at superheroes, especially as you look back at them in retrospect. But at the time, there was a big influence from those books to do superhero characters in a much more realistic or plausible way and the stuff I was doing was a real reaction, I guess, because I find that quite dull. Not necessarily dull to read but dull as a writer to do because my tendency was to always go for the more imaginative aspects of superhero comics. Because there are things that you can do in those books Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe you can't do anywhere else. I thought it was possible to do adult comics without having to deal with social realism because normally when you are doing adult superhero stories, the way to do it Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe to make it more realistic. And I wanted to do adult stuff that was less realistic with the same big issues that we all have to think about. No, you know, I was really lucky as a kid that I was never bullied. My father brought me up to be non-violent, which meant I had a lot of good tricks and strategies for avoiding fights. There was only one time where I actually did get into a fight and I had so much pent up aggression, I was a little spitfire of a kid, but otherwise I just didn't have anything like that ever happen to me. But I can sympathize because I understood what it was like to be a non-violent kid so I had to find ways that didn't rely on violence. I was a skinny kid, as well so I identified with Mac in those adverts even though I didn't have to deal with bullying. For the Muscle Mystery, again I'm taking the stuff from the Atlas ads quite literally. In the ad, you see him when he gets the Atlas course and there is this sign above his head that says, "Hero of the Beach. What if that actually happened? And that was part of the manifestation of muscle mystery. Muscle Mystery was just an observation that the body and the mind are one thing rather than two separate things and when he flexes it causes 'bodymind. He doesn't have the same horrible western dualism that the rest of us have to deal with. Bodymind is all one thing. Everything he does from the twitch of an eyebrow to the flex of a bicep will create these, like I said, fantastic and bizarre psychic effects. You literally wrote yourself into "Animal Man" and King Mob from "The Invisibles" also owes much of his likeness to you. I guess there is a bit of all of us in them. I think we all have these characters in us. Flex is definitely a part of me, but he's also part of my dad and other big guys that I have known that are quite buff and physical. There is a writer in the story so there is a little bit of me in Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe, but there's also the Hoaxer and he's the very archetypal supervillain who is up to something. You never know quite what he's up to but what he's up to is sort of benign. They are all just parts of me, but I think they are kind of parts of everyone else, too. Are you surprised that he has remained a fan-favorite after all these years? I think the character was quite popular, but, likewise, Rorschach only had 12 appearances. And in that case, the character was so strong people have never forgotten him, so I think it was just the strength of the character and the simplicity and potency of the character. Is he a character that you would ever return to? Do you have other Flex Mentallo stories you want or need to tell? And because he appeared in "Doom Patrol" first, which was a DC book, he kind of became a Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe character even though every single character in the miniseries was basically created. It's kind of like a creator-owned book but it isn't. He could show up anywhere. Geoff [Johns] could put him in the Justice League. I have this strange fear that he is going to appear somewhere someday. No, I don't think they've realized that they can. The character seems so attached to me, so probably no one would do it. Geoff had him in "Teen Titans" very briefly. He was in a poster on the wall at the Doom Patrol HQ. But maybe in a couple of years, everyone will realize they can use him -- but that would be horrible. While we don't want to remind writers he's available to appear in their series, there will also definitely be a whole new generation of readers who will find Flex Mentallo because of this new deluxe edition. That's a good thing, right? Of course, maybe some kid will read it and they'll get an idea that they want to do something with it, as well. And that's cool, as long as they don't do some heavy reconstruction where he's a bastard but I guess you have to take whatever you get when you hand over a character to the world. The series was drawn beautifully by one of your frequent collaborators, Frank Quitely. The proof is on the page, but what does he bring to Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe project? Obviously, what he brought is his fantastic drawing skills. EXCLUSIVE: Morrison Unleashes Muscle Mystery in "Flex Mentallo" Collection

Two Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe my favorites conquered the behemoth that is the US legal system and came out victorious. We didn't have to wait too long for King City to be collected, but it took 15 years between Flex Mentallo 's serialization and its collection this month. Flex Mentallo is Grant Morrison's semi-autobiographical journey through the dizzying highs of Silver Age superhero optimism and the grittiest lows of post- Watchmen pessimism. It's a story about why all these capes and tights matter and just how important superheroes are to mankind. Flex was birthed in Morrison's tenure on Doom Patrol in the early '90s, inspired by the old Charles Atlas-style Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe in the backs of comic books offering to make a man out of youdear reader. But you don't need to know any of that, really. Flex is the best parts of you or me. Flex is your father, Flex is Morrison's father, he's the Platonic ideal of what a father figure should be. He's the one man you believe that, no matter what, will always come through for you. There's just one catch: Flex, the character, is a comic book superhero. Sure, he is as "alive" as Wally Sage, the kid whose drawings of Flex miraculously sprang to life, but he's still a comic book character, a superhero. More importantly, Flex knows he's a superhero. What this does is allow Morrison to heap everything positive about superheroes onto the character of Flex and then send him through the darkest, weirdest corners of 70 years' worth of the genre. Flex Mentallo is important because Flex knows exactly what he is and is completely unashamed of it. That's not the only reason though; Morrison treads over similar, though less metafictional, ground over a decade later in All-Star Superman and Final Crisis Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe, which are quite different beasts from what we have here. The strength of Flex Mentallo comes not just from this distillation of the superhero ideal, but from the painfully familiar Wally Sage. I'm sure there are some of you who didn't read comics much until you were an adult, so your experience may be a bit different, but Wally follows the same path that quite a few comics fans do. It starts with an almost unwavering, inexplicable love for superheroes. Then, usually around adolescence, you've convinced yourself that you've grown up and that Youngblood is more "mature," Watchmen more "realistic" than Superman or Batman. Hopefully by this point, you've realized that there's a maturity beyond simply containing mature themes. Morrison shows us glimpses into Wally's past as he's attempting suicide and we see that he's mostly made it through the first two steps and perhaps abandoned the third when he abandoned comics. By looking back with nostalgia at the comics of his childhood, Wally realizes that the superheroic ideal isn't really that childish of an idea. He knows superheroes aren't perfect and that they can't solve everything. But they don't really need to be solving everything either, they just need to be there when you need them. I'm not about to spoil the ending for you, as despite Flex Mentallo 's age, there are probably quite a few folks who haven't read it, but it really shouldn't surprise you, when you're finished, just exactly why this is one of the best criticisms of the superhero genre, fans, creators, and characters alike. If that's not reason enough, Flex Mentallo is easily the closest thing to a distillation of Morrison's philosophies that have been present in much of his work. Now, for the elephant in the room, there's one thing I really don't know how to feel about with the Flex reprint: Peter Doherty's coloring. My first thought after reading it was that it was mostly unnoticeable. Some tones were a bit more muted and it Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe more of a "mature readers" feel to it, but I wouldn't really say that that's such a bad thing. If you want an example, the two panels toward the top, where Flex asks you to gamble a stamp, that's the old coloring. It had been a while since I saw the old printing of the Flex, though. The recoloring hurts in a way that most people, who may very well be reading Flex for the first time, probably won't notice. The bright, Day-Glo colors of some of the original panels have been dialed down quite a bit. Where there was a really surreal quality to the original printing, it feels as if Doherty decided that we needed to know that comics were serious business which is just the kind of thing Flex seems to be against. Okay, so it maybe takes itself a little more seriously now, it looks a bit more realistic; that's not that big of a deal. The re-coloring is probably just a matter of taste. Then I saw the Mindless Ones' postscript about whitewashing minor characters and I flipped through it a third time. I'm kind of lost at this one; there's not an excuse I can think of that justifies recoloring a book and turning previously black characters white. The only logic I Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe see Doherty having for this is that he was handed the line art Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe colored it without even glancing at the original, except that the five colors of Mentallium atop Mentallium Man's shoulders seemed to match the old printing almost perfectly. I don't think there's any agenda there, but even so, it doesn't really have anything good to say about a culture of institutionalized racism in our media. That this happens in a Grant Morrison book is also particularly disappointing. It's seems like Morrison has tried to go out of his way to have an ethnically diverse cast in his more recent work which gets embarrassingly tainted by a colorist who accidentally makes Mister Miracle white… or after fixing that, makes Sonny Sumo dark skinned. In the end, I really wish they'd left the colors alone. I understand artistic intent and could even understand Quitely not being happy with the original colors, but I feel like they really lent something to the series. For those of you Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe haven't read it, you probably won't notice it at all, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't seek out the older printings, just for a peek. David Fairbanks doesn't get many things right the first time. He studied physics in college, loves science, music, comics, poetry, movies, books, and education pertaining to all of the above. Mostly self-indulgent ramblings can be found at bairfanx and untilsomethingbreaks. Home Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe. GCD :: Issue :: Flex Mentallo #1

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Flex Mentallo by Grant Morrison. Frank Quitely Illustrator. Once he was Hero of the Beach Now Flex Mentallo, the Man of Muscle Mystery, returns to investigate the sinister dealings of his former comrade, The Fact, and a mysterious rock star whose connection to Flex Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe hold the key to saving them both. This fast-paced tale twists super hero tropes, introducing one mind-boggling concept after another in a tour de force of innovative storytelling. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. Published April 4th by Vertigo first published January 1st More Details Original Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe. Flex MentalloThe Hypersigil Trilogy 2. Other Editions 9. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Flex Mentalloplease sign up. Recent Grant Morrison books have left me cold but this graphic novel was superb. Everything works and I definitely will be rereading this one in the near future. See 1 question about Flex Mentallo…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. May 18, mark monday rated it really liked it Shelves: comiconnew-dimensionsrain-man-reviews. View all 5 comments. More than a review, this is my attempt to rationalize Grant Morrison's script of Flex Mentallo, so it's probably doomed to fail. This is not a resume of the plot of the comic page by page, but a post- construction I have dared to elaborate after reading the story three or four times, in different directions and from different angles. In my view, there is no other way to approach this work, due to the convoluted nature of the story. Compared to Morrison's script, David Lynch's "Inland Empire" is p More than a review, this is my attempt to rationalize Grant Morrison's script of Flex Mentallo, so Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe probably doomed to fail. I will try to put some order into this series by exploiting the obvious similarities of the Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe Mentallo" story with the famous DC series titled "Crisis on Infinite Earths". In "Crisis Finally the DC superheros save the day and a new reality starts. Here, things happen a little different. So, let's go. Spoilers abound if the world "spoiler" means something in a morrisonian context : Things start with a catastrophe menacing parallel universes. This multiplicity of universes, called the polyverse, is being destroyed by an evil force named "The Absolute". The superheroes of this polyverse "The Legion of Legions" are failing to stop that evil force. As a consequence, the polyverse will disappear, and the Absolute will Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe the only reality from now on. Before everything collapses, however, the superheroes develop a plan to at least save themselves somehow by self-mailing to a new kind of reality outside their doomed polyverse and within The Absolute. As part of the plan, two League members, Nanoman and Minimiss how could someone not to love those names? Now it seems that Legion members have some place to go. However, something went wrong. Superheroes arrive, but they are doomed to live in a strange state called "fictional", the place where all fictions live. The Legion will not be able to actually become real until someone in the "real" reality will decide one way or the other, by virtue of a magic word that will break the quantum coma. However, that magic word seems to exist only in that fictional state, as the solution to a Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe in the hands of a misterious shazam-like retired superhero. Someone in reality should pronounce that word and bring the heroes into life. Close to Sirius, Legion members are waiting for someone to remember them and bring them to reality. For that to happen, the barriers between fiction and reality must broke, and a child named Wally Wallace Sage seems to be the perfect person for the task. The heroes manifest to Wally at critical points in his life, like a possible child abuse experience. During that experience we see a green- caped guy the leader of the Legion holding Wally's hand and taking him to a Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe of the fictional world "Welcome to… Where you-get-your-ideas". It seems that Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe God-like fictional characters not only created our reality, but they take care of it providence. They sometimes "come" to our world to help us, to help people like Wally to cope with his life. The green-caped hero shows Wally the fabric of our reality, and how they have been transmitting fictional ideas into this reality they created. Wally is told that he is the one that will be able to make them real again "Don't be afraid: before it was a bomb, the bomb was an idea". Wally, inspired by the Legion, draws comics and creates new characters like Flex Mentallo. As such, Flex lives in a fictionary world, just like the Legion, but with little contact with them. In Flex's fictionary world, the Legion is a legendary entity that few people was able to see, but sometimes they manifest themselves through epiphanies, drug induced hallucinations, appearance to space travellers, etc. It seems that in the fictionary world there are parallel universes, so Flex does not mix with the Legion in the same way that Sherlock Holmes does not mix with the characters in, say, The Walking Deadbut connections are not forbidden… However, as Wally grows up, he abandons his love of superheroes. But another character created by Wally, called The Fact, believes that the fictional world created by Wally deserves to be saved. The Fact is very special. He was "spread and twisted" through time and space by some psychic superpowers of the adolescent Wally, as a kind of punishment that now results in a blessing. The Fact is the only character that seems to be able to jump from reality to fiction, and to move between the different fictionary worlds. His multiplicity of appearances, at different times and locations, leads Flex to consider him a collective, named Faculty X. The-Fact-Faculty-X considers Flex to be the only hero that is able to save the world and leaves him a lot of clues to that point towards a teleport tube. Flex believes that the teleport leads to the Legion HQ but that is actually an illusion created by The Fact. Actually, the teleport is the door to the place where the "villain" lives. This villain is a moonfaced character representing the adolescent Wallace, who now negates and despises the superhero world that he previously loved and created. This moonfaced character is the one that previously punished The Fact to live in-between worlds. He claims to be the controller of the "creative engines", like an impersonation of the child's creativity Wally Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe to have, while reading comics Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe the help of his old moonfaced lamp: "I made you, Flex. I made your whole sad, scabby little world to entertain myself with and now I'm going to destroy it". The forces of creativity have also the destructive counterpart, the power of destroying its previously created worlds. With the help of Lt. Harry and The Hoaxer Grant Morrison himself who, being the writer, has the last word about everything that goes on hereFlex confronts moonface. In the fight that ensues, Harry is forced to shot himself and the Hoaxer simulates to collapse but, of course, it's a hoax; no one can defeat the writer! Harry comes to life again and Flex defeats Moonface. Removing his mask, the moonface reveals his teenage Wallace Sage identity: a person who, like many of us at that age, wanted Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe "destroy" everything related to superheros "pathetic fucking power fantasies for lonely wankers…". But Wallace is aware that, by destroying them, he somehow will die during the process. Luckily, Flex feels sorry for moonface-teenage-Wallace and helps him. Old superheroes like Flex "would never let us down". In parallel, we see how a grown-up Wallace reminds his love of comics. The piece of coal representing Flex's death now has become a diamond. Flex, Lt. Harry and the young Wallace look towards the Earth with hope. They know that "The Fact is out there somewhere" and will rescue them. The fiction world is saved, but they are still fiction. How is The Fact going to help?