FREE FLEX MENTALLO: MAN OF MUSCLE MYSTERY DELUXE PDF Grant Morrison,Frank Quitely | 112 pages | 03 Apr 2012 | VERTIGO | 9781401232214 | English | New York, United States Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery | Mr. Vertigo 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.