Zen Fascism

“Noh-Varr’s power was expressed not in the service of the status quo but as insurrection and anarchy. More frightening than his destructive capabilities were his beliefs.

We imagined our hero’s creed as a strange, unthinkable, untranslatable mix of seeming opposites, described in the text as “Zen Fascism.” We’d all seen what ray guns and flying saucers could do, but what if the alien had a belief system so seductive, so powerful and ultimately corrosive that it could destroy our own social structures? In a move that seems prescient, Jones and I had him attack Manhattan, burning the words FUCK YOU into the street grid, big enough to be read from space.

The third issue introduced Hexus the Living Corporation, an alien entity that arrived on our planet in the form of a mysterious logo. Hexus would root itself in a small office space somewhere and start spawning recruitment flyers —“DO YOU SINCERELY WANT TO GET RICH?”— to attract employees, who would then be swiftly assimilated into its workforce. Hexus traded up to bigger and bigger headquarters as it proceeded through its lifecycle. It was a naturally occurring “wild” corporate intelligence, a superpredator that began to gobble up the market territory of our own synthetic corporations, like Fox and AOL, on its way to devouring our planet’s entire resources before sending out its spores in the form of spaceships carrying Hexus flyers. In the end, Noh-Varr defeated the creature by leaking its secrets to its competitors, who then tore the pretender apart on the international stock exchange. 

With her beloved Noh-Varr banged up in an inescapable superpenitentiary, which he’d vowed with a smile to transform into the “CAPITAL CITY OF THE NEW KREE EMPIRE,” Oubliette was pictured in the bombed ruins of Disneyland with Donald Duck lying facedown behind her, while the voice of Horus echoed loud and clear:

“THIS IS THE END OF THE WAY THAT WAS. COSMIC JIHAD HAS BEGUN. YOU ASKED FOR THIS.”

A horrified President Bill Clinton stroked his chin, perhaps suspecting he wasn’t long for office:

“… IT WAS THE WAY SHE KEPT SHOOTING THE POOR DUCK GUY IN THE BACK LIKE THAT. I DON’T BELIEVE I’LL EVER FORGET THAT IMAGE.”

And in hindsight, Marvel Boy, like The Authority, seems almost to be a transmission from a very different world that was waiting for us all across the millennial barricade.”

Excerpt From

Supergods

Grant Morrison