Greetings, frugal fangeeks, and welcome once again to the Bargain
Basement of Dooooom. I’m a massive admirer of Grant Morrison’s work, but the
big man’s contentious status as a comics superstar/ersatz cult leader tends to
mean most of his books are far too desirable to be found in the manky discount
bins (mostly with good reason) and therefore fall outside of the pocket-money remit
of this particular column. However there is one notable exception – AZTEK: THE
ULTIMATE MAN.
Written by Morrison and a young, fresh-faced Mark Millar,
and drawn in a distinctive, cartoony yet subdued style by N. Steven Harris (who doesn’t seem to have
drawn much outside of this series, aside from an occasional issue of Batman and
Generation X), Aztek ran for just ten issues from 1996–97. It’s easy to see why
the series didn’t catch on: an extremely cheesy name, a costume that would have
looked gaudy in the Silver Age and a horrifically vainglorious macho tagline
straight from a bad aftershave advert. Frankly, it looks like an ultra-generic
accumulation of worn-out superhero clichés. However, all is not as it seems…
When we first meet Aztek, he’s a nameless character, new in
town. The town in question is Vanity City, a curious metropolis that combines
the social grimness of Gotham or Hub City with the design flair of Starman’s
Opal City. Equipped by the mysterious Q Foundation with a costume that gives
him a range of powers, from the standard-issue to the exotic, Aztek’s first act
as a new hero is to stop the stereotypically ’90s Image-style vigilante
Bloodtype from murdering a supervillain (Piper) in cold blood. Clearly, this is
Morrison symbolically attempting to rescue the medium from its ’90s descent
into unfeasibly large guns and impractically numerous pouches. We then discover
that Piper was no evil mastermind, but a desperate father robbing a bank in
order to save his kidnapped daughter. After Piper dies, the identity-less Aztek,
in a somewhat bizarre move, takes on the dead man’s name and job as a doctor.
Essentially a blank slate, Aztek is a curious cipher of a protagonist, whose only character traits are a general sense of decency, a willingness to learn, a fondness for non-violent solutions (in one scene, he pays off muggers instead of fighting them) and an otherworldly naiveté. For example, it’s pretty bloody naïve to think that you can steal a dead doctor’s identity and just turn up at the hospital the next day claiming to be him, thinking that none of his colleagues will notice (spoiler alert: they do). Aztek’s true identity is not so much mysterious as non-existent, and we see him being created – as a man, as a hero, as a fictional entity – right in front of our eyes with each issue. Those with a bent for waxing philosophical with regard to Grant Morrison’s trademark metatextual gubbins would surely have a field day with this.
In fact, behind the common-or-garden superheroics implied by
the mostly crap covers are a whole heap of interesting Morrisonian concepts: junkyard
robots piloted by eyeless operators or guided by operator-less eyeballs; a
shapeshifting supervillain whose powers make him a genius for 12 hours out of
every 24, then render him a moron until the clock turns again; quasi-hallucinogenic
technobabble, e.g. ‘thinking the suit into a higher vibrational key’; two temperature-controlling
villains (one with ice powers, one with fire), and lovers to boot, who are
fused into one body; and themes of ancient deities, four-dimensional space and
being flooded with hyper-knowledge that will be familiar to anyone who made it
alive through the cosmic enlightenment/I’m so bloody high chapter of Supergods.
As the series goes on, the links between Aztek and Vanity
City become ever more intriguing. We learn that the city was designed for
occult purposes, its architecture designed to maximise psychological discomfort
and facilitate the return of world-shattering elder gods (which I choose to
read as an homage to the ‘Spook Central’ building in Ghostbusters). The city
itself leads to a heightened level of despair and suicide, and even disrupts Green Lantern’s ring
when he pops by in #2. Speaking of which, you know that only good scene in New
52 Justice League #1, where the otherwise outclassed hero steals GL’s ring
without him noticing, thereby demonstrating his superiority and avoiding the
obligatory fight that accompanies the first meeting of two heroes? Totally lifted
from Aztek #2.
Later, Aztek would meet the Joker, Batman, Superman, the
Parasite and Amazo, and would eventually, in the series’ final issue, be
inducted into the Justice League (with a great initiation scene). His nascent
girlfriend suffers one of the most disturbing fates this side of a 1970s
Spectre story. We also discover the identity of the mysterious benefactor
behind the Q Foundation, which has serious ramifications for Aztek’s career.
Though hardly the greatest comic of all time, Aztek was a
lot more interesting, intelligent and multi-layered than its covers and
marketing made it seem. It occupied a strange strata at an awkward time in
comics history – too weird and low-key for mainstream success, too mired in
spandex nonsense and old-school Silver Age goofiness for the Vertigo crowd.
Ultimately, the series was a commercial bomb and was cancelled at #10.
Aztek subsequently appeared briefly in JLA, but Morrison
clearly realised that the guy’s time was up. At least he let him go out with a
big, heroic gesture.
RIP Aztek. We barely knew ye.
(originally published on the Big Glasgow Comic Page)
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