I saw The Matrix long before I ever picked up my very first The Invisibles comic, so as I read the comic, I looked for all of the alleged idea theft that had occurred when Warner Bros. decided to make their sci-fi epic trilogy.
The Invisibles is all about the secret war going on between the forces of order and chaos. It’s also more than just a simple comic book, because it’s a supersigil. Essentially, Morrison believed that by focusing all of his creativity and a little magic into the comic, his ideas could come to life. Order is being imposed on our universe by beings from beyond space and time, and it’s up to the Invisibles to fight back. Of course, I am over-oversimplifying the story because it goes far deeper than that, and the ideas keeping hitting so quickly that sometimes many don’t stick, but they all have a purpose.
Our world is just in its infancy, and this isn’t it for us. We’re evolving and moving on to another state. A loving god idea named Barbelith is the thing that is ushering us on to our next state of being, and one day we’ll all be part of a great information collective where order and chaos are one and no one is different but all the same. So ultimately, the conflicts we have on Earth don’t really matter once everyone is enlightened and joins the Supercontext in 2012.
Just like in The Matrix, right?
As I read through The Invisibles the first time, I felt like Morrison was a little paranoid and that the ideas in his comic weren’t even close to what the Matrix. It wasn’t until my second go through that the comparisons started becoming apparent to me.
Enlightenment, Christ-complex, order vs. chaos, magic mirrors are all part of the Grand Theft Invisibles, but on the surface level of it all, there is the style.
In Talking with Gods, Morrison talks about upset he was that The Invisibles had so clearly been stolen, but then he realized that the magic spell that he was casting had been brought into the world. “But it didn’t change anything” he laments in the film which bothered me because it was a work that Morrison had put all of himself into and he felt like it was for nothing.
Which brings me to Gaga.
Lady Gaga would be nothing without Morrison’s The Invisibles because so much of who she is fits directly into the book. Her style, her wild outfits, but more importantly her attitude of embracing her individuality just scream The Invisibles. Now whether Morrison summoned her from the ethers, or whether she was created by an evil corporation that was trying to capitalize off of Morrison’s ideas once again is up for debate (I like to believe the former because it just makes the story that much more fun, doesn’t it?).
Want more proof of a Gaga / Invisibles connection? Check out the “Bad Romance” video and tell me that the narrative of that music video is not The Invisibles, because it has to be.
I mean, look at the Harlequinade pic that I’ve included here.
Maybe the Lady Gaga / Morrison connection is deeper than that, however. After all, look at Morrison’s series Zenith where the main hero of the story is also a pop star. If anyone could be a pop star and a super-hero, it would have to be Lady Gaga.
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