THE FILTH BY GRANT MORRISON REREAD/REVIEW!

 THE FILTH REREAD

A DEEP DIVE INTO THE BOWELS OF THE ULTRA-SPHERE! You have no idea how proud I am to say that I loved every second of this reread. Let's dig in!

Chapter One : "US vs THEM"

• Greg Feely is your average Joe Schmo working nine to five and coming home for R&R with his cat and a 1v3 against lotion, kleenex, and exotic porn. However, Greg Feely is not Greg Feely. He's actually a para-personality, a vacation-avatar used by Ned Slade, agent of a ultra-clandestine organization known as The Hand (their agents are known as The Filth). He's been called back to the fray by another agent, Miami Nil. One of the interesting dynamics I enjoyed was the fact that Ned's grown very comfortable living as Greg, and he's not completely ready to leave his life of mediocrity as well as the adorable cat, Tony. As Ned leaves, his place will be filled by a doppelganger, Douche Greg. Absolutely heartbreaking to see Tony watch as they speed off (crazy car design by the way). Forget that, crazy designs everywhere! Chris Weston knocks it out of the park with this, and the page featuring LaPen, the hyper-sex scene, and the reveal of the Soon Experiment with her burning corpse on it were my favorites. Who is the redhead chick with glasses at the beginning? Who is this mercenary in magenta? Who is Simon?

TF #2 - "Perfect Victim"

• This one was great. The concept of I-Life is absolutely fascinating, and as of today I'm sure we're not a few years out from some technology like this, unless it already exists. The banter between Dmitri and Nil was great, and I'm really digging Morrison's wacky dialogue conventions more than I ever have. The hierarchy of the Hand was super cool (Fist, Palm, Finger, Horns, Frequency), but I just need to get familiarized with the bonkers environment. I find it strange that every time Mother Dirt speaks, the frames are concentrated on LaPen. The showdown with Hughes was cool, and his cryptic final words will hopefully mean something by the end (honest to god I'm coming to this super fresh). Why can't Ned fully remember time before Greg Feely? Who is Cameron Spector? Who is Babalon Mandrill? What is the Science Gestapo? Where is the Hand headquarters (The Crack) located? Why do those dolphins have Nazi markings? Who is Man Green/Man Yellow?

TF #3 - "Structures & Ultrastructures"

• Brilliant, but freaking depressing. The sequence with the halo jumpers exiting the comic-book world was mind-bogglingly awesome. I live for meta-mess like that (done the right way!), and of course Morrison and Weston are going to deliver. Harlotte and Mercury were fun, but Secret Original was no doubt the highlight. Him revisiting his past was sad as heck; Morrison is great at making you relate & sympathize with these characters who've descended to the lowest of the lows, becoming pathetic and depressed (something we've all felt at some point). I'm finally feeling that sense of existential dread, the post-9/11 reality that is so contrary to everything shown during The Invisibles. The Ned returning to Greg sequence was also sad, the funeral + Dmitri's nihilism did not make it better. At least he tied up Douche-Greg. Why did they bring back King Mob's scorpion gun from the Invisibles? Why was Ned cutting out a picture of an ant?

TF #4 - "S**t Happens"

• What a fascinating read. The back-half was great, Ned finally getting some of his groove back to take out anti-person filth. Interesting to see his development as a character, he's become a bicameral personality, composite, maintaining a mixture of elements from Ned and Greg. One of the most intriguing parts of this chapter were the tidbits regarding the geography of the Drains. These under-dimensions where the Hand operate (referred in this chapter as The-World-In-The-Crack) are so crazy and fun, only acting as proof of Morrison's skill as a world-builder. The relativity/entropy associated with the Drains was very cool, and I wonder how someone would arrive in these under-dimensions without one of those mouth-vehicles that the Hand uses. Arno Von Vermun was fun, and this very much was an analysis of his character, though I loved the subversion of the serial killer luring his prey with it being the opposite and giving us ultra-Ned Slade. Drowning in piss while confessing a horrific murder was wild, and Ned still having to make it back was great. So who is Max Thunderstone? What is up with Douche-Greg? Why do the vehicles have mouths?

TF #5 - "Pornomancer"

• Very much a "WTF" issue, but not in the conventional sense. Anders Klimakks is a pornstar who's has an irresistible aura as well as black jizz. Yup, bro shoots obsidian loads from his ten inch penis. He's hired by a psychotic experimental porn director named Tex Porneau, who walks around naked wearing a cowboy hat and holding a camcorder at all times. Tex uses Anders' magic black cum to create giant sperm creatures that burst through females in an attempt to procreate. I would say you can't make this stuff up, but Grant really did. The main theme of this chapter was stated by Tex perfectly: "Fucked or Be Fucked." Literally, everybody gets fucked in this issue. Two LAPD detectives are introduced: they get fucked and collared. A new Filth agent, Jenesis Jones: she gets fucked and then obliterated by a giant sperm cell. The mailman drops off a package, he gets fucked while wearing a bird mask. Ned Slade and Dmitri-9 appear in two panels of this issue: they do not get fucked. Only question I have is what the gimp dudes were building that giant ball of junk for inside the mansion?
  

TF #6 - "The World of Anders Klimakks"

• Ho-lee-math. I was having so much fun with this issue, and then the last couple pages literally turned into Ander Klimakks and absolutely mind-donked me into jet black oblivion. This had a great opening, we finally get to see how LaPen functions; they linked her up with Moog Mercury who is now sporting drip feeds that convey info between them. I finally found out who Cameron Spector is (I went back to issue 3 and saw mercury refer to her as they escape the comic book dimension). Why are Mercury's intravenous terminals infected? So this chapter reveals the reason why Anders doesn't remember jack: he's an answer for infertility, a homunculus designed to repopulate the planet! However, he's designated as an anti-person since his repopulation will make his children exact clones of him until humanity is replaced by Anders Klimakks. Miami probing Tex was great, and him getting devoured by the kaiju sperm was even better. Crazy to think that they can just resurrect agents into new host bodies after they die; it's truly the para-persona makes the agent effective. We finally learn why the vehicles have mouths; to clean up the filth! Before the finale's mind-blowing sequence, Ned states his memory has come back, and he remembers why he asked for so much time off; hope that gets elaborated on. Now, this is where it gets weird: Ned arrives home to find everything in shambles, but was it actually he who's been losing his mind? Has everything that's been happening a fabrication in his own head? The pictures of the kids with the ant-heads are still an enigma: we saw him cutting the heads out in issue 3, but why did he put them on the kids? He states he wanted to learn photoshop? As for the kid killing, that's clearly just seeing Dmitri-9 coming in, the gunshots were also Dmitri, and the coffins are the buried cats (revealed that he's buried multiple besides Barney). Mentions of missing twins, as well as the neighbor's Laurie; is there a kiddie killer? Where did Douche-Greg go?

TF #7 - "Zero Democracy "

• My mind is falling into the pit! Spotlight on the Libertania! A colossal cruise ship society descends into chaos! The return of Spartacus Hughes got me good: this brings light to what he stated before his death in issue 2. "Anyone can be Spartacus Hughes", the agents of the hand are all para-personas, this blonde rando now has the cunning of Hughes. His recruitment and seduction of Neville Quain into the religion of sadistic A-holes was fascinating to watch, the equivalent to a ten car pile up on a massive interstate highway. I can't help but wonder if the morphine he gave to the president was some kind of contagion that spread to the population and caused them to go mad. Money means nothing; art is our god. The final sequence with Greg's interrogation was interesting too: we are still on the fence between delusion and framing. Him talking about children as soulless monsters makes me think he is crazy, but the mention of Thunderstone + taking out the guards turns me in the other direction. The final pages where he finds the tampon from earlier was brilliant. This series has my head in a vice grip. Excited to continue. Who sent this new Spartacus, and how did he come to be? Who were the masked opera phantoms in Italy? Who is the woman with the flowers?

TF #8 - "<3*%$ Police"

• The Libertania Experiment revealed! This truly is the anti-invisibles: the whole point of that book is that humanity is one collective organism that forgot and split into tribes, but when Glitterdamerung comes and we ascend we will have awakened and born into the new medium of existence as one fully realized being. This shows that idea as an evolution of the destruction of society, out of the ashes rises this hive mind virus that consumes all. Spartacus is definitely employed by someone against the Hand (Thunderstone perhaps?). I liked the mention of Dmitri missing his first shot on purpose because it ties into the JFK thing, and if you go back to issue 2 he does the same with the OG Spartacus (however, in issue 6 he does not shoot twice to kill Anders). Douche-Greg is back somehow and leaving Tony to starve to death! Is he someone else, or just a manifestation of Greg's psychosis? What do the ant-heads mean!?

TF #9 - "Inside The Hand"

• Here's the thing, for the sake of my pride as a Grant Morrison fan I will not admit that I have lost the plot. So instead, let's dissect the mess out of this. Fact: I hate having to decipher Spector's glaswegian dialect phonetically. Man Green/Man Yellow revealed! I'm assuming that they are the Science Gestapo? the art in this sequence is phenomenal, and I would rather have this kind of schizophrenic storytelling 10x over the Spector exposition (which I definitely think Grant is cheeky enough to have done on purpose). So the world-in-the-crack is a meta-physical ethereal dimension, where all the booboo of humanity rains down. This sequence and real-captain noxinnixon describe it as discarded blueprints by some creator in a higher world. The mention of being dull angels without the crack seems to imply that this dirtiness is essential to making humans human: a similar parallel message seen in the Invisibles where the Outer Church and the Invisibles college are two sides of the same coin: no dualities, only symmetries. We get some answers regarding the Horns as well as a mind-donk revelation. The dolphins harvest ink for subs to transport, ink from a giant hand holding a giant pen. The ink apparently gives life: possibly the life in those comic book sequences seen during issue 3. Lore dump: first explorers in the crack built the headquarters until realizing the entropy decaying their age, using an atom bomb to break the pen nib. I wonder if the entropy in this dimension is a representation for how whole years can occur in the span of pages in the comic world? Relativity between dimensions? They say the hand could belong to the blueprint-maker who cut off his hand after seeing the horror he wrought, or maybe it's still attached and he's just stuck with writer's block. Was he writing the suicide not they call existence? Bio-ship Sharon Jones returns from the second issue (she was the lady with the flowers) and possibly blows I-Life into Tony's corpse to resurrect it? Diving into this next filthy issue!

TF #10 - "Man Made God"

• This might be one of my favorite issues of the entire series. The tragedy of Max Thunderstone was engaging from beginning to end; a life and death of a man devoted to bringing enlightenment to humanity. This is framed brilliantly; a beautiful anti-invisible, where Max is our King Mob against the Hand's outer church. There is no US vs Them, only symmetries! So Greg's para-personality was working with Thunderstone the whole time? That's the only way to reconcile this, or maybe he was sent to be Greg undercover for so long in order to lure thunderstone out and defeat him.

TF #11 - "A Very English Nervous Breakdown"

• Sheeit! Greg was working with Thunderstone's invisibles against the Hand the entire time! I just wonder how they were able to inject the Ned Slade para-personality to disrupt his memories of working with Thunderstone. Spartacus Hughes was created by them and infiltrated the Hand, which makes it more interesting that they got their own mole in Greg to go against him. The fact that they inject these para-personalities into anti-persons is fantastic, I read up on a blog comparing this to how our immune system co-ops threats as part of the cure. Greg apparently broke into the drugstore with the para-personality backups and contaminated them? Death of Dmitri with the visions of the space apes was hysterical. The neighbors finally believe him, his name and mind have been cleared. We meet Babalon Mandrill, a female homonculus with enough breasts to make up for a lack of arms. What does the scorpion gun signify? It's a hyper-weapon from the comic book world, but it was King Mob's gun in the invisibles as well. Tony is dead, but I thought the Bio ship sharon jones resurrected it? I want to jump into this finale right now!

TF #12 - "Schizotype"

• None of it was real. All of it was real. My brain is fried. I need to finish this.

TF #13 - "THEM vs. US"

• Right before I go to bed. In an interview with Morrison at SDCC in 2003, a couple months before the release of the final issue, they revealed that Greg had actually created this fictional world + adventures as a way of self-therapy. He's cleaning out the filth in his mind, or better yet, embracing it to grow stronger. The I-Life is a result of himself accepting all the filth and negativity he retains in his body, mind, and soul. It's a cycle: everything decays into mess, but that mess can help cultivate new life. Everything that happened is a psychic spring cleaning: the porn chapters (5-6), the comic books (3 & 10), the class warfare (7-8), the violent/intrusive tendencies (4). All of the adventures, all of the world-inside-the-crack, all of it happened in those few seconds before he died, before he made friends with the filth within him. That's the entropy, that's the decay. This book is also about understanding the futility of US vs THEM: freedom is not chaos and order is not oppressive control. Those are the extremes, but once you realize they go hand in hand, balance brings more prosperity for all.