Back Issues: "The Mystery Play" (1994)

- by Ninja Ross, 24 April 2016

Everyone loves a good murder mystery story, especially when it's set in a small town. And a murder mystery written by Grant Morrison is always going to be a little bit more interesting than your average "Columbo" episode.

The cover to issue #1. Click to enlarge.

“The Mystery Play”, illustrated by Jon J Muth and published by Vertigo, is a pretty generic detective story when you get to the basics of the plot: a guy gets killed and a troubled detective investigates, chatting to witnesses and playing it cool.
 
Set in the fictional British rural town of Townley, things start off with a traditional Christian play about God and Lucifer. All seems to be going well, until the actor playing God is found dead backstage.
 
Arriving on the scene is our mysterious hero, detective Frank Carpenter. Just from the fact that he's wearing a long coat, we can tell he has a troubled past! As the book goes on, he get slowly get some insight into Carpenter's history, but it's a bit worse than being an alcoholic with a dead partner or whatever.

Carpenter investigates the murder of God, starting with the most obvious suspect: Lucifer. But there are plenty of suspects and clues to suggest it might not be the obvious choice: For example, the priest had issues with the actor playing God and so did the mayor of the town.

Carpenter and Woolf.

While the actual murder mystery itself is interesting, it's Carpenter's backstory that's the most interesting. He does and says things that don't seem quite right. He seems like more than just an odd duck with a few strange habits.
 
The Mystery Play is, as you'd expect, full of religious references. It's all very clever and very Grant Morrison-y, but that doesn't seem as important to the plot as the story and characters. While cleverness is appreciated, it's the way Morrison writes that gives the story a bit of life.
 
The characters could easily be cliche's, but Morrison never goes that way. It's more like he's trying to subvert the stereotypes and create characters with more dimensions.
 
You don't typically read a Grant Morrison book for the art, but with The Mystery Play, the script isn't the main draw of the book. While the story is very good and well worth reading, it's Jon J Muth's art that creates the atmosphere and gives the book its style.
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The crime scene.

The characters are very photo realistic, but everything's slightly warped, out of place, sometimes the wrong size. Muth does an incredible job of developing the mental illness and religious themes featured in the book. It also helps that his use of water colour makes everything look a bit rained on, which makes it feel very much like a British story.
 
The Mystery Play is one of Morrison's more underrated books, but it's still one of his better works. Muth's art alone is a good enough reason to check the book out, but an interesting detective and a boat load of metaphors helps round things out.


Have you read The Mystery Play? Do you agree with it being an underrated Morrison comic? Let us know below!

Tagged: comics, Back Issues.

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