Nameless #2 Review

Written by: Grant Morrison

Art by: Chris Burnham

Publisher: Image Comics

Wow. Nameless #2 is a really weird, spooky, gory, beautiful, “Morrisony” book. I mean all of that with the upmost respect and admiration. Nameless lands on the moon at the beginning of this issue, hoping to finally understand what the mission is and how close to obliteration the Earth is. Unfortunately, it looks like the last occult expert on the team went absolutely insane while studying the asteroid…and the Earth has about 30 days before that same asteroid slams into it.

This book is so chock full of sci-fi, horror, and occult references that I would be doing a disservice to Morrison if I even tried explaining them here. Suffice to say, everything is connected in Nameless and I have no idea what will occur next. The scene with Nameless putting symbols on all of the spacesuits was great because we know why he’s doing that, but as readers we have no context for what sort of entity may be attacking our misfit group of heroes. Horrifying indeed. My favorite theory so far is that the asteroid is a leftover relic of the war between Heaven and Hell, but I’m convinced everything is more complicated than that.

“Bring down death…bring down terror and wisdom”

This issue introduces us to the moon and the team who is already there, but their names aren’t even shared with us because, as ‘Mr. Nameless’ tells us, he forgot their names as soon as he heard them. This is another great example of Morrison being Morrison—we could introduce all of these characters now, or we can dive deeper into the meat of the mythology. This neat trick adds urgency to the plight, as does the fact that the scientists hit the asteroid with a missile in this issue in order to alter its trajectory. Morrison is not wasting any time with more exposition, but instead he’s throwing a thousand ideas and theories at readers on every page, and he’s trusting us to figure out what it all might mean. At one point we’re even told explicitly: “Ixaxaar. Opener of the Way. You can look it up.” You can. I did. I don’t think Nameless is going to get any easier as the story goes on.

I read this issue three times but I’m still not 100% what is happening. This is not an easy, happy-go-lucky book, but then if you’re a fan of Morrison already, I’m sure you know that. An astronomer killed his family last issue and this time we find out that the occult expert on the moon seems to have gone insane as well. The symbols are powerful, clearly, but there is something else going on here. Mankind may be cursed—and without getting into spoilers, it doesn’t look great for our main characters at the end of this issue when no one can trust anyone else on the moon.

Burnham is also doing great work in this series. I’ve always appreciated his line work and he’s really seems to be having a blast with these sci-fi environments. The violence and gore is also fairly gruesome, but Burnham is embracing this creator-owned freedom and the results are stomach turning and impressive. Like a car wreck, you won’t be able to look away from all of the mayhem.

Nameless is True Detective on the moon. With Ellis’ Gravel thrown in for good measure. Add a pinch of the gore from Crossed and a dire mission straight out of the movie Armageddon or Deep Impact. As reference points these might give you some idea of what to expect, but this is Morrison we’re talking about, so everything could change next issue. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Buy Nameless, set your search bar to the occult and mysticism, and you’ll love this book as much as I do.