THE COSMIC HORROR OF NAMELESS

NAMELESS (Image Comics) ~ In this miniseries' six immensely satisfying issues, Grant Morrison serves up a heaping helping of Lovecraftian science-fiction, generously fortified with his trademark juxtaposition of heady, historically-accurate occultism with genre conventions and pop culture tropes. Handling the visual side of things, Chris Burnham makes an astonishingly successful go at aping frequent Morrison collaborator Frank Quitely's style, minus the latter's glacial, deadline-mocking turnaround rate.

Experiencing this gorgeously-rendered, mind-bending-yet-familiar narrative was a tremendous pleasure, so I'll do my best to make this a spoiler-free review. In fact, I won't be engaging in much analysis at all. This is really more of a preview for Nameless, or an enthusiastic recommendation, than anything else.

The basic elements of the story are as follows: A freelance occultist referred to only as "Nameless" is drawn into billionaire space mogul Paul Darius' clandestine efforts to deflect a massive asteroid that is hurtling towards the Earth, while simultaneously investigating some peculiar markings and structures that have been spotted on its surface.

If the above sounds a bit like Constantine does Armageddon, that isn't too far off the mark. But don't be fooled... Nameless is NOT some hastily thrown together pastiche. It features an intricate, non-linear assembly of nesting narratives that demands and rewards close attention.

From the first pages, in which Nameless sneaks, Inception-style, into someone's dreams in order to steal a powerful psychic artifact, we're never quite sure where we, or the characters, stand. Forever poised at the brink of revelation, the occasional glimpses of the hideous, alien reality behind the thin camouflage of sensory perception are sufficient to send even the strongest fleeing for the comfort of blind, blessed ignorance.

Nameless includes several genuinely disturbing moments, as well as a few vividly rendered scenes of graphic physical violence. It's also packed with goodies for lovers of esoterica, amateur occultists, and others interested in such paracultural oddities.

So how "paracultural" do things get, exactly? Well, as Nameless begins to realize that our Solar System has been the battlefield for an aeons-spanning interplanetary war between the deities, demigods and monstrous abominations who populate the mythological pantheons of the Sumerians, the Mayans, and various unknown "others", he decides to protect himself and his spaceship crew using the symbolic Enochian pseudo-language devised by Elizabethan court magician John Dee... an insight that comes to him while under the influence of one of Brion Gysin's hallucination-inducing Dream Machines. There are also some majorly twisted Tarot cards on display. But I've revealed too much already.

If the above sounds as good to you as it would to me, then you're in luck! A collected edition of Nameless is coming soon, which means you won't have to keep going back and forth to your local comic shop, waiting for up to eight freaking weeks before being able to gobble up the next incredible chapter, which usually takes no more than 20 minutes' reading time. Fortunately, thanks in no small part to Burnham, Nameless improves with each reading, so it will probably have a long, happy publishing life.

I'm not being paid to say this: Buy your copy of Nameless the minute it hits store shelves. Or heck, buy it now using this link, and Amazon will toss a couple pennies in my general direction! Go on... you know you want to!