‘Break Free: Understanding, Reimagining, and Reclaiming Stories in Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory’

This article investigates Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory (2005–06. New York: DC Comics) as a metafictional treatise on the writing and reading of comic books in general and the superhero genre in particular. It examines how Seven Soldiers functions as Morrison’s commentary on the way contemporary culture tells stories, the way we interpret, reject and ultimately reclaim our role in narratives, ranging from the intimate to the ‘end of the world drama’. In the process, a paradigm for interpreting this landmark series is suggested, one whereby each component speaks to an aspect of the comic-book reading/writing experience: Zatanna, the mainstream comic reader; Bulleteer, the new reader; Frankenstein, the process of reimagining; Shining Knight, a reimagined end product; Klarion, the juvenile reader resistant to adult notions of seriousness; the Guardian, the adult reader recapturing their imagination; and Mister
Miracle, the link between Seven Soldiers and Morrison’s wider superhero writings.