‘Morning Glories: Volume Two’ – Spencer, Eisma, Esquejo (Image Comics)

I have absolutely no discipline at all as far as books and comics are concerned. I am incredibly difficult to buy presents for as I can’t wait for my birthday/Christmas if I’m enjoying a series. I will also invariably skip to the end of a book to find out how things end. I’ve already told you, a few posts ago now, that I will continue to buy single issue comic books whilst waiting for the trade to come out so I can buy that as well.


After reading the first volume of ‘Morning Glories’ (scroll down a little bit or just click Here instead...) I was resolved to be good and leave off reading volume two until next week at least. After all, we’re looking at what could potentially be an excellent series here and I wanted to drag things out as much as possible (I have no idea when volume three will be on the shelves). All it took was one day off sick though, that’s all it took... I wanted to read something but couldn’t focus on a page full of words. A page full of words and pictures though...? Well, that was a different story and all the excuse I needed really after enjoying the hell out of volume one. So much for my being disciplined about this; you’ll probably see me in Forbidden Planet (picking up single issues) before the end of the year...

This is the point of the review where I normally give you a brief outline of the plot but... This is ‘Morning Glories’ and there is nothing resembling a plot, at least not yet. Once the series is complete I’m sure I’ll look back at this volume and see things very differently but that’s not what it’s like right now. All sorts of crazy stuff is happening and I’m not sure how much of this is happening in the school itself or in the mind of one of its newest pupils...

What we do get though is a little glimpse at the past lives of the six new students and what led them to enrol at the Academy. What this inevitably means is that many more questions are raised although I was pleasantly surprised to see one question, from volume one, answered. While more questions are raised, the end result is that things seem to be a little more cohesive this time round. Spencer threw you in at the deep end in volume one; you’re still in at the deep end now but now Spencer is letting you get your bearings a little and start to see what’s out there. And that’s where volume two really shines. We’ve had a chance to get to know the characters and even come to like them a little bit. By raising questions about their past, and tying this in with the school, both the plot and the characters became that much more intriguing to me and I didn’t think they could become any more so than they were already.

I also couldn’t help but feel for certain characters once I found out a little more about them, even characters whom I’d already come to dislike a little (Zoe and Ike, I’m looking at you two here...) Without giving too much away, Jun’s story is particularly powerful and if his was the only story going on here, I’d still want to hang around to see how it played out. Nick Spencer’s plotting throws up some real curveballs, along with the constant questions, and is dripping with the bizarre (‘so we created our own gods...’); it promises something superb and has more than succeeded in it’s aim to make sure that I stick around for the rest of it. Who is Abraham...?

I don’t know what changed but this time round I found myself really enjoying Eisma’s artwork, possibly because (like I said) things were more cohesive. With a plot like this maybe the art doesn’t need to be too involved after all, I don’t know...

‘Morning Glories: Volume Two’ has more than confirmed my sneaking suspicions that this series is definitely one to keep an eye on. I’m in for the long haul and, if you’re after a series that will keep you thinking about it, you should jump on board as well.

Nine and a Half out of Ten