Nick Spencer… I wonder if even he knows the answer to the mystery he left behind. Morning Glories… no he didn’t try to poison anybody. He just leaves one big mystery series to work on Spider-Man fake out mystery. Today in Folded The Corner we will delving into a comic series that had potential but flopped big time.
Morning Glories’ Premise
The series is about a boarding school where kids who all have the same birthday attend. However, beneath the prestige of Morning Glory Academy, the school’s flower theme is fertilized with a lot of twisted not-so-secrets. The staff are manipulative and sadistic sociopaths/psychopaths. Torture, murder, and a lot of occult activities lurk in the hallways.
The Leading Flaw of Morning Glories
Leading the charge of kids is Casey, a tenacious girl who tries just a little too hard. Out of all the kids in focus, Casey is the most straightforward but also the most easily manipulated. The other kids have had a lot of personal problems; identity crises, personal worth, and coping with their already difficult lives. While some of the kids are killed and inexplicably brought back, they each go through growth and changes. It’s by working through those changes that they actually defeat the school’s status quo. All except for Casey who is but a pawn in both the faculty and her friends’ schemes with no autonomy.
Never Make Comparisons Yourself
But that’s not the only flaw. Nick Spencer compares it to Marvel’s Runaways comics mixed with TV show Lost. But unlike better mystery/thrillers it ultimately has no payoff or explanations. Most of the effort is in the series’ nonlinear narrative; often showing flashbacks and forwards that don’t even seem to line up with the overall story. Some of the smaller segments like a ghastly figure seen at the start quickly burn out. At most they just lead to many more questions than answers.
For example in one scene with an older version of emo-girl Jade in the future. She appears to be on board for the Academy’s goals for ‘a better future’; yet seems to be against the faculty during later appearances. Another scene has Casey traveling back in time where she grows older and even has a son. But for some reason her present self later comes back to the school with no memory of what happened.
While the series offers no explanations for anything, science fiction concepts like the many worlds theory, time travel, and supernatural powers seem to bring the idea forward. However these are brought more as a tell not show narrative; there’s nothing to hold any part of the plot down. Ultimately it’s just a bunch of cheap thrilling moments that happen for no reason other than plot advancement.
Maybe This Happened for a Good Reason
It certainly doesn’t help that the series is meant to have three narrative seasons; it has been on hiatus after the second season’s finale. Nick Spencer himself has worked on other projects including Image’s The Fix. In Marvel though he’s had success in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Astonishing Ant-Man, and of course Amazing Spider-Man comics. With a profile like that, who needs to go into a comic that lacks a form of artistic integrity?
With this, people are left to wonder if Nick Spencer even wants to continue the series; or if he can finish it in a satisfying way. To this day fans theorize what the Academy’s vision of a better future even is. Where the Academy is located in what reality? Where do the character’s powers come from? How do dead characters end up not dead everywhere else? What’s the true identity of the headmaster? And who’s using whom?
All things considered, maybe it’s better not to get an answer; such build ups tend to be disappointing.
Thanks for coming and as always remember to look between the panels.