It’s 1987 and someone is in a London flat watching a video tape recording of a morning talk show. The topic of discussion is “Cloud 9,” which the host describes as “the group of British superhumans who were as much a part of the swinging ‘60’s as the Beatles or Twiggy…” The show’s guests include:
Ruby Fox, a former member of Cloud 9 who operated under the codename Voltage
Martin Howe, the author of a new book that is severely critical of Cloud 9’s legacy.
Zenith, the son of two other Cloud 9 members and currently “the world’s only active superhuman.”
This all happens on the first page of the second episode of the comic series Zenith by Grant Morrison, which I introduced in my last post.
No Hero Here
In his autobiographical history of the superhero genre Supergods, Morrison noted that a:
…unique flavor of the Zenith strip was the lead’s complete lack of interest in committing his inherited abilities to the endless fight against crime or evil. I wondered why we automatically assumed that having superpowers would encourage a person to fight (or commit) crime. (…) He shagged Page 3 Girls and pursued a vapid, style-conscious, utterly vacuous existence of the kind that I was still convinced I coveted…
For example, Zenith’s appearance on the talk show is not to discuss his parent’s legacy, but to promote his new chart-climbing single “Heaven Can’t Wait.”
Drinking and Flying
While the talk show plays “on the tele” (as Brits say), we see London from Zenith’s perspective as he descends through the clouds on his drunken morning flight home after a wild night at the club.
As Zenith approaches the window of his flat (the one in which the talk show recording has been playing), he sees a middle-aged man having a cup of tea.
While this is happening, we hear Ruby Fox on the tape defending herself and her Cloud 9 colleagues from the author’s attacks:
Remember, we were very young, the victims of an experimental drug which had given us extraordinary abilities. None of us really knew quite how we were supposed to behave.
As Morrison wrote in Supergods, this plot element had its roots in “the CIA’s clandestine LSD research program…”
Zenith then flies in through the open window and crash lands on the kitchen table, sending his visitor’s breakfast spread flying. We get our first good look at the series star, who is decked out in a leather jacket, a pompadour, a domino mask, and a Z-shaped lightning bolt across his chest.
The visitor welcomes Zenith drolly and familiarly as “Robert,” before upbraiding him for “drinking and flying” and for cavorting with a “brainless” fashion model at last night’s party.
Flippancy Before the Fall
Later that morning, we learn that the middle-aged man is Zenith’s agent when we see him on the phone trying to book his client for a super-powered demonstration at a record store to promote a new album. But the superhuman pop star must decline, because his powers, which fluctuate according to a “biorhythm cycle,” will be at their lowest ebb on the date of the event.
After washing up, Zenith watches the recording of his talk show appearance. The host asks Zenith whether he thought the book was fair to his parents, the Cloud 9 superhumans Dr Beat and White Heat.
But the glib youth couldn’t care less and responds:
Uh… I dunno. I got bored on the contents page. When are we going to talk about my record?
Zenith laughs at having “shut them up” about “all this ‘60s stuff,” echoing Morrison’s own adolescent period of disdain for a decade he revered as a child. But Zenith’s agent advises him that “’60’s nostalgia is megabusiness these days” before warning him that his devil-may-care lifestyle will “end in tears.”
But Zenith dismisses the concerns of his agent (whose name is Eddie):
I’m nineteen, I can fly, I can flatten ballbearings between my fingers and I’m practically invulnerable to damage. I mean, let’s face it… What could possibly go wrong?
As Zenith says this, we get a taste of ironic foreshadowing, as he puts his can of diet cola on a table right next to a copy of Robert Ludlum’s first novel The Scarlatti Inheritance: a Nazi conspiracy thriller.
Dropping In
The story’s title “Dropping In” is a reference both to Zenith crash-landing on his agent’s morning tea as well as the ‘60’s counterculture phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out,” coined by Timothy Leary: the Harvard clinical psychologist who popularized LSD and other psychedelic drugs.
In the next episode of Zenith, which I will cover in a future post, Morrison resumes the story (discussed in my last post) of the occult ritual designed to waken the Nazi super-soldier Masterman.