From writer Grant Morrison (“Multiversity”) and artist Dan Mora (“Hexed” Vol. 2) comes the just-in-time-for-the-holidays comic, “Klaus.” Published by Boom! Studios, this six-issue miniseries (for now) takes mythology, history, and Morrison’s own insane imagination and blends them together to give a new — and maybe definitive? — origin for Santa Claus. It has the makings of being either a new holiday classic or another forgotten mess akin to the 2004 Antoine Fuqua/Jerry Bruckheimer disaster, King Arthur.
Written by Grant Morrison
Illustrated by Dan MoraWhat’s to Love: Grant Morrison is one of the most prolific and best-selling writers in comics, earning a reputation for his ability to effectively revamp superheroes like Animal Man, Batman, and the X-Men. His creator-owned titles are also highly praised, including The Invisibles, Nameless, We3, and Joe the Barbarian, because no one tells mythical stories better than him. In Klaus, Grant reimagines one of the biggest cultural myths in history, and we could not be more excited to pair him with one of our homegrown talents, Dan Mora (Hexed)!
What It Is: Set in a dark fantastic past of myth and magic, Klaus tells the story of how Santa Claus really came to be. Where did he begin? What was he like when he was young? Why does he do what he does? How does he do what he does? And what happens when he faces his greatest challenge? Drawing on Santa Claus’ wilder roots in Viking lore and Siberian shamanism-taking in the creepier side of Christmas, and characters like the sinister Krampus-Klaus is a “Santa Claus: Year One.”
Since he wrapped his run on “Action Comics,” Grant Morrison has moved away from monthly ongoing titles and his output seems to’ve exploded. We’ve seen “Annihilator” with Frazer Irving and “Nameless” with Chris Burnham, two bananas stories about death and legacy come out among his work this year, and now, he teams up with Dan Mora to bring the inverse of those with “Klaus,” a comic brimming with life. An all-ages story, Morrison approaches his Santa Claus origin with a mix of superhero meter and mythical scope, clearly having the time of his life developing a wilder, crazier, and sexier Saint Nick.
It’s not one story or one historical account that feeds the narrative: he grabs from all over, from across time, dropping in references from the Dutch Sinterklass to Odin, from A Christmas Carol to “The Night Before Christmas.” There’s the usual holiday fare: the distant families and strained dinners, the poor people beaten down by an oppressive tyrant, the spoiled brat inevitably destined for some sort of redemption. It has enough familiarity so it’s never off-putting, but a strong enough voice that helps stand it on its own. Morrison and Mora are giving Santa the full Batman treatment over here.
There’s a danger when making an edgier version of a popular character that things are going to get too dark and betray the purpose of the source. Indeed, from the opening moments, when a stern, mysterious stranger walks into a walled-off town to find that it’s not the welcome place he remembered and that a wicked Baron and his family have blizzed up all the skliz we suspect some junk is about to get real. Like the best kind of moral stories, there’s a dark and terrifying edge in “Klaus” #1, but Morrison and Mora make sure to show our hero picking himself up from it and trying to figure out what to do next.
And that’s not even beginning to talk about fun this book is! I mean, the images Morrison and Mora turn in on this thing! There’s the barbarian-esque Klaus (probably: the character isn’t exactly named in the story) and his giant wolf taking out a stag, there’s some mysterious will-o-the-wisps (you know it’s a Morrison story because they have a strong extra-terrestrial look) sending Klaus into a psychedelic frenzy, there’s a young child throwing a tantrum about Gojira levels of destructive. Dan Mora has a strong fantasy style, with an animated tint, featuring designs that may seem simple but carry loads of characterization and information. The village Grimsvig looks somewhat like those ornamental model towns you see in seasonal shops, but the backgrounds — the woods, the mountains, the constant snow — feel as wild and dangerous as parts of Skyrim. Mora bears a fine eye for detail, but he never overdraws the book, making the action clear and the story readable.
“Klaus” #1 features two creators very much in control of the tone of the narrative, and they build up and come down from their set pieces with aplomb. This is only the beginning of a six-issue miniseries, although Morrison feels he could take this out for as long as possible, so there’s no telling how it’ll develop. If Morrison and Mora maintain the spirit and the wildness of this first issue, “Klaus” might become another story you pull out every holiday season.
Final Verdict: 8.3 – Jump in bed and cover up your head because Klaus’s coming tonight
