List Item: Read half of the 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die
Progress: 79/501
Title: Zenith
Creator(s): Grant Morrison, Brendan McCarthy and Steve Yeowell
Year: 1987-2000
Country: UK
To a crying shame when you end up reading or watching something that has no idea what it wants to be; especially when it starts out with the hopes of something better. When it started out, Zenith had a good art style combined with a superhero story that was heavy in the political commentary.
The first two collections, which actually focus on the titular Zenith – a spoiled brat of a hero who is also a semi-successful singer – are good fun and have an interesting take on how super humans growing up in the 1960s would turn out. I especially liked how one of them goes into politics and uses their psychic abilities to eventually become prime minister; albeit by controlling the body of a mental patient (who happens to be Tony Blair)
Then we get to the third collection where Zenith becomes a minor character in his own comic. The art style deteriorates and it becomes crushed under its own multiverse plot. The fourth collection undergoes another art change and, by then, I was so uninvested that I was glad to see the back of it. It’s a pity because it started well – would’ve been even better if they’d quit whilst they were ahead.
