You Won’t Believe the Real World References in Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles

The Invisibles is Scottish writer Grant Morrison’s semi-autobiographical tale that follows a group of anarchist freedom fighters from the Invisible College, led by King Mob. He looks a lot like Morrison and is joined by a variety of allies, including Lord Fanny, Jack Frost, and Ragged Robin, as they battle against the forces of the Outer Church to end their enslavement of the human race. Or something along those lines. While it is a simple tale on its surface, its real draw lies with the infinite depth within its gooey, magical innards. Fans who have watched The Matrix know what they’re walking into when it comes to The Invisibles, even if they’re being checked and maybe asked to leave. They’re “woke” by its old, correct definition, struggling against these interdimensional gods that already felt they had won the day.

That’s oversimplifying the saga quite a bit, but it does cut to the heart of the story and opens the door for prospective fans and readers. What makes The Invisibles an enduring part of the Vertigo family is how it has woven so many aspects of our own world into the narrative. Some of these aspects are derived from other conspiracy theories and beliefs that people hold in reality, while others introduce real-world individuals as part of the Invisible College story.

Below, we’ve lined up a selection of real-world topics and ideas that filtered their way into the narrative of Morrison’s tale. Some of these topics play a major part in the story, while others are in place to detail the world just a bit more. And one right off the bat is an attempt by the author to keep the comic from being canceled after its first run, something that Morrison spoke about candidly at the time and added his thoughts about magic to the mix. No better place to start than right there, so let’s get to it.

Scroll down to see the real-world references expanding on these topics and much more. And if it gets too weird or confusing, it might mean you’re on the correct path, so keep going.

1) Grant Morrison and Their ‘Chaos Magic Wankathon’

One of the biggest real-world references is Morrison themselves. Firstly, the character of King Mob is a parallel to Morrison, calling the character a “sigil” they would use to improve their own life. Mob is a chaos magician, just as Morrison claims to be, and lives as a “counter culture terrorist” who isn’t always on board with his violent acts. By the end he has shunned them, but there are other big pieces of Morrison alive in The Invisibles in their attempt to save the series by holding a “wankathon” to save the book. Morrison explained it a bit in an interview with Barbelith.

“I was like 19 and I did a ritual from one of the books to se if it worked and it worked! I got a manifestation of energy which seemed to exert a gravitation pull on me — again, this is no bullshit — it was an intense, emotional vortex, or whatever the hell it was, with this strange visual component. And when I realised it worked, I began to do lots of experiments and I’ve been doing it ever since to see how it works. In the nineties, I realised the work I was doing was the magic,” Morrison said. “The Invisibles became the ongoing experiment into how closely I could get these things to work by actually drawing things by actually writing things down and making them happen. As is legendary to anyone who has read The Invisibles, I ended up in the hospital-

“[The] wankathon (a magically charged global mastubation session initiated in order to increase the sales of The Invisibles) is there, y’know — Jill Thomson always says that’s what put me in hospital! (laughs),” Morrison added. They also credit an alien abduction for gifting him the story, saying they shared the story during a trip to Kathmandu.

2) Marquis De Sade

Another real-world influence on The Invisibles is also a key supporting character in the early comics issues, too. The controversial French writer and libertine, and his work, The 120 Days of Sodom, fill a key role in Morrison’s story, with parts of the fictional tale revealed to have been real. The main libertines at the center of the story all play parts in The Invisibles, and still represent the “cruelty of men.”

Morrison addresses this idea directly when the team travels back to Revolutionary France and recruits the Tulpa of De Sade to join his team. It also allows them to explore ideas about gender, race, and sexual activity through Sade’s fictional storyline.

3) Aleister Crowley

While Aleister Crowley himself doesn’t appear within The Invisibles as a whole, his presence is felt through some of his creations, namely The Moonchild. In the Crowley novel Moonchild, the magical being is a creation that stems from impregnating a woman with the soul of an “ethereal being.” It is also a story that introduces the black and white lodges battling each other, eventually leading to them choosing sides in World War I, which influences what remains.

The Invisibles ditches the background story, delivering a fully-formed Moonchild that the Outer Church has bred from the bloodline of the British Royal Family. They keep this beast behind the “magic mirror,” and it acts sort of like a wild beast that eats with a frothy discharge that melts the carcasses he’s fed. It was intended to serve as a host for Rex Mundi, the head of the Outer Church and ruler of the Archons, the malevolent cosmic entities that manipulate the world from behind the scenes. They are also borrowed from a concept used by Crowley in his teachings.

4) Aum Shinrikyo / Aum Supreme Truth

The Japanese doomsday cult behind the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in 1995 also played a role in The Invisibles. Their controversial leader, Shoko Asahara, even makes a televised appearance as two members of the cult watch and await their newest orders. While it’s fitting that the sensationalist side of the cult makes for a true boogeyman, but the reality is less flashy, more tragic, and sad.

While Asahara did have a cult and did manage to win over dozens of educated people with promises of levitation, the coming apocalypse, and the teaching of the secret ways. Asahara would have followers drink his bathwater, undergo shock therapy under the guise of yoga, and claimed he had extrasensory powers that he proved by making himself float. Asahara, real name Chizuo Matsumoto, was executed along with six other members back in July 2018 for their role in the sarin gas attack on Tokyo that killed 14 people.

5) 2012

While this is good for a laugh in hindsight, coming from the hellscape America is becoming in some locations, but back in the late ’90s and early 2000s, the 2012 Mayan prophecies had a lot of folks concerned. It sold a lot of books, helped create a few movies, and polluted a lot of online content. But in the end, it turned out to be a bust. A big old nothingburger. There is no threat of the world ending due to the Mayan calendar.

Those threats are still quite empty in today, but in The Invisibles, the end does come and leaves a lot of questions for everybody. Is it all a cycle destined to repeat throughout time? Is it all a story written by Ragged Robin? Or maybe it’s all part of a video game created by some version of King Mob? It could be all answers or none. It’s meant to represent an ascension or a reset, but with the knowledge gained from before. That’s the beauty of The Invisibles, and a hindrance to welcoming new readers. Either way, our sentence is up. Back to work.

6) Roswell/Dulce Base

In the world of The Invisibles, the Roswell incident happened, and it brought the infamous “magic mirror” to humanity’s attention. It acts as a portal into alternate dimensions, with Jack Frost having visited the evil universe of the Archons and Moonchild. There is also a white/light/good side at play, which is represented by the Invisible College. The silver liquid that makes up the magic mirror is a representation of the material all universes are suspended in, with our own universe appearing flat to the beings from these dimensions.

As for Dulce Base, it is likely fictional in both Morrison’s story and the real world. It is one of the zanier claims from the UFO world, detailing an underground facility where aliens end up working with humans, before later causing breaking down into a “war” between the army and the base’s alien security. If any of that sounds crazy, don’t worry. You’re right up to speed with everybody else. It is crazy, but it is also entertaining. Dulce Base represents all of the hidden secret headquarters we’ve witness with evil organizations through the past. The team infiltrates it at the start to retrieve the cure for the AIDS virus, but end up captured and brainwashed.

7) Queen Elizabeth and Other Real-World Figures

The Invisibles drops in real-life people into the story to provide some depth and also to twist history as a way to cover up the “truth,” as it is told in the graphic novel. The Queen Elizabeth conspiracies are nothing new, usually venturing into anti-Semitic territory thanks to the “lizard people” allegations. That’s not the case in Morrison’s book, as the Queen is at the will of the Archons, and even swears in the Moonchild as it begins the transfer to its new body.Elsewhere, we have mentions of Robert Oppenheimer, who plays a part in the magic mirror encounter, while also uttering his famous lines from the Bhagavad Gita, “Now I am become death, the Destroyer of Worlds.” Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley also make appearances as past members of the team.

In the end, The Invisibles pulls from all over to craft a story that takes once or twice to even attempt to comprehend. The above are just a small fraction of what makes the books key for your library and interesting attempts to cover some lofty subjects. You will get lost, and you will have questions if you choose to embark on the four volumes that are currently on sale. Maybe you’ll see that being lost isn’t the worst thing, and it exists in several ways.

Have you read The Invisibles? Did we miss any other major real-world references? Let us know in the comments.