When writing and directing comic book adaptations, James Gunn is someone who looks to the original source material for inspiration. His new Superman movie is no exception. What some people may not know is that one of those inspirations comes from a series that was written by a genderqueer writer. The series is All-Star Superman, and the creator is Glaswegian screenwriter, producer, comic book writer and magician, Grant Morrison.

Grant Morrison’s own Superman influences come from, amongst other things, the Silver Age of comics (1956-1970), with his book having science fiction at its centre. The book is a good one for the comic book newbie to pick up, as it uses the core ideas of the character from various stories and gives the reader the quintessential Superman.

As Morrison put it, “I tried to think about, ‘In all through these versions, what stayed the same?’ Because something always stayed the same… they were about real human emotions and real human stories, but played out in this huge scale of other planets and people from the future and relatives from other worlds and monsters and robots.”

The 12-issue maxi-series is drawn by fellow Glaswegian and frequent collaborator, Frank Quitely, and is a complete story. DC Comics has actually re-released it in its cheaper “compact comics” format.

One scene from the story has resurfaced online numerous times over the years as an example of how Superman should be presented. A girl stands on a ledge looking distressed. Superman appears behind her, and with his hand on her shoulder says, “Your doctor really did get held up, Regan. It’s never as bad as it seems. You’re much stronger than you think you are. Trust me.” The scene ends with Superman hugging the girl.

Morrison has written extensively for DC Comics. They built their reputation with lengthy runs on lower-tier characters like Animal Man and Doom Patrol. The latter run heavily influenced the very queer TV adaptation.

This led to runs on better-known titles like JLA and, possibly their best-known DC work, a seven-year Batman storyline. Amongst other things, that storyline introduced Batman’s son, Damian Wayne.

At Marvel, Morrison wrote a three-year run on X-Men (redubbed “New X-Men”) and created Marvel Boy.

Morrison’s creator-owned work includes We3 with Scottish artist Frank Quitely, The Filth with Chris Weston, and the three-volume series The Invisibles. The latter, considered their magnum opus, is their longest creator-owned series and goes into their philosophies and interests and has a lot of LGBTQ+ representation. It follows a single cell of a secret organisation called The Invisible College. The story centres around their leader, King Mob; Lord Fanny, a transgender Brazilian shaman; Boy, a former member of the NYPD; Ragged Robin, a telepath with a mysterious past; and Jack Frost, a young Liverpudlian hooligan, who may be the next Buddha. The team battles against interdimensional alien gods called the Archons of the Outer Church, who have enslaved humanity without its knowledge.

Outside of comics, Grant Morrison has written non-fiction books, including Supergods (2011), part autobiography, part analysis of the history of superheroes, and novels like Luda: A Novel (2022), featuring two drag queens.

Morrison has always been open about their identity, but an interview with Mondo 2000 in 2020 seemed to bring it to the public sphere. Morrison said in the interview, “When I was a kid there were no words to describe certain aspects of my own experience. I’ve been non-binary, cross-dressing, ‘gender queer’ since I was 10 years old, but the available terms for what I was doing and how I felt were few and far between.”

Some people saw this as a coming out, something Morrison commented on later in a Rolling Stones interview, “…this got picked up on as some kind of coming out, even though it wasn’t the first time I talked about it… I hated for it to be seen as something I’ve just finally figured out. I’m 62 years old — I had my sexuality shit figured out a long time ago! I used to walk around town, and this was who I was, I didn’t dress as a boy or a girl. I don’t feel like any gender, and I never have. I just feel like what I am. But people picked up on it, and it gave a lot of people support and encouragement. The ‘they’ thing was kind of given to me, and I’ve accepted it as a badge of honour.”

As with all their work, Grant Morrison’s Superman deals with strange concepts and characters but tells a human story. I recommend you pick it up if you are thinking of seeing the movie. James Gunn has said of his influences, “There’s a lot of stuff from the comic books, but above and beyond anything else, it’s All-Star Superman. That influenced me more than anything.”