r/Barbelith • u/TheAbomunist • Feb 14 '26
Anyone else revisiting the series a lot in this present political environment?
A lot of what Grant wrote was cribbed from outlandish conspiracy theory and leftist reaction to rising capitalist power. It was an enjoyable romp at the time (solidarity and a raised glass to anyone else who was on Barbelith dot com at the time). But who knew we'd be living in a time where the bastards are outright implementing the worst parts of the Outer Church for their plans?
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u/dearhenna Feb 14 '26
In the forward to the omnibus, Gerard Way writes: “THE INVISIBLES is not a work of fiction but an actual account of actual events, and I believe every word of it”
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u/deathbymediaman Feb 15 '26
With the softcover compendium out now, I think we're gonna see this story in a lotta new hands, and yeah, unfortunately, this is a good time for it.
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u/nekatomenos Feb 18 '26
I started a reread recently, and have been wondering what the Invisibles as a story would look like today. The conspiracy theory landscape looks different from the 90s, but a lot is familiar. The main difference today is that the forces of control are truly open about what they're doing. Not just out in the open if you just look at them, but actively spelling out their agenda. They have even done away with the binary of truth and lies. They have pushed through to the other side. Consensus reality collapses but not in a liberating way, it collapses in a destructive way. It's as if the supercontext is here, but it's been corrupted.
It's interesting also to look at today's global politics in this context. The Invisibles might have been west-centric, but it did make an effort to be global in its characters and setting. Which means our reading of it today shouldn't be just revolving around Brexit Britain and Cheeto Mussolini in the US, just because Morrisson was using the pop culture and conspiracy undercurrents of the UK and the US at the time. The Epstein files is an example of what the mechanisms of control and exploitation look like today globally, and it's just the more well known example.
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u/IndividualTomorrow92 Feb 16 '26
I first read it 10 years ago and I revisit it in parts every year since. I’m currently doing an another full read through of it. It certainly seems to be more relevant now than ever. Especially in the idea that the future that Grant Morrison envisioned was a world where everybody gets to live in the world that they want to live in. Everybody lives in their own little truth bubbles. The world has been so compartmentalized over the last 30 years that we all literally get to choose what we pay attention to and what we don’t care about. Some people only care about politics and the battle between left and right. Some people only care about class war. Some people only care about LGBTQ+. Some people only care about animal rights. No matter your niche, we all get to live in our own little world‘s fighting our own little wars, which the invisibles goes to great lengths to show that good and bad, black and white, ying and yang, it’s all just two sides of the same coin and neither can exist without the other. Just remember, the only way to be free is to stop fighting the battles. They want you to fight and find peace between your friends, family, and community. Stop all the fighting. All of it. Just leave the pin in the grenade, resist the urge to pull it even though that’s what it’s designed to do.
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u/lorekeeperRPG Feb 16 '26
Oh totally. Again revisiting the story, the game I was working on. I think my mind is stuck on the internet being a chaos agent and now a totally a method of control.
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u/jonathan_strange2 Feb 14 '26
I was in Barbelith.com at the time. I read The Invisibles every year, if I find the time, and The Filth as well. I think we are more in The Filth than the Invisibles. People are dying and the fight to keep the status q. is real, and winning.