Comic Books & Graphic NovelsReviews

THE MULTIVERSITY: This is why I read Grant Morrison

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Title: The Multiversity #1
Writer Grant Morrison
Penciller: Ivan Reis
Inker: Joe Prado
Colorist: Nei Ruffino
Cover Price: $4.99 (38 pages)

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Cover for THE MULTIVERSITY #1 by Reis, Prado and Ruffino

Grant Morrison can be a frustrating author to read. I frequently find his work to be spectacular. An incredible range of ideas and concepts thrown out in rapid fire fashion simply to establish a setting. In these books, he creates ideas that would fill entire volumes for other authors and he simply blows past them as if he knows there are plenty more where that came from. Sentient streets, time-traveling bullets and phantom watch dogs are easy enough examples of the things that spring from his mind and you can’t blink or you might miss something. Examples where this worked well for me were his runs on JLA, All-Star Superman, DC One Million and Animal Man.

Other times however, Morrison has the familiar touch with ideas but they seem incoherently presented. I have a tough time relating to people from other dimensions that speak in light and have indecipherable concepts of reality.  Sometimes the participants in the story have no idea what is really happening or not and we have to try to decipher what is happening through their addled perceptions. I walk away thinking that maybe I read something really cool, but I didn’t really get it. Maybe it is just me but aspects of Flex Mentallo, Joe the Barbarian and the Return of Bruce Wayne utterly confused me. I kept being removed from the story by a narrative that left me wondering if I understood what was happening at all.

The Multiversity is a book that I would expect to fit in the first category. The series will feature two book-end issues that add context and a larger story to frame the middle six issues. Each of those middle issues will feature action on different worlds drawn by different artists. From DC,

What THE MULTIVERSITY really is, is a mind-blowing, eye-popping, world-hopping experience that’s pure Morrison-ian greatness. It’s an adventure that takes you from the very center of the Multiverse to points and places that’ll excite new readers and make longtime fans squeal with joy.

So issue one came out this week and what did I think? I loved it. I always loved DC’s parallel worlds and alternate realities where we were invited to think of what might have been. A Superman who is the president in his secret identity, a world populated by funny cartoon animals or a world with a superhero team that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Avengers all occur in The Multiversity #1. On the face of it the story is not totally unfamiliar. Issue number one sets the threat and is constructed as if the reader is a part of the action … as if we are not reading a comic but looking through a window into these other worlds. Morrison presents it as if the book itself is speaking to us and suggesting that by reading the book, we ourselves have perpetuated the threat.

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Cover to the next issue out in September by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story.

There are 52 worlds in the current DC multiverse numbered zero through fifty-one. The left edge of the cover has a series of numbered circles representing the worlds. Some of the numbers are shown more brightly indicating that those worlds or their representatives are featured in the issue. The Multiversity Issue #1 has folks from Earth’s 0, 5, 7, 8, 11, 16, 23, 26, 36 ,41, 42, 44 and 48. It looks like the next issue will feature Earth’s 20 and 40 and the Society of Super-Heroes which appear to be an alternate version of the Justice Society. To see an interactive map of the multiverse that will be expanded as the series goes forward head over to DC’s Map of the Multiverse.

Reis and Prado have been go-to artists on some of DC’s biggest books over recent years. The Blackest Night and Brightest Day stories, the revival of Aquaman and currently working on Justice League, Reis and Prado tend to fill their foregrounds with characters and have fairly minimal backgrounds with a few exceptions. I find that their story-telling is easy to follow and is incredibly dynamic. I have to say that my favorite is how the represented Captain Carrot. Just when you think he is defeated cartoon physics rears its ugly head.

I haven’t decided if I will buy each issue or wait for the trade but I will say that there is no question that I will read the rest of this story. This first part was an incredible amount of fun something that I find missing too often in comics that frequently take themselves much too seriously. If cosmic crazy fun is your idea of a fun read then I recommend that you check out this book. That is unless you are afraid of destroying the multiverse?!

The next issue, titled The Multiversity: The Society of Super-Heroes: Conquerors of the Counter-World #1, comes out on September 17th with art by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story.

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