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Circutron
Apr 29, 2006
We are confident that the Islamic logic, culture, and discourse can prove their superiority in all fields over all schools of thought and theories.
I'm not sure if it goes against what the comic is saying, but...

Goddamn, can I get an ongoing up in here?

It's okay, guys. He'll be alright. :unsmith:

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tenniseveryone
Feb 8, 2014

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Evil Mastermind posted:

You don't happen to have a link, do you? I'd like to read that.

Well, the Gentry's whole thing is corruption. Intellectron says as much this issue (while targeting kids): "WHERE ONCE WERE PALACES AND SPACESHIPS ONLY CHARNEL HOUSES AND BROTHELS REMAINED." I think that may be the Gentry's goal; to replace the "youthful" fantasies we have with the so-called-mature stuff people keep putting out nowadays.

Oh absolutely, but by the same token, it's not offering anything up as an alternative? Like, the comic is just as snarky about the idea of keeping the youthful fantasies as they are. The Morrison quote is from his interview with Comics Alliance from the start of the year:

quote:

I hope the presence of The Gentry will be more clear. For instance, in the Captain Marvel comic we have dozens and dozens of Sivanas, so they can represent Demogorgunn, as they always appear as some kind of horde. Or Demogorgunn could be the zombies in issue #2 or the Superman robots in issue #3. Because they’re demons, they come in different forms in each world, so I do hope when it’s finished, yeah, you should be able to look back and find a lot of new stuff and hopefully, that’s way it’s been built.

Even to notice that certain things, like the Thunderworld comic that seems quite sweet and light isn’t, actually. [laughs] There’s a lot going on, a lot of weird things going on under the surface of how the characters are presented and portrayed. I think it’ll make it slightly more interesting to go back when we’ve seen everything.

redbackground
Sep 24, 2007

BEHOLD!
OPTIC BLAST!
Grimey Drawer
Not sure why, but my brain settled on the voice of Jonas Venture, Jr. for Ultra Comics.

DudeDeuce
Feb 2, 2003
The MAN
I really love the connection between the knocking of the door when Nix Uotan is reading Ultra Comics #1 in Multiversity #1 and when Ultra Comics hears the knocking of the door and warns not to answer the door. . I just love how things come back like that.

DNA Cowboys
Feb 22, 2012

BOYS I KNOW
The big bad is an EGG?!

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

tenniseveryone posted:

Oh absolutely, but by the same token, it's not offering anything up as an alternative? Like, the comic is just as snarky about the idea of keeping the youthful fantasies as they are. The Morrison quote is from his interview with Comics Alliance from the start of the year:

If that's the case, then "We believe in Ultra Comics and we demand a happy ending!" becomes a much more important statement.

(That was the part that gave me chills, because I am a turbonerd obsessed with metafiction)

WickedHate
Aug 1, 2013

by Lowtax

Evil Mastermind posted:

(That was the part that gave me chills, because I am a turbonerd obsessed with metafiction)

I don't know if anyone else believes this, but I think all fiction really is real, like Captain Carrot said in the first issue. It's really amazing. The Multiversity is connecting all it's readers to those other realities directly. Metafiction is so cool.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

WickedHate posted:

I don't know if anyone else believes this, but I think all fiction really is real, like Captain Carrot said in the first issue. It's really amazing. The Multiversity is connecting all it's readers to those other realities directly. Metafiction is so cool.
I have to admit, when Captain Carrot said that, it made perfect sense to me with regards to the kinds of fiction I prefer and put forward when I run RPGs. Like my thought was "that's so obvious it has to be true."

Hell, right at the beginning of this issue the guy says "you can hear my voice in your head, I'm real enough, and you're dealing with a real, physical object". Fiction is indeed a thing we let past all our barriers and into the deepest parts of our minds.

I've said many times how Terry Pratchett was a huge influence in my life and the person I've become, despite never actually interacting with him outside reading his books. As he wrote in Feet of Clay, he put words in my head.

And it's a little scary to think about how it could be possible for a malignant fictional entity to get "into your head". I know from personal experience that real people can do that quite easily; why wouldn't we want a superhero whose purpose was to defend us from the kinds of ideas that would truly harm us?

McSpanky
Jan 16, 2005






Grant Morrison is a secret villain because he tried to plant the idea that Thunderworld is full of hidden darkness in my head. It won't work, Morrison! The wholesome cheerful Marvel Family will protect me! :arghfist::unsmith:

FilthyImp
Sep 30, 2002

Anime Deviant

Evil Mastermind posted:

So, um...

Ultra Comics.

Wow.
I'll be very interested in reading some opinions about the ending, since I initially disliked The Just but was swayed by some good analysis.

At the moment, it's a neatly plotted out event, but I'm seeing a lot of loose ends for the sake of ambiguity.

McSpanky posted:

Grant Morrison is a secret villain because he tried to plant the idea that Thunderworld is full of hidden darkness in my head. It won't work, Morrison! The wholesome cheerful Marvel Family will protect me! :arghfist::unsmith:
There's an odd sense of being stuck in the past about that, and maybe a hint that we glorify the good and suppress the bad that went along with the era (segregated lunch tables? Why that was only a terrible Sivanasday phase we wisely worked through, citizen!). There's also the odd implications about sexuality (via a vis Georgina) and the suggestion that chasteness and virginity are super prized in this world of stark good, and that sexual desire is beyond the Marvels and their respective identities.

I suppose there's other things (like the cost of progress vs. the price of tradition) but the Georgina scene stuck out most given the pairing with Rapey McGrim Sivana...

FilthyImp fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Mar 26, 2015

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

It does kinda bum me out that I'll probably never be able to talk to Morrison about this series and at least hear his response to my theories.

McSpanky
Jan 16, 2005






FilthyImp posted:

I'll be very interested in reading some opinions about the ending, since I initially disliked The Just but was swayed by some good analysis.

At the moment, it's a neatly plotted out event, but I'm seeing a lot of loose ends for the sake of ambiguity.

The event isn't over, we still have The Multiversity #2 to go.

WickedHate
Aug 1, 2013

by Lowtax

Evil Mastermind posted:

And it's a little scary to think about how it could be possible for a malignant fictional entity to get "into your head". I know from personal experience that real people can do that quite easily; why wouldn't we want a superhero whose purpose was to defend us from the kinds of ideas that would truly harm us?

The only problem is, Ultra is connected with a bunch of comic book fans, and they mostly suck. :(

McSpanky posted:

Grant Morrison is a secret villain because he tried to plant the idea that Thunderworld is full of hidden darkness in my head. It won't work, Morrison! The wholesome cheerful Marvel Family will protect me! :arghfist::unsmith:

That's the Gentry's true plan! Guard yourself from the ones knocking at the door!

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

FilthyImp posted:

I'll be very interested in reading some opinions about the ending, since I initially disliked The Just but was swayed by some good analysis.

At the moment, it's a neatly plotted out event, but I'm seeing a lot of loose ends for the sake of ambiguity.

Ultra Comics is a comic book and a superhero; a wave and a particle. Because he (knowingly) exists in a fictional state, his life is tied to the narrative. He ends when the comic ends because he's the comic.

That's ultimately (heh) the whole concept here: Ultra Comics (both the character and the comic) has a lifespan limited by the nature of the fiction: the story ends, and because the characters are the story, they end with it.

That's how he defeats Intellectron; yes it's weakened by the criticism, but ultimately it's trapped in the comic, and once the comic ends, that little narrative universe ends with Intellectron trapped inside it. That's what's happening on the last page: the stars of this small, limited universe are burning out because the comic is Ultra is the universe. He can't breathe because his "life" is us reading the story, so when we stop reading (because there's nothing left to read) his whole existence ends.

FilthyImp
Sep 30, 2002

Anime Deviant
And as if by propecy, the Goonmind makes it better.

Also holy gently caress there's a Multiversity 2 coming out?! Shitballs!!

Cheap Trick
Jan 4, 2007

I finished reading this comic book and now my brain hurts.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

FilthyImp posted:

And as if by propecy, the Goonmind makes it better.
I hope this means that people are understanding what I'm saying. Like, I know what I mean but I don't know if it's coming across clearly.

I hope it's a good thing I understand this stuff so easily.

quote:

Also holy gently caress there's a Multiversity 2 coming out?! Shitballs!!
Yeah, it's the capstone of the whole thing.

redbackground
Sep 24, 2007

BEHOLD!
OPTIC BLAST!
Grimey Drawer

FilthyImp posted:

And as if by propecy, the Goonmind makes it better.

Also holy gently caress there's a Multiversity 2 coming out?! Shitballs!!
Not like a sequel, just the last issue of the event.

claw game handjob
Mar 27, 2007

pinch pinch scrape pinch
ow ow fuck it's caught
i'm bleeding
JESUS TURN IT OFF
WHY ARE YOU STILL SMILING

tenniseveryone posted:

Oh absolutely, but by the same token, it's not offering anything up as an alternative?

I dunno, I'm getting the impression that the entire concept of the Gentry is built on turning your dreams and hopes into status quo or misery. It's the anti-life equation, which Morrison has always shown to be apathy and social control: you are nothing, you will never be anything, give in and let your existence be living death.

Someone literally weaponizes apathy in this book.

Basically, I'm getting a read of "stories are wonderful, but the trend of turning stories more 'realistic' while making them the most depressing, grim, brutal expressions of that reality, rather than anything to look forward to, is choking the life out of us, and it's in everything - there is nothing to aspire to in that reality, and a lot of people are unquestionably eating it up as how the world is, which keeps it the same (or lets people make it worse)..." etc. The palaces and starships we were going to build became... so on. The whole thing is a cautionary tale about believing you're just as powerless in the narrative as Ultra is and turning living into a passive activity where other people can steer you to their own ends.

We are the heroes, we are the narrators, we are the focus of our own lives, but they also define us in ways that we let change us without realizing, and at some point you have to draw the line between yourself and what you consume/try to better yourself and what you create.

McSpanky
Jan 16, 2005






FilthyImp posted:

There's an odd sense of being stuck in the past about that, and maybe a hint that we glorify the good and suppress the bad that went along with the era (segregated lunch tables? Why that was only a terrible Sivanasday phase we wisely worked through, citizen!). There's also the odd implications about sexuality (via a vis Georgina) and the suggestion that chasteness and virginity are super prized in this world of stark good, and that sexual desire is beyond the Marvels and their respective identities.

I suppose there's other things (like the cost of progress vs. the price of tradition) but the Georgina scene stuck out most given the pairing with Rapey McGrim Sivana...

Yeah that's real clever and everything but I'm getting a little tired of clever writers making sure that nothing good can ever be enjoyed without reminding us that the society of the time wasn't perfect. And really, putting those kinds of details into a setting derived from Golden-Age Fawcett is about as fair as Infinite Crisis rewriting history so that the Silver Age was so goofy and carefree because of rape and mindwipes.

I still like Morrison and I still like Multiversity but it's been 30 years since Watchmen, I think I've had enough deconstruction of my punchman funnybooks already.

e: unless I'm completely missing the point and all that stuff is supposed to be indicative of the Gentry's subtle influence on Thunderworld as a commentary on how we can never have nice things these days precisely because pseudointellectual blowhards can't stop making our heroes serious and real and make sure everyone knows it's not your father's comics anymore, in which case... I'm dumb.

McSpanky fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Mar 26, 2015

Teenage Fansub
Jan 28, 2006

Ha. I like the 'starring' section for DC's Multiversity #2 page.
http://www.dccomics.com/comics/the-multiversity-2014/the-multiversity-2

redbackground
Sep 24, 2007

BEHOLD!
OPTIC BLAST!
Grimey Drawer

McSpanky posted:

Yeah that's real clever and everything but I'm getting a little tired of clever writers making sure that nothing good can ever be enjoyed without reminding us that the society of the time wasn't perfect. And really, putting those kinds of details into a setting derived from Golden-Age Fawcett is about as fair as Infinite Crisis rewriting history so that the Silver Age was so goofy and carefree because of rape and mindwipes.

I still like Morrison and I still like Multiversity but it's been 30 years since Watchmen, I think I've had enough deconstruction of my punchman funnybooks already.




:tinfoil:

Open Marriage Night
Sep 18, 2009

"Do you want to talk to a spider, Peter?"


I liked when the 90's muscle guy bit out Adam Warlock's soul gem.

TwoPair
Mar 28, 2010

Pandamn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta
Grimey Drawer

Finally, a mainstream comic that gets me.

CapnAndy
Feb 27, 2004

Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.
That was a deeply enjoyable trip and I actually grinned at Intellectron when he made contact. Because, oh son, you came here to play meme wars? Get back in the loving kiddie pool, small-timer.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



McSpanky posted:

Yeah that's real clever and everything but I'm getting a little tired of clever writers making sure that nothing good can ever be enjoyed without reminding us that the society of the time wasn't perfect. And really, putting those kinds of details into a setting derived from Golden-Age Fawcett is about as fair as Infinite Crisis rewriting history so that the Silver Age was so goofy and carefree because of rape and mindwipes.

I still like Morrison and I still like Multiversity but it's been 30 years since Watchmen, I think I've had enough deconstruction of my punchman funnybooks already.

e: unless I'm completely missing the point and all that stuff is supposed to be indicative of the Gentry's subtle influence on Thunderworld as a commentary on how we can never have nice things these days precisely because pseudointellectual blowhards can't stop making our heroes serious and real and make sure everyone knows it's not your father's comics anymore, in which case... I'm dumb.

The issue with the deconstruction that Morrison does is that he's already done it, multiple times, and, well, what's he trying to say exactly? Deconstruction (used in the loose critical sense) relies on laying bare the internal contradictions inherent in the assumptions made in a work or an ideal. He's not actually doing that. He's playing with some late night ideas, wrapped around a tent pole story about how thinking too hard or criticizing is the devil's work. Jog's review of issue 1 from back in August was remarkably prescient: http://www.tcj.com/this-week-in-comics-82714-52-is-an-artificial-limit-and-other-obvious-statements/

Morrison's put himself in a very safe position here by incorporating goal post moving into the comic itself: if you think about it too hard, you're the problem. If you criticize the work, you're the villains. If you try to take it as simply dumb fun, well, here he is in the interview claiming that his light and fun issue is really full of haunting dark overtones that you didn't pick up on (just like all those old 40s and 50s comics we love to deconstruct). Well, which one is it? Am I supposed to read it just intelligently enough to pick up on {this or that reference to old comic} but not critically enough that I notice metafictional stories have been a thing since at least the comedy of the 1940s (or earlier: off the top of my head, 1666 gives us Cavendish's Blazing World, and 1759 Sterne's Tristram Shandy), and is hardly new ground or enough of an idea to stand on its own, rather than as backdrop for the real story? Jack Kirby and Stan Lee attended the wedding of Sue Storm and Reed Richards. Nova visited Marv Wolfman's office to complain about the quality of his comics, and both Wolfman and George Perez made appearances throughout Teen Titans. Kurtzman and Wood did most of the commentary in Superduperman back in 1953. But then, here I am, part of the problem. I'm not supposed to criticize the reason I want to criticize the comic and its author, or else I'm a monstrous floating eyeball or the evil clockhouse from Nextwave.

For example, I liked the Charlton issue, but it doesn't replace Watchmen by any stretch. It doesn't even replace the Action Heroes Archives vol. 2 that has all the original adventures of those characters. The Generation Me one didn't do anything for me, and barely had anything to say about that era of comics -- far from being weary and worn out, they were an era of constant crisis and upheaval, and a stronger commentary would have been, for example, to replace the entire cast every few pages, with the violence getting worse and worse each time. If the point was that superheroes don't need to exist in that world (until they do?), it was made, I guess. What am I to do with this knowledge? The Reichsman issue was borderline offensive, trying to have its cake and eat it too, keeping Superman as a tortured ideal of tolerant values rather than properly exploring what a Nazi Superman would be like and the idea of a literal superman with offensive ideas who lacks the perspective to see otherwise (plus, glossing over the Holocaust, as if it could have happened in just 3 years while Superman was gone, with nothing on either side of those years, to keep him as a "sympathetic protagonist"... Suffice to say that that displays a great lack of WWII history knowledge).

The ideas are there, but they seem like first draft ideas. They needed more work, better editing, more actual story... Putting out issue after issue of unfinished feeling Elseworlds that will never be expanded upon by anyone else is just a retread of the same fallow ground he already plowed thoroughly with Seven Soldiers. One or two good issues, and a couple good pages or ideas, doesn't make a good 9 issues miniseries.

There are parts I enjoy, and Morrison is a writer I want to like. I own almost everything he's written. When he's on, he's on. And when I don't like something he's written, I always feel like I'm pissing in people's cornflakes when I say that didn't really enjoy it or that it didn't really work for me. Abandoning transitions, expecting readers to pick up on things, respecting your audience, those are fine, of course. But where's the story to match the work? Where's the idea beyond "Look at all these cool characters! This Superman is slightly different!" ? Dude is capable of better. Society of Superheroes was excellent! He shouldn't be wussing out by building in a criticism escape hatch into his first issue. He ain't Zeb Wells or Kyle Higgins or something. A series a quality writer has been talking about doing for 5-10 years should be knocking me on my rear end, not leaving me wondering if he should leave my "always buy" list of authors. Alan Moore is doing monthly comics again. It's time for the A-game.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

Toph Bei Fong posted:

Morrison's put himself in a very safe position here by incorporating goal post moving into the comic itself: if you think about it too hard, you're the problem. If you criticize the work, you're the villains. If you try to take it as simply dumb fun, well, here he is in the interview claiming that his light and fun issue is really full of haunting dark overtones that you didn't pick up on (just like all those old 40s and 50s comics we love to deconstruct). Well, which one is it? Am I supposed to read it just intelligently enough to pick up on {this or that reference to old comic} but not critically enough that I notice metafictional stories have been a thing since at least the comedy of the 1940s (or earlier: off the top of my head, 1666 gives us Cavendish's Blazing World, and 1759 Sterne's Tristram Shandy), and is hardly new ground or enough of an idea to stand on its own, rather than as backdrop for the real story? Jack Kirby and Stan Lee attended the wedding of Sue Storm and Reed Richards. Nova visited Marv Wolfman's office to complain about the quality of his comics, and both Wolfman and George Perez made appearances throughout Teen Titans. Kurtzman and Wood did most of the commentary in Superduperman back in 1953. But then, here I am, part of the problem. I'm not supposed to criticize the reason I want to criticize the comic and its author, or else I'm a monstrous floating eyeball or the evil clockhouse from Nextwave.

For example, I liked the Charlton issue, but it doesn't replace Watchmen by any stretch. It doesn't even replace the Action Heroes Archives vol. 2 that has all the original adventures of those characters. The Generation Me one didn't do anything for me, and barely had anything to say about that era of comics -- far from being weary and worn out, they were an era of constant crisis and upheaval, and a stronger commentary would have been, for example, to replace the entire cast every few pages, with the violence getting worse and worse each time. If the point was that superheroes don't need to exist in that world (until they do?), it was made, I guess. What am I to do with this knowledge? The Reichsman issue was borderline offensive, trying to have its cake and eat it too, keeping Superman as a tortured ideal of tolerant values rather than properly exploring what a Nazi Superman would be like and the idea of a literal superman with offensive ideas who lacks the perspective to see otherwise (plus, glossing over the Holocaust, as if it could have happened in just 3 years while Superman was gone, with nothing on either side of those years, to keep him as a "sympathetic protagonist"... Suffice to say that that displays a great lack of WWII history knowledge).

The point in The Just is that their world has been broken, primarily by Dame Merciless. Despair has taken over. Superman robots and other such tactical realism have eliminated all meaning in people's lives, creating a hollow utopia.

The point in Mastermen is that their world has been broken, primarily by Lord Broken. It's literally a broken house, a liberal and tolerant society that is built on the bones of the Holocaust (and the implication, I think, is that Overman stopped the Nazis before they could complete the genocides, and then they finished it during his 3-year disappearance- he very obviously is complicit in the Shoah), and it has to be destroyed. Another hollow utopia.

The point in Pax Americana isn't to replace Watchmen, but to comment on it, respond to it, and finally to criticize it. This one features its own hollow utopia, but a more obvious one.

The point in Ultra Comics is that Ultra Comics Lives. Even after the comic is closed, Ultra Comics will live on inside your mind. Which is why you're not supposed to read it. Because once you do so, Ultra Comics can no longer be contained.

Hell, the point in Thunderworld is not that the Fawcett Comics were secretly dark, but that they were fundamentally childlike, and the characters can't deal with the dark, even in the minor case of Georgia Sivana's self-image issues.

The Guidebook, meanwhile, increased my appreciation for things a whole lot when Grant started poking fun at his Darkseid obsession, and when he revealed his most ambitious secret villain yet. It's us.

FilthyImp
Sep 30, 2002

Anime Deviant

McSpanky posted:

e: unless I'm completely missing the point and all that stuff is supposed to be indicative of the Gentry's subtle influence on Thunderworld as a commentary on how we can never have nice things these days precisely because pseudointellectual blowhards can't stop making our heroes serious and real and make sure everyone knows it's not your father's comics anymore, in which case... I'm dumb.
I think the Sivana scenes also have something to say, in respect to the seeping of dark, serious themes in what were escapist works. You get the Eeeevil villain with an agenda befitting a tyrant more than a petty criminal, then you get increasing levels of stakes-raising (as represented by the Sivana council), which culminate in nihilistic annihilation or maybe a seriously hosed up character (Rapey Sivana, who is almost straight parody). You have to question how that is in service to the story being told, or the characters, or how it reflects on the tapestry of the work.

Basically you start as a depressed, socially awkward researcher and end up a multiversal pederast out to destroy creation.

But you can also enjoy it as a Punchmans, because by no means does it make a Super Serious reading explicit.

Unlike, say, the Gentry, who are pretty clearly what GMo considers to be what's rotten at the core of modern comic tales (unhealthy body image/gender roles, creativity shackled by strict adherence to continuity, a desire to make everything dark, over-rationalization, etc)

E: I also think its a difficult series to appreciate because we're getting peeks at so much as it goes along.

FilthyImp fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Mar 26, 2015

TwoPair
Mar 28, 2010

Pandamn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta
Grimey Drawer

Toph Bei Fong posted:

The issue with the deconstruction that Morrison does is that he's already done it, multiple times, and, well, what's he trying to say exactly?

It's funny you say that because Morrison admits as much in his Paste Magazine interview that was posted earlier in the thread

quote:

Paste: Multiversity is just so big and massive in scope, panning out to dissect how the realities between comic fiction and the world intersect. It’s also a theme playing out in Annihilator, albeit as a reflection on the film industry. This project feels so definitive and absolute; are there more meta comic events that you could write past this? Am I being unimaginative by asking where do you go from here?

Morrison: I realize it’s my master theme. A lot of times I’ll be working on a thing, and I’ll be thinking here’s another story where a person wakes up to the true nature of reality and I’ll think, ‘Grant, come on—why do you keep doing this?’
(emphasis mine)

I did like the issue, but I get your point where it's hard to like a book that condemns you for reading it. Yeah, yeah, metafiction, but still, if I'm not supposed to criticize and I'm not supposed to be blind to the problems in mainstream comics then how am I supposed to join Ultra Comics and defeat the Gentry, Morrison? HUH?

TwoPair fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Mar 26, 2015

FilthyImp
Sep 30, 2002

Anime Deviant

TwoPair posted:

Yeah, yeah, metafiction, but still, if I'm not supposed to criticize and I'm not supposed to be blind to the problems in mainstream comics then how am I supposed to join Ultra Comics and defeat the Gentry, Morrison? HUH?
Use the ultra-mind to demand changes?

Kind of apropos that this dropped after the Batgirl cover fracas, eh?

fatherboxx
Mar 25, 2013

Toph Bei Fong posted:

I'm not supposed to criticize the reason I want to criticize the comic and its author, or else I'm a monstrous floating eyeball or the evil clockhouse from Nextwave.

I think the last issue says the opposite - criticism is a form of engagement, and honest engagement is the prime weapon against Gentry.

I gotta agree that the Nazi Superman issue was a misfire because of the Overman treatment, but then in Pax Americana everything Haley does is shown in positive light - awareness of the political events of the last 20 years and the Comedian arc from Watchmen should tell you otherwise.
And not enough dead nazis.

Dr.Magnificent
Dec 24, 2007

Comes with hands on care.
Fun Shoe

Toph Bei Fong posted:

The issue with the deconstruction that Morrison does is that he's already done it, multiple times, and, well, what's he trying to say exactly?

Alan Moore is the devil, and his mature run of MarvelMan ruined comics. Seriously.

Okay this seems kind of glib to just drop in. Ultra is clearly a Marvelman stand-in. There is a page early on that shows his evolving adventures that use direct references to Marvelman. The big take-away from the comic is that the darkening/mining of old material is bad and wrong. Who wrote the mature run of Marvelman? Alan Moore. It also wouldn't be the 1st time that Grant has used Alan Moore as the devil (see: Final Crisis).

On the subject of story content, I thought Planetary did a similar theme better for no other reason than because it was more subtle.

Dr.Magnificent fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Mar 26, 2015

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy

Dr.Magnificent posted:

Alan Moore is the devil, and his mature run of MarvelMan ruined comics. Seriously.

Okay this seems kind of glib to just drop in. Ultra is clearly a Marvelman stand-in. There is a page early on that shows his evolving adventures that use direct references to Marvelman. The big take-away from the comic is that the darkening/mining of old material is bad and wrong. Who wrote the mature run of Marvelman? Alan Moore. It also wouldn't be the 1st time that Grant has used Alan Moore as the devil (see: Final Crisis).

Ultra cycles through all the previous ages of superhero comics, and the 90s Ultra is given the same space as the Golden, SIlver, and Bronze modes. The message seems to be that a character or franchise is always a sum of all its parts, for better or for worse.

josh04
Oct 19, 2008


"THE FLASH IS THE REASON
TO RACE TO THE THEATRES"

This title contains sponsored content.

Halfway through this issue the door opening/page turning imagery finally clicked for me.

fatherboxx
Mar 25, 2013

Dr.Magnificent posted:

Alan Moore is the devil, and his mature run of MarvelMan ruined comics. Seriously.

Okay this seems kind of glib to just drop in. Ultra is clearly a Marvelman stand-in. There is a page early on that shows his evolving adventures that use direct references to Marvelman. The big take-away from the comic is that the darkening/mining of old material is bad and wrong. Who wrote the mature run of Marvelman? Alan Moore. It also wouldn't be the 1st time that Grant has used Alan Moore as the devil (see: Final Crisis).

On the subject of story content, I thought Planetary did a similar theme better for no other reason than because it was more subtle.

No, Ultra Comics is a replacement to Superboy-Prime with elements heavily inspired by Adam Warlock.

While Superboy Prime was mostly used in idiotic "having a cake and eating it" fashion in regards to comics not being the saaame and too violent, Ultra is about fighting the "gentrified" space of apathy in comics.

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy
So did the kids stand in for comic readers? They cannibalize comic books and worship (read: uncritically read) a violent authoritarian figure because they don't have anything else.

tenniseveryone
Feb 8, 2014

THUNDERDOME LOSER

TwoPair posted:

It's funny you say that because Morrison admits as much in his Paste Magazine interview that was posted earlier in the thread

(emphasis mine)

I did like the issue, but I get your point where it's hard to like a book that condemns you for reading it. Yeah, yeah, metafiction, but still, if I'm not supposed to criticize and I'm not supposed to be blind to the problems in mainstream comics then how am I supposed to join Ultra Comics and defeat the Gentry, Morrison? HUH?

I just read Dan Clowes' Ice Haven and couldn't really figure out my reaction to it, partially because there's a running "gag" about a comics critic who puts too much importance on analysing and deconstructing stuff that's not meant to be picked apart like that. Which is weird because The Multiversity is doing that constantly (DON'T PULL THE DOG APART TO SEE HOW IT WORKS OR IT WILL DIE) but I never feel like its stunting my reaction to it?

What I'm getting is that the main thesis of The Multiversity isn't that any of the different "styles" of comic it features - from the fun punchy-punchy of Thunderworld to the dark Watchmen-riffing Pax Americana - are necessarily bad, but what is bad (ie The Gentry) is when you settle on one of those as the default, which stagnates the genre? So, the grim n gritty superhero kinda sucks because there's a paucity of imagination in just doing the same thing over and over again - equally, sticking Pax Americana or Ultra Comics in a loop makes either stunted and dull.

Ultra has his "morals" set to include the Golden Age through to the Modern Era, and that's all treated as legit, because they're all happening at once and not settling for one violent status quo, which is what the villainous Ultraa is?

fatherboxx
Mar 25, 2013

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

So did the kids stand in for comic readers? They cannibalize comic books and worship (read: uncritically read) a violent authoritarian figure because they don't have anything else.

Have you read The Wrenchies by Farel Dalrymple? (Morrison didn't and he is a bad bad man because of that) It uses postapocalytic kids in a similar "meta" context, but in a more empathetic way.

Morrison loves the motif of kids being corrupted by bad influence, with Leviathan in Batman Inc., the subway kids in Klarion, Newspaper Legion in Manhattan Guardian.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

I don't have a bunch of time to really post about it right now (because I have a two-hour meeting and I don't want to go into it with my head in the Bleed), but I don't think Multiversity is a deconstruction of comics, or at least that's not it's primary idea.

I think the idea is based off Captain Carrot's comment: what if every fictional world was real somewhere else, and what would happen if something from one of these fictional worlds threatened our "real" world and the people who read the fiction? Deconstruction is just an inevitable side-effect of that core concept.

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ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Effectronica posted:

Hell, the point in Thunderworld is not that the Fawcett Comics were secretly dark, but that they were fundamentally childlike, and the characters can't deal with the dark, even in the minor case of Georgia Sivana's self-image issues.

If that was Morrison's point then he hosed up badly, both in the writing of the issue and in his choice of subject matter. Picking Captain Marvel for "too childlike deal with serious issues" displays such a fundimental misunderstanding of that era of Captain Marvel that I'd expect it from Geoff Johns. I think people are taking that one line from an interview out of proportion, especially since it isn't contained in the work itself.

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