StumblyWumbly posted:I hear you, I love the comic, and I do hope you're right, but the idea that Morrison wants more critical reading is a bit undercut by the criticism that harms Intellectron. It isn't valid criticism, it's just folks getting sick of the dark spectacle and moving on. Ultra Comics doesn't die, though. The story ends, but Ultra Comics lives on in your head, which is why the Gentry tell you at the end of the comic that you've been infected and need to report to a quarantine zone. And that criticism should be looked at in the context of the story, where Intellectron sets the trap by saying how this is -finally- an intelligent comic. So when we realize that it looks pretty stupid and is just a giant egg with wings, that hurts it because we're breaking out of the trap and refusing to let it win. Of course, the real victory comes from trapping Intellectron in the finished story. EDIT: I also think that the Ultra Comics comic we see in the other issues and in Ultra Comics itself have different endings from the one we read, because we're from Earth-Prime/33 and Ultra Comics is made of us and interacts with us. But other characters can't interact with Ultra Comics in that way. Effectronica fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Mar 28, 2015 |
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Mar 28, 2015 17:43
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bairfanx posted:People getting sick of the dark spectacle and moving on isn't valid criticism? Let me rephrase it then: this thing is unoriginal, there are 500 other comics that present [dark spectacle] every month, and it's gotten commonplace and rather boring. Oh, this event is going to CHANGE THE UNIVERSE FOREVER? Blah, heard it last week. Add in that I have to assume Intellectron was chosen because the name screams that he represents the "these are graphic novels not comics" attitude, and I think there's a case for that all being pretty valid criticism. But the internet commentary (perhaps from the Comic Cosmos Forums seen in Multiversity #1?) that starts to bring him down is "The villain is a giant egg with bat wings? That's so stupid!" before he recalibrates to absorb wasted time and energy. Not quite the same level of criticism... But then here we are again: by criticizing that the ending of the book doesn't quite work during a commentary about book endings not working, we summon and give power to Intellectron and are hence part of the problem. But the issue isn't with Intellectron's shape or character design (which I think is pretty cool, personally, and some very fine work by Doug Mahnke, David Baron, Gabe Eltaeb, et al), and shouldn't be with spending time discussing a comic which is intentionally written to be discussed and analyzed...   
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Mar 28, 2015 17:44
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Toph Bei Fong posted:But the internet commentary (perhaps from the Comic Cosmos Forums seen in Multiversity #1?) that starts to bring him down is "The villain is a giant egg with bat wings? That's so stupid!" before he recalibrates to absorb wasted time and energy. Not quite the same level of criticism... But then here we are again: by criticizing that the ending of the book doesn't quite work during a commentary about book endings not working, we summon and give power to Intellectron and are hence part of the problem. But the issue isn't with Intellectron's shape or character design (which I think is pretty cool, personally, and some very fine work by Doug Mahnke, David Baron, Gabe Eltaeb, et al), and shouldn't be with spending time discussing a comic which is intentionally written to be discussed and analyzed... Is this from an interview? Because I don't get where this is coming from, textually.
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Mar 28, 2015 17:50
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This interview is very relevant to the current conversation; among other things, it looks like we're going to learn more about the Gentry and who/what they are in Multiversity #2. Also, I just realized that there's another panel difference between an actual issue and an in-comic representation of the issue.  
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Mar 28, 2015 19:24
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Effectronica posted:Is this from an interview? Because I don't get where this is coming from, textually. Intellectron's line: "This is only silly comm-ix-makes no sense-" after it turns out that the kids need Rex Ultraa to protect them from the thing in the box that couldn't escape until Ultra brought the box to their headquarters that they'd been defending from the forces that want to keep the box outside. How would they know they don't want the thing when they have no idea what's inside? If Ultraa is powerful enough to eat Ultra, why hasn't he retrieved the box himself? Intellectron is released only after a certain level of convolution is introduced into the narrative, and mocks the story for doing so.
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Mar 28, 2015 22:57
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Toph Bei Fong posted:Intellectron's line: "This is only silly comm-ix-makes no sense-" after it turns out that the kids need Rex Ultraa to protect them from the thing in the box that couldn't escape until Ultra brought the box to their headquarters that they'd been defending from the forces that want to keep the box outside. How would they know they don't want the thing when they have no idea what's inside? If Ultraa is powerful enough to eat Ultra, why hasn't he retrieved the box himself? Because the whole setup is a trap to allow Rex Ultraa to eat superpowers so that he can use the multiverse gate to go home. Everything we're told until UC figures it out is a lie. But the gate itself is a trap to allow Intellectron bodily entry from the Bleed.
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Mar 28, 2015 23:19
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I really need to reread the issue to get a concrete feel for whats going on, so I've sort of been skimming the replies here. But something I'll add, whether it applies to Ultra Comics or not, is that Grant Morrison has argued seemingly against the "intellectualisation" of comics in the past even as he writes some dense-rear end comics. See for instance Flex Mentallo:
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Mar 29, 2015 00:45
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StumblyWumbly posted:I think Morrison is writing off DC... as a place for good comics. Other than his own, that is?
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Mar 29, 2015 00:52
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Toph Bei Fong posted:by criticizing that the ending of the book doesn't quite work during a commentary about book endings not working, we summon and give power to Intellectron and are hence part of the problem. Yeah, I didn't really buy when you were selling this the first time, and I don't buy it now, but you can keep on going on about it.
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Mar 29, 2015 01:12
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About the character of Ultraa: First, he was the only superhero of Earth Prime for a very long time, until Superboy Prime came around during the first Crisis. Given that Earth Prime is "our Earth", It makes sense that Ultraa is our manifestation of what super heroics is, and he protects our world. If he is, then what is Ultra Comics? Second, in the 90s, Ultraa is the consort to Maxima, as mentioned in this issue. He was left behind on Almerac by Maxima to pursue Superman as her new consort. She also eventually took his place in the Justice League after Superman died to honor his memory. Is Ultraa, a "gilted lover" or sorts? A character forgotten by everyone, either moving on to "court" 90s Superman? Or to be replaced by a crappy also-ran super heroine Maxima? So many questions...
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Mar 29, 2015 02:31
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I tried checking previous pages for this, but anyone got an idea on why Intellectron's speech renders certain words in a certain way? "You" becomes "YU", "to" becomes "2", "your" becomes "yr" - though going back to the very first issue, there's a Gentry speech bubble that states "CHOOSE YOUR WEAPONS, NIX UOTAN!", breaking the your->yr scheme.
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Mar 29, 2015 02:37
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graybook posted:I tried checking previous pages for this, but anyone got an idea on why Intellectron's speech renders certain words in a certain way? "You" becomes "YU", "to" becomes "2", "your" becomes "yr" - though going back to the very first issue, there's a Gentry speech bubble that states "CHOOSE YOUR WEAPONS, NIX UOTAN!", breaking the your->yr scheme. I'm pretty sure he's done that before, I remember "I SEE YU" popping up in one or more of his past works, though I can't remember which. Maybe he's just fond of using that to signify an utterly alien enemy that is only barely comprehensible. Notably, all the examples you give are missing the letter "O." Coincidence, or are Grant's cosmic threats taunting the humans they're addressing by denying any concept of "infinity" to them? No eternal soul, we all die alone and screaming.
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Mar 29, 2015 02:59
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minimalist posted:I'm pretty sure he's done that before, I remember "I SEE YU" popping up in one or more of his past works, though I can't remember which. Maybe he's just fond of using that to signify an utterly alien enemy that is only barely comprehensible. I noticed that, but I ended up interpreting it more simply as a denial of a cycle rather than as infinity.
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Mar 29, 2015 03:17
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graybook posted:I tried checking previous pages for this, but anyone got an idea on why Intellectron's speech renders certain words in a certain way? "You" becomes "YU", "to" becomes "2", "your" becomes "yr" - though going back to the very first issue, there's a Gentry speech bubble that states "CHOOSE YOUR WEAPONS, NIX UOTAN!", breaking the your->yr scheme.
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Mar 29, 2015 04:57
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Effectronica posted:Because the whole setup is a trap to allow Rex Ultraa to eat superpowers so that he can use the multiverse gate to go home. Everything we're told until UC figures it out is a lie. But the gate itself is a trap to allow Intellectron bodily entry from the Bleed. We've seen this trap before, back in JLA Classified.  Where it released the Nebula Man, Neh-Buh-Loh, who is also the universe of Qwewq, our universe. It appears in All Star Superman and Seven Soldiers too, in various forms. This time it's been co-opted by Intellectron, a very savy comics creator. So savvy, in fact, that he gets to serve as narrator of our issue, creating Ultra Comics, and addressing us directly. He doesn't tell us he's Intellectron until after the box has been opened and the trap sprung.  Intellectron before...  ...and after, addressing the reader directly in both forms. He needs comics to be gritty and realistic, to be a part of the real world. Note that the group of Ultras assembled includes Ultra the Multi-Alien, who regularly made Wizard's list of "Dumbest Super Heroes", and it is he who forces UC into the Oblivion Machine. They are a joke, a symbol of what's wrong with comics. That load of unanswered questions and convoluted back story each issue comes saddled with nowadays, like the dump of info that Gary Concord Jr. gives us about Time Tyrant Tor and Epoch, Lord of Time, that are utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of the issue, as meaningless as the barely seen Reborizzon. All of Ultraa's dialogue is meant to make you remember who he is, who Maxima is, all those issues of Superman he showed up in, the exact opposite of the "Simple straight forward action story" the comics message board commentators were asking for. Intellectron has sent Ultra to help him wipe all of this out, so he can move in and start harvesting. This has been a perennial theme of Morrison's, daring back to Animal Man traveling to Limbo to meet all the old pre-Crisis characters and have one last romp before going back to the very "realistic" world of John Byrne Man of Steel Superman and Frank Miller Batman. The line "Rex Ultraa was all we had to protect us -- from the thing inside the box!" makes no sense, as I pointed out above. The Neighborhood Guard (remember that Multiversity #1 was subtitled "Cosmic Neighborhood Watch") have been fighting off mutated versions of familiar superheroes to keep possession of the box, even if the can't move it, heroes who "always say the same thing", are static and old, as immovable as the box itself. The comics they have are missing pages, so they can't know that Intellectron is waiting inside. They aren't powerless; they've been fighting off an invasion for years now. They have 4 other superheroes with them, heroes powerful enough to subdue Ultra. And even if this is all a lie, why even bother in the first place, since it was Intellectron who put Ultra Comics into the trap, and who already had him thoroughly trussed up and ready for sacrifice at the very beginning shortly after his birth? He could get in by writing "Intellectron slides through the void and sideways slips into the open portal Tor carelessly left open in his hubris. Lightning crackling from his wings, begins to harvest the minds of the Time Troopers gathered about the room", but he chooses not to. He reveals himself once the story can't cohere anymore. It was always going to break down.  If Intellectron is from our universe, has made a comic which you are holding in your hands right now, and has repeatedly made you obey his every command throughout the issue, who actually won? The comic might end, but the discussion hasn't. Intellectron will live on electronically and mentally, as this is a comic designed to encourage discussion, especially of a calibre slightly higher than "A 5-Dimensional evil egg! Lol!" (even there, a not insignificant line: Morrison has established in both his runs on Batman and Superman that the 5th dimension is imagination, and Intellectron is a creation of his imagination) What does it say about our world that the cosmic being is invading the fictional space the cannibalize the dreams of fictional children? If the idea is to (literally) capture the reader's attention, the Gentry already did that from the moment you purchased the comic. It's not like you were actually going to quit reading halfway through, is it? And since the creator of this comic is Grant Morrison, who is doing a work for hire job at a large commercial entity about Why Superhero Comics Matter, what does it mean that the superhero creator and storyteller in this comic is revealed to be just a flesh suit worn by the villain, the one who appears to be the leader of the Gentry? Is the message "don't read those ugly gritty non-super hero comics"? "Don't think about them too hard?" Because surely he can't mean the former, and the latter is an awful message. What will this egg hatch?  If we're supposed to forget all about this wonder and joy draining villain, to keep him from destroying the super hero universe, why did Morrison write about him in the first place? A mimetic villain can only be destroyed through forgetfulness, not dissemination. But then there I am, draining the wonder and joy from the comic by over-intellectualizing it, by not just letting it be fun allegory or a neat romp, and not being swept up in the narrative and enjoying the ride, because I'm too busy concentrating on the villain and his implications. Perhaps I was infected early on, and this is just the latest expression of that infection? Going by that, yu shouldn't take me 2 seriously. Keep reading and discussing, cmcs fns.
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Mar 29, 2015 06:57
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Toph Bei Fong posted:If the idea is to (literally) capture the reader's attention, the Gentry already did that from the moment you purchased the comic. It's not like you were actually going to quit reading halfway through, is it? I actually, honestly considered either not reading any further or skipping to the last page after the first two-page sequence just to see what kind of, for lack of a better description, philosophical implications that might have on the discussion of this issue. I mean, I was gonna read it all eventually but not for a few days, a week at most.
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Mar 29, 2015 12:14
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Toph Bei Fong posted:*snip* Ultra Comics is a weapon against us. Against our world. The whole point is to sucker you into reading, and then inject you with despair. But we have the power to change the comic we're reading, because when we've seen panels from UC in other issues, they've been different, and also because we are Ultra Comics. We have the ability to reconfigure the ultrastuff into whatever we can think of. We can rework the story into a nonlinear narrative. We can criticize. We can think about the story. Most importantly, we can chain Intellectron, who is only an idea. We are engines for generating ideas. By reading the story, and following Ultra Comics, we defeat the twisted, parasitical "superheroes" like Ultraa that we believe are the only thing defending us from the despair of the Oblivion Machine. We then defeat the Oblivion Machine itself, first by laughing at it, and then finally by thinking an ending to the story and putting it under our control. Intellectron believes itself to be in control. But it isn't. It orders us to turn the page, but when we do so, we get closer to defeating it. It tells us the comic is real to prepare us to be hurt by the death and destruction of Ultra Comics, but by accepting this, we get the power to stop Intellectron. The Oblivion Machine is in us. It's in all of us. Everything that we do, even looking at other people, increases entropy, moves us closer to death. Comics are no different. But we can take this fact, and conclude the opposite of what Intellectron wants us to think. More importantly, the goal isn't to forget it, but to contain it, to think up a cage that it can't escape. Which we can do, some with ease, some with difficulty. I mean, you look at these pages where old bits of continuity exploit children to eat new characters, and you conclude that it's all nonsense, it's poo poo, and Intellectron has won. But let's go back to the Flex Mentallo panel, where Flex answers Wally Sage's implied questions immediately afterwards. "What do you say? Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!" We can ideate ourselves- you can ideate yourself- out of the trap.
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Mar 29, 2015 14:03
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I wish I had superpowers so I could see the "massless time-symmetrical boson" Captain Atom sees on pages 12 and 13
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Apr 2, 2015 07:03
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But then you'd lose touch with humanity and try find your dog's soul and... 
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Apr 2, 2015 09:41
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So recently I made a presentation on Grant Morrison for a comic class. I feel like I screwed it up, but there was one point I really wanted to make that was informed mostly by Ultra Comics. I figured I'd see if I can articulate it here, add to the interpretations of just what all is happening in that issue. In my opinion, the Gentry is not just a symbol of the comic books industry or despair or something similar, though it could certainly stand for all of those. Ultra, by the same token, isn't really a symbol of destruction of despair through analysis; after all, he seems to be defeated and isolated by the Intellectron's influence shortly after the final battle. The whole comic, to me anyways, seems to point to the idea that the Gentry is our idea of what comics are. The Gentry comes through the Oblivion Machine, which then chains us to the Gentry, and we accept it as such. That process seems awfully similar to how we accept ideas and allow them to affect our views of the world. Throughout the issue, we're given themes of sight being a major factor. The very first page has Ultra with one blue eye and one eye that was red and yellow, one that looks surprisingly similar to Intellectron's. That eye is the one that's zoomed in on as he's telling us not to turn the page. The very issue itself is an abstraction of sight; despite the fact that we see Ultra as a superhero, he describes his body as though it were composed in the same fashion of a comic, which he is. Our senses are questioned just as much as we are focusing on closeups of eyeballs and how things are viewed. Which then brings us to just how both the Intellectron and Ultra's fate apply to the idea of how comics are perceived to be. Throughout the critical sphere there seem to be two pools of thought; one informed by revisionism, the other informed by reconstructionism. Both sides seem quick to point out the other side as the figurative Antichrist, the reason why comics suck so much now unlike how they used to be. Both sides tend to reduce the other, and by extension a part of comics themselves, as worthless in some way, or tiring, or at least of lesser worth. Even outside of the critical spheres, when people tend to refer to comics, they often find themselves referring to more negative aspects of it, or how negatively it is portrayed, or how certain ideas or trends or people don't belong in the culture even if there is no justifiable reason for them to leave. In other words, people see comics through a negative lens, they see everything wrong with it and believe that, at its core, that's all it ever will be now. In this case, the ideas we have are represented by the Intellectron, the Gentry, and that chain that anchors that idea to us is the Oblivion Machine. Because of this, Ultra isn't infected and being ordered to go to quarantine after the fight. We, the people inside his head, are the ones being told that. The thing that fights off the Intellectron is not just a removal, a sense of looking beyond what we want it to see for us, but rather cynical, violent barbs delivered with just the same amount of "this poo poo sucks and here's why" that made us accept the Gentry to begin with. The people that made those comments did not suddenly become able to see past Intellectron/their biases, they just simply pushed and attacked until it went away. We've already been infected long before Intellectron, long before Ultra Comics was ever published. It just took this long, perhaps, to manifest the infection in a way that we can see it absolutely, and we can address it for good this time. All we have to do is realize that those biases are not all there are, and that there is more to this medium than what we chose to see before. Hopefully I was succinct or legible enough to get my points across. I realize this is heading into pretentious sappy stuff, and when I tried to convey it last time it all sort of came out a word salad. Still, this series of comics has made me really drat excited for comics in general, and I can't wait to see how the whole thing wraps up!
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Apr 13, 2015 03:08
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#2's on comixology right now and it's a hell of a thing.
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Apr 29, 2015 12:51
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e:nm. I had some cool idea that the gentrified zombie cap could represent superhero movies, but it's obviously faux-Marvel Earth 8's Earth 7 faux-Ultimates. They're right there in the Guidebook. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 13:11
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I'm so glad that Morrison specified that the DC Multiverse was just a mulitverse, not the mulitverse. There's more out there; a multiverse of multiverses, all in danger from the Gentry.
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Apr 29, 2015 14:54
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The "HUGE REVEAL" about who was controlling The Gentry was a little disappointing at first, but I think it might be comparable to the end of True Detective: it's not as radical as I was hoping, but the book never suggested it would do anything than end in a fairly obvious, simple way. Good always wins, even if the readers are the ultimate evil...sort of. Probably gonna have to re-read it twice with the Guidebook to get all the Earths square in my head now...
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Apr 29, 2015 14:59
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I'm surprised how quiet the thread is. Did people not know the new issue was out today? I'll admit I only found out because someone posted a panel in the Funny Panels thread. Stupid Convergence delays...
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Apr 29, 2015 21:37
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It's gonna take me at least one more reread to say anything intelligible about it. Or the entire series.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:49
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Other than the fun through-line with the Sivanas, I definitely liked a few of the one-shots much more than the over-riding story. The opening and ending, right now, I think are kinda weak, but I did really like the Guidebook's part. Maybe because it was a bit slower. e: I did find it at least conceptually interesting that he set the majority of the Multiversity #1 and 2 action on the Marvel stand-in Earth. I guess it's a way to span the concept past the DC boarders a bit to more represent comic books as a whole. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 21:56
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I feel like that's probably been the best end-of-the-world final battle Morrison has done, maybe tied with the end of his Action Comics arc
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Apr 29, 2015 22:01
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It's because Convergence and Secret Wars are the same event and this is all about Marvel and DC merging.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:10
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The big, fun panel with all the heroes from the different worlds meeting was kind of what I hoped Convergence would be like, but alas.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:22
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My thoughts on the chibi robot heroes were confirmed. They're toys, DC action figures. The panel architecture gave me an uncomfortable feeling. And I think the empty hand is our hand. Captain Carrot and Aquawoman really stole the show for me. Great team shot at the end. Planting the seed for a thousand stories that could, but probably won't be told. Good grief! Go outside and live your lives!
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Apr 30, 2015 01:57
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The Empty Hand is Grant Morrison 
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Apr 30, 2015 03:06
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I like how this entire event happened because a guy needed to pay his rent, so he submitted to a comic crisis to get comic fans to give him money.
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Apr 30, 2015 03:22
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Oh, a bad guy that destroyed the previous Multiverse? Oh poo poo it's DC comics personified.
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Apr 30, 2015 03:38
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SynthOrange posted:Oh, a bad guy that destroyed the previous Multiverse? Oh poo poo it's DC comics personified. Not just any bad guy. Check the symbol on his chest. We've seen it before in this series.
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Apr 30, 2015 04:05
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We're currently on the third iteration of the DC Multiverse. The first was destroyed in COIE, the second ran from 52 to Flashpoint. Someday there will be no DC, no Multiverse.
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Apr 30, 2015 04:09
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And since they don't seem to be interested in keeping this multiversal set up around, and aren't going to continue with these characters, there'll nobody to defend the 52. 
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Apr 30, 2015 04:11
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Mimir posted:We're currently on the third iteration of the DC Multiverse. The first was destroyed in COIE, the second ran from 52 to Flashpoint. Someday there will be no DC, no Multiverse. Check this week's Justice League. Metron: "She Cannae take any more, Cap'n!"
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Apr 30, 2015 04:13
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Die Laughing posted:The panel architecture gave me an uncomfortable feeling. And I think the empty hand is our hand. Was anyone else super jazzed during the "rubix cube" sequence where, and maybe I'm reading this wrong, each shot is a rotation of the cube as it's reflecting the story to us as comics panels? Also, maybe the series ends the way it does so Morrison can do it all again when DC and Marvel decide they can play nice and let their properties share a sandbox.
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Apr 30, 2015 04:18
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Evil Mastermind posted:Not just any bad guy. Tell me more, I can't place it right now
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Apr 30, 2015 04:31
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