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Since reading William S. Burroughs Nova Trilogy I've noticed Morrison has borrowed or built on a lot of the ideas from it over his career (in a good way). "Whose voice is this speaking in your head anyway? Yours?" is probably the most direct connection yet. I don't really get the inclusion of the chimp yet, even with that link d00gZ posted. Art looks surprisingly good; I think I had Ivan Reis confused with someone else.
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Aug 14, 2014 04:25
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:The chimp is clearly Dmitri-9. Ha, I wish! Apparently the chimp showed up in Final Crisis, but I don't remember that at all.
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Aug 14, 2014 05:08
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Its never said explicitly but its strongly implied in Twin Peaks and especially in the film Fire Walk With Me that the main villain and his associates are some sort of parasite species that evolved to live off of human imagination and emotions. I'm thinking that first page there with the "life evolves anywhere" stuff is hinting at the same sort of concept.
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Aug 14, 2014 17:09
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^burtle posted:Is this going to actually be monthly or can we expect delays? The whole project has already been delayed for years, so if there's exists a chance for a Morrison series to come out on time this is it.
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Aug 16, 2014 05:29
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horsepeen posted:Yeah I did some time ago. I've been meaning to reread the whole thing; now is probably the perfect time to. There is an expanded edition out now in Absolute and TPB formats. Mister Nobody posted:A bit off topic but has Morrison mentioned anything about Seaguy lately or is that project dead in the water? I'm guessing that's waiting for Cameron Stewart's involvement. Morrison also wasted a lot of time and focus trying to get movie projects off the ground, none of which worked out.
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Aug 19, 2014 21:34
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Was it just me or was the green monster in-between worlds pretty much the same as the 5th-dimensional being wrapped around Bat-Mite (or Bat-Might) in Batman RIP? (as depicted in my avatar) That imagery was also very similiar to the 5th-dimensional attack on Superman at different points in his life from Morrison's Action run. redbackground posted:I thought Reis' artwork during Blackest Night was pretty great, actually, but I dunno, it all looked pretty sloppy here, especially when panels get smaller-he just gives up on detail really quick. It was an uglier comic than I would have preferred, and maybe That Was The Point Or Something. As a semi-sequel to Finals Crisis and SB3D, Mahnke should have taken point. Intentionally or not, it worked out well because as far as we know each entry will be written and drawn to fit a pre-existing style of comics or storytelling, with a heavy dose of Morrison's usual proclivities mixed in. So this one was like the typical Event Comic style. Shameless posted:edit: It seems to me like there's something of a cautionary tale in here. Nix Uotan got into this mess by "dissecting" a comic book, which is a great word choice. He looked at these things too deeply and got spat out the other-side as... whatever he's become. I can't believe this is Morrison condemning analysis, he's not going to say "be dumber" considering the layers of meaning he puts in his own work, but more, like Wachter has said, don't get bogged down by the meaningless stuff, continuity, etc. I think the point could be that those things can only constrict you if you let them, or can only constrict stories if writers and editors let them- After all, we are shown that on some level of reality Nix is still just sitting in his bed reading comics. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 01:29
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Anybody else remember this book from childhood?
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Aug 21, 2014 02:28
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Die Laughing posted:Grover had some meta books. Remember The Monster at the End of this Book? That's what my picture is from.
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Aug 21, 2014 02:41
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TwoPair posted:I liked that although most of the not-Avengers were all different-yet-recognizable, their Black Widow was basically just Natasha wearing brown. I saw someone on another forum joking that her superhero name must be Brown Recluse.
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Aug 21, 2014 06:29
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Unmature posted:I bought Superman Beyond on the Comixology sale. Should I get Final Crisis too? I've never read it, is it required or at least recommended to read before Multiversity? Superman Beyond, Final Crisis (just the Morrison issues, preferably the slightly expanded new TPB version), and Action Comics 9 are the main plot lead-ins so far. I don't know that any of them are totally necessary for this, but with Morrison's work in general the more you put in the more you get out. It would be weird reading Superman Beyond without Final Crisis though.
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Aug 21, 2014 06:46
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Mr Wind Up Bird posted:I know it's still early but I kind of hope Morrison finds something for women to do in this story. Like, in Final Crisis he had this huge, complex story with gods of evil and time bullets and universe vampires but then when he had to think of something for Wonder Woman to do he just threw up his hands and said "well, I can't think of anything." He has his Wonder Woman OGN coming out next year that originated as his response to his own lack of interest in her before, for which he said he did a whole lot of research on different permutations of feminism. But this was mostly written long ago, before he became interested in that.
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Aug 21, 2014 15:17
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Some of this has already been pointed out, but here are some links between Morrison's work since Final Crisis: From Final Crisis:  From Multiversity:  From Action Comics:   From Batman RIP and earlier in his run:  Here is what Morrison had to say about the green monster clinging on the back of Bat-Mite (/Might): Grant Morrison posted:I had this idea the creatures in the fifth dimension were so appalling to look at, they couldn't show themselves to humans. It's not because they're bad, it's just because if we were to look at them we'd fall apart and poo poo ourselves. Bat-mite very kindly disguises himself as a child-like version of Batman. What you see is the face of something in the fifth dimension. So is that green monster in Multiversity another attack from the fifth dimension (aka ZRFFF), or maybe even the same attack as in Action but just seen from a different angle? Could it be that it only seems like an attack to people within linear time, but it actually has some kind of benevolent purpose (like an innoculation for the multiverse)?
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Aug 27, 2014 18:12
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Evil Mastermind posted:I want to know what that clock's counting down to. Well its too early to tell how much the stories will really tie together, or if the connections I've made are just Morrison re-using his favorite tropes. You should at least read issue 9, about President Superman, since it directly leads up to Multiversity #1. In my opinion it was a pretty messy run, especially due to inconsistent art, but worth reading for the beginning and end storylines.
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Aug 27, 2014 18:23
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Isn't the clock approaching midnight mainly just short-hand for an urgent crisis? But yeah, with that upcoming Watchmen homage issue of Multiversity its hard not to see its second inclusion as also being a Watchmen reference. Would be cool if we see that same kind of thing there but from the perspective of inside the comic-page looking out into the bleed-space between universes. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 18:33
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drrockso20 posted:Those "Bodies" are almost definitely Shadow Demons of the sort that both the Anti-Monitor and Mandrakk The Dark Monitor utilized as minions It looks more like 9/11 imagery to me; the people who jumped out the windows rather than being burned alive.
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Aug 28, 2014 19:53
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d00gZ posted:Those were definitively Shadow Demons in the story. Can you explain further please?
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Aug 28, 2014 20:01
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Teenage Fansub posted:Kinda bummed that that wasn't really a GL Etrigan like I was guessing from teaser images. Originally (even when the series was re-announced in April) there was supposed to be a whole issue about an Etrigan Superman, but it seems to have been cut. I think the alternate cover was from that.
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Sep 18, 2014 01:06
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FilthyImp posted:Something about Pulp Hero Rocketeer Doc Fate kept nipping at my brain, and the last panel with Niczhuotan finally brought it together. Especially with the Kirby-esque W on the totem. I think they briefly said that right out, so its not really a spoiler. Seems like both universes revere or worship Nix, but one his Monitor incarnation and the other his incarnation as "Destroyer of Worlds" from the end of issue 1. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 03:35
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Wait, what? There's got to be more on this. Well he appears in the alternate cover for this latest issue, but not in it:  And he's mentioned in this announcement from April (emphasis mine): quote:"'The Multiversity' has been a labor of love almost eight years in the making, and brings together an unstoppable supergroup of artists -- Reis, Sprouse, Oliver, Quitely, Stewart and more -- with a cast of unforgettable characters from the 52 alternative Earths of the known DC Multiverse! http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=52143 According to someone on another forum he was mentioned in the Final Crisis: Secret Files issue, too. Also: http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Etrigan_(Earth-17)
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Sep 18, 2014 04:25
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PantsOptional posted:Abin-Sur, however, I don't know what the deal is there. Al seemed pretty sure he was dead. I think the implication was just that he saw that, through Parallax, because he feared that.
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Sep 18, 2014 07:05
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Flameingblack posted:Am I the only one who keeps thinking that Abin Sur from Earth 20 just looks exactly like Etrigan? How would that work, would it be possible for something from Hell to get a ring? Heck, all of Hell could get its own ring. Could be the Mogo of the Red Lanterns, or something.
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Sep 21, 2014 07:23
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Here is the preview for the third issue, The Just: http://www.avclub.com/article/exclusive-dc-preview-superheroes-are-celebrities-m-210637
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Oct 20, 2014 02:23
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"Whose that knocking at the door". On some level all this is still taking place in the one moment with Nix's landlord knocking on his door.Space Fish posted:He also drops a million gallons of foreshadowing about the "haunted comic" that had better start manifesting in more direct ways from this point onward. The haunted comic is specifically the last issue of Multiversity, Ultraa Comics. Evil Mastermind posted:So the comic is both the warning and the threat? A message for help in a poisonous bottle? Interesting. That's why the cover of Ultraa comics says "Only YOU can SAVE THE WORLD! If you VALUE YOUR LIVES, you MUST (NOT) read this COMIC!"
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Oct 22, 2014 21:13
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Madkal posted:I liked and hated Just. On one level I really like the story of a world run by legacy characters but it feels like Morrison needs to shoehorn his beliefs into every story he tells making the story flow very uneven, and making characters sound alike (ie sound like him). Batman's character was the most jarring because sometimes he sounded like a real person and other times he is giving a critique about comics. How can that be "shoe-horned" in when its what the entire Multiversity series is about? For all his talk about long-running comic characters being real in some sense and so on, Morrison's comics always brazenly reject the idea that the purpose of storytelling must be to consistently simulate a realistic/believable/plausible alternate universe. His characters all talk like comic-book characters, not real people, because that's what they are.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:34
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Barry Convex posted:For some reason, Jim Lee is drawing the Earth-10/Freedom Fighters issue. Who was originally meant to be drawing it? Also I hope he has had a head-start for a while now, because it seemed like this might finally be a Grant Morrison superhero series without art delays or fill-ins.
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Nov 17, 2014 01:35
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Padje posted:That cover looks like something from a smaller comics studio. The type where everything looks brash inside and the back half of the book is just ads for other series in the line. It looks like something David Lapham wrote but didn't draw.
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Nov 18, 2014 01:51
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The new preview: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=24690
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Nov 19, 2014 05:02
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Here are my scattered thoughts so far: - The comic is about the (im)possibility of regaining innocence, once lost. Can comics go back to before Watchmen, and the subsequent trends of grim and gritty styles, moral ambiguity, anti-heroes, pessimism, and so on? Can America go back to the way it was pre-9/11, or back to its mythic golden age "when it all made sense"? Can Nix Uotan be turned back from the evil Judge of Worlds to the good Super-Judge? In this comic undoing Watchmen is as simple as having it's analogue story presented backwards, but even then it leads us to the same place: A young boy loses his innocence, the man on the radio is pining for how America used to be. And when we see the early days of Question and Beetle's dynamic duo the end of their friendship is already looming. - Characters talk about the miracle that's supposed to be performed by Adam Allen: President Harley coming back to life from the dead. Does he, though? Read the second page again. - There's the recurring infinity (/figure eight) symbol, but there's also a recurring symbol that could be traced as multiple figure-eights (or infinities) splitting off from one another. And in the end the infinity symbol with a bullet hole, combining the two. - I'm still having trouble with understanding how Sergeant Lane and his metal hand(s?) fit into the story or meta-references. I also don't see how Harley, as a boy, covered up killing his father ("An intruder killed his father, open and shut case apparently") - Again, I think the whole story ties into the larger Multiversity story because of how its themes relate to Uotan's own loss of innocence. Remember he also killed his own father in Final Crisis, though in a very different context. There's also the echo of the landlord knocking on Uotan's door again. Also, it keeps being teased that YOU (the reader) is the main villain of the story. Perhaps thats because, as this issue makes clear, we control the diegetic passage of time. We cause each terrible event by turning each page. Or because we've helped corrupt superhero comics by supporting the grim and pessimistic over the innocently heroic and optimistic? Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 21:51
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Evil Mastermind posted:I don't know if they were going to bring the president back to life; I read it more as using the president's death to unite and galvanize the country. Like a more narrowly focused version of Ozymandias' plan, and not one designed to benefit the whole world. Well Harley specifically mentiones being brought back to life in the garden chat with Adam. But from the story we see he only is because of the reversed way the panels and pages are ordered.
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Nov 19, 2014 22:33
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Shameless posted:Atom in the park with the dog makes me think along similar lines to Nix in the first issue where he was "dissecting"the comic. Saying stuff along the lines of "I thought if I took it apart I could better understand the whole"... It seems like Morrison is criticising those who look for meaning instead of enjoying the story but for someone whose work is so dense it doesn't quite ring true. I think he wishes we could all enjoy comics innocently, without the post-modern tricks designed for meta-analysis, or the pesky realism and pessimism and grim-dark grit. But this issue tries to reverse all that and ends leading right back to the same point. Even if the last section had been panel-for-panel backwards, so that the boy seemed to un-shoot his father, we the readers would still interpret the story the same forwards way. Which is maybe why the foreshadowing keeps implying that we are the true villains of the whole saga. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 22:37
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It's not so much a "gently caress you" as just saying he can't undo what has been done to superhero comics, by them or us.
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Nov 19, 2014 22:48
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Shameless posted:Is it also a criticism of Moore's absence from superhero comics and saying that if he only came back he could fix it again? Reminded of "Come back to us Allen" from Superman Beyond where he was very clearly a stand-in for Moore. Moore can't put the genie back in the bottle either. Just like Dark Knight Strikes Again turned in on its predecessor's legacy, but didn't undo it. I think the next issue with Captain Marvel might be Morrison seeing if an innocent, unambiguous hero story can still be told and fit in with the rest. Evil Mastermind posted:The page of Ultra Comics that reveals the villain is just going to be a mirror. That would be cool, but what would they do for the digital edition? I'm guessing the whole comic will be first person instead. Or both together. Shameless posted:So maybe the sideways 8 isn't an infinity symbol but a Möbius strip? Isn't the symbol for infinity always a Mobius strip? Like that's why that symbol is used for infinity in the first place, I thought. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 23:30
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Is there any significance to the times on the clock-tower when Harley is sitting on the bench? Besides a general reference to Watchmen's clock motif.
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Nov 19, 2014 23:35
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I still don't understand what Harley's plan actually was, leaving aside all the reading-order fuckery and meta commentary stuff. He accidentally kills his own father, the first vigilante superhero. Then years later he is shown the secret algorithm underlying everything by a time-travelling Atom, and becomes able to predict trends and future events. He uses that knowledge to rise through the political ranks, and eventually becomes a popular president. Concerned about a new dark ages he foresees in the future, he meets again with Captain Atom. But this is where I get lost. He says "to secure world peace [he] has to be sacrificed". He implies that Atom's role will then be to bring him back to life. But elsewhere its implied that he wants to actually die ("I deserve it, let the punishment fit the crime"), seemingly as punishment for his father's death. He creates a government sponsored super-team called Pax Americana (directly against the speech at the end against genuine peace in contrast to "a Pax Americana enforced on the world through American weapons of war"). But he also puts into motion a plan seemingly designed to discredit them, and to end the whole notion of the American government sponsoring superheroes. So in the end, speaking linearly, he is assasinated by Peacemaker like he planned. But we don't see him come back to life (except in reverse). Its not clear if Atom really did survive the attempt to kill him. And Peacemaker does not get away with Nora, who is also murdered, though that seems to have been part of the plan at one point. Did he foresee the advent of state sponsored super-agents eventually leading to the dark future end of humanity, and blame himself for putting that into motion when he killed his father? Since killing his father meant both the end of the first genuine superhero and the end of his super-hero comics which could have inspired more to follow in his foot-steps. If so, then it makes sense that he sacrificed himself to try and reverse what he had done, by popularizing unheroic superheroes and then turning everyone against them. He sees how all trends work, with rising popularity followed by an even swifter and stronger back-lash. Where would the coming back to life part fit into that, though? Maybe the meta elements can't be separated out fully. When they're interrogating Peacemaker and he's asked who he was trying to save the world from, does he then point at us (the readers)? Was Harley's profound discovery that he lived in a story structure, making his goal to make a story structured backwards so that it could no longer lead to the terrible fate he foresaw? And so since Atom can flip the pages the world like a comic-book, he is responsible for the reading order that the story presents to us. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 01:31
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team overhead smash posted:I'd say Atom's realisation is that he doesn't need to bring him back to life (and as shown with the dog may not be able to). Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at earlier. But the part I don't understand is whether that was part of how Harley intended the plan to go, or not. Madkal posted:I thought Harley meant that he would live again but this time as a legend. I kind of saw the death as the same thing as the Manhattan scene in Watchmen. I figured he created the superteam to be the scapegoats that would unite people in the end. So he wanted his assasination to unite the world against the jingoistic, self-aggrandizing type of heroes that he popularized? Like, he created them only to have America turn against them, thereby teaching the world a lesson before it was too late? Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 01:47
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:As stated, that was a Sarge Steel riff; Sarge Steel was a Charlton character too. First comic book 'private eye' to be a Vietnam veteran, interestingly enough. What was the significance of never fully showing his face? Anything to do with that source material?
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Nov 20, 2014 01:48
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Little Mac posted:Sarge Steel mentions he crawled out of the black hole opened in Atom's head - is he an agent of the Gentry? Maybe then the implication is that Steel, like Atom, moves through the comic in whatever direction he wants. And that's why the plan doesn't go exactly right. I don't think Atom's detachment is due to Ultraa Comics, since its a clear reference to Doctor Manhattan's increasing loss of humanity and its already given an implied in-universe explanation. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 03:06
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vegetables posted:My guess is that by shooting the President, the Peacemaker ends the age of superheroes, and thus ends any interest the reader would have in Earth-4. The President thus contains nearly the entire span of his world's heroic age within the bounds of his life in a loop that never resolves, where none of us have any interest in what lies after the resolution. Evil Mastermind posted:Personally, my theory is that Harley sacrificed himself to deliberately end the concept of the "superhero" on this Earth. I have this gut feeling that the Gentry are targeting worlds with super-types for some reason, and by eliminating them from his world, Harley has saved that particular Earth from the Gentry. I think that's the most fitting theory so far. Do we think there was a personal motivation too, like he blamed the superhero concept for his father's death and so he wanted to destroy it? Maybe his intentions were good but he let that get mixed in to the plan and lead him astray. There's also the role of young Night-Shade to consider. Perhaps by introducing those young heroes through the government but then getting people to turn against him he was seeding the next generation of genuine heroes, in reaction against the Pax Americana he created. bairfanx posted:If I had to guess, I'd say that most people have a forward facing camera on whatever they read their comics on. I can't imagine how you'd set up the Comixology app for that, though. But it would be loving awesome. Maybe it would end with a link or barcode to scan to send readers to a separate website (outside the app) like that. Clumsy, but workable.
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Nov 21, 2014 04:22
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Correnth posted:The same imagery of "three circles in a row" is repeated in the symmetry of the garden Adam and Harley walk through during their conversation. I also can't help but feel the repeated "three dots in a triangle" arrangement that appears through-out the book (the towers Adam creates, the blood drops on Peacekeeper's uniform, the wall hanging in the Pax HQ) is also supposed to have a greater symbolic meaning, but I can't figure anything out. I could just also be close to killing the dog at this point. With the three dots you can trace figure eights (or infinity symbols, or mobius strip shapes) with the possibility for the loop to go different ways.
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Nov 21, 2014 12:28
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I think each issue is showing us part of Nix Uotan's internal struggle between his hero and villain sides, as seen in the first issue. Note how in that issue part-way through it cuts to Nix in his regular human form still sitting in bed with his comics. One some level this is all happening in his mind; its all part of the process to turn him into the vampiric figure at the end. This latest issue relates because one of the main themes is loss of innocence: Watchmen is often cited as a turning point in superhero comics losing their naive innocence, and in the comic Harley loses his child-hood innocence by accidentally killing his father, who is also the only purely heroic superhero in the story.
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Nov 27, 2014 06:21
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