Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXV: The Multiversity

Comic trade paperback, 480 pages
Published 2016 (contents: 2015)
Acquired and read April 2017

The Multiversity

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Walden Wong, Ben Oliver, Frank Quitely, Cameron Stewart, Marcus To, Paulo Siqueira, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Sandra Hope, Mark Irwin, Jonathan Glapion, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Keith Champagne, Jaime Mendoza, Eber Ferreira  
Colors by Nei Ruffino, Dave McCaig, Ben Oliver, Dan Brown, Nathan Fairbairn, Alex Sinclair, Jeromy Cox, Gabe Eltaeb, David Baron, Jason Wright
Letters by Todd Klein, Carlos M. Mangual, Clem Robins, Rob Leigh, Steve Wands

When I started my readthrough of DC Comics Crises, Flashpoint was the last one, but the endpoint of this journey is ever-receding: now Flashpoint has been followed by The Multiversity and Convergence, and I suspect I'll be adding Rebirth to my list too. The Multiversity isn't a "Crisis" per se (so far DC has kept to its promise and Final Crisis is indeed the final Crisis), but it does follow on from their narratives pretty explicitly: this volume explores some of the worlds of the multiverse introduced in 52 and develops themes and concepts Grant Morrison introduced in Final Crisis.

It's a weird book, maybe even by Grant Morrison standards. Like with Final Crisis, I feel like what it needs is a good reread, and since I bought it, maybe I'll actually do that someday-- maybe after reading Morrison's Action Comics run. This book concerns the attack of the mysterious Gentry, the servants of the Empty Hand, on the DC multiverse, and seems to serve two artistic purposes: it's an exploration of the possibilities of the DC multiverse, as well as a statement on some of the creative possibilities and limitations of superhero comics as a genre/medium. So I'll try to untangle some of each of those in turn.

Possibilities like Sad Nazi Superman.
from The Multiversity: Mastermen #1 (art by Jim Lee and Scott Williams, Sandra Hope, Mark Irwin, & Jonathan Glapion)

Back before Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC had an infinite multiverse, then it had nothing. 52 brought back the multiverse, yet DC seemed to do little with it. (Partially this is because of Flashpoint, I think, which ruined some aspects of the multiverse. For example, the Wildstorm characters presented an intriguing alternate take on superheroes when they were officially on Earth-50, as we saw in stories like Captain Atom: Armageddon, while they became quickly cancelled also-rans when incorporated into the "main" DC universe on Earth-0. Like, The Authority can't even have a point if they exist in a world where the Justice League also exists.) It might seem like going from infinite Earths to 52 Earths is limiting, but I actually think it's just the right number. In an infinite multiverse, anything goes, but in a realm of 52 alternatives, there's just enough structure to intrigue and delight; I spent a lot of time poring over the map of the multiverse included here, noting correlations and connections as Morrison tries to squeeze everything from Neil Gaiman's The Endless to Jack Kirby's Fourth World into a coherent mythology:

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman Spin-Offs, Part XVII: Endless Nights

Comic hardcover, 152 pages
Published 2003
Borrowed from the library
Read August 2012

The Sandman: Endless Nights

Written by: Neil Gaiman

Lettered by: Todd Klein

Neil Gaiman's triumphal return to The Sandman is a series of seven short stories, each one covering a different member of the Endless, those squabbling anthropomorphic personifications who exist beyond gods and time. Each one is drawn by a different artist, and they take place across a whole range of times.

Death: "Death and Venice"

Artist: P. Craig Russell

Colorist/Separator: Lovern Kindzierski

I'd actually read this story before, in The Absolute Death. You bet I love any chance to experience P. Craig Russell's glorious art, and it's as sharp and clean here as ever. He draws Death at her absolute prettiest, and that's how I prefer her. The story has its moments-- many of them, in fact-- but somehow never fully engages me. I'd nearly completely forgotten it until I reread it, except for the dancing paper men, and though that's not super-important, it's not a bad thing to remember, either.

Desire: "What I've tasted of Desire"

Artist: Milo Manara

This is about a Celtic village in the pre-Roman period, or something like that anyway, where a woman gains the power of Desire in order to make a man want her. Unexpected craziness ensues. Like before, there are some very great moments, but I'm not sure what they're all in aid of. Milo Manara's art looks like he's been tracing glamour models: every woman has big pouty lips, has long perfect legs, and is always on the verge of showing her ass if she leans over just a little bit more in that short skirt. It turns "desire" into something crass, which is against the whole idea here.

Dream: "The Heart of a Star"

Artist: Miguelanxo Prado

Though this story is about Dream, the character, it's not really about dreams. If anything it's more about Desire, the character, than "What I've tasted of Desire" was! Set near the beginning of the universe, this story shows Dream bringing his girlfriend Killalla of the Glow to a party with a number of the Endless in attendance. It's supposed to explain the antipathy between Dream and Desire, but it doesn't really. At the beginning of story, Dream has some super-exposition dialogue about how much he loves Desire, then Desire betrays him. We neither see the friendship between them nor understand the motive for betrayal.

There are some awesome ideas here, though, playing with the toys of the DC universe in a way that The Sandman has avoided for a long time, but what works about the story has little to do with Dream or dreams, as we understand neither better at its end.

Despair: "Fifteen Portraits of Despair"

Artist: Barron Storey
Designer: Dave McKean

This is not a comic story, but a series of collages, words overlaid on text, about people in moments of despair. You feel depressed and anguished after reading these things; they're definitely the best and most appropriate stories in the book.

Delirium: "Going Inside"

Artist: Bill Sienkiewicz

A number of delirious people are recruited for a mission by Daniel, the second Dream. Bill Sienkiewicz's art really captures the art and the concept, and though the ending doesn't make any sense, it's hard to imagine how a story about Delirium could. Matthew the Raven puts in a brief appearance, which is always nice. I think by the time this was published he had died in The Dreaming. Oh, and Barnabas is here, too. I like him. This story is clearly a fragment of a larger picture, one we'll probably never see, but it's probably better that way.

Destruction: "On the Peninsula"

Artist: Glenn Fabry

This one-- about an archaeologist digging up artifacts from the future-- is a nice little story. Probably my second-favorite in the book. A simple, personal story, and we get good appearances from Destruction and Delirium, picking up right from the previous story, in fact.

Destiny: "Endless Nights"

Artist: Frank Quitely

The art by Frank Quitely is of course very nice, but it's not a story. More a kind of poem maybe? Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold was pretty pointless, so maybe it's for the best that there's no attempt to use Destiny as the key character in a story.


I wanted to like this book more than I did. Most of the art is top-notch, and the imagery and ideas are great. But as I often find with Neil Gaiman, there's a noticeable gap between the story we did get and the story we could have gotten. These things could stand to be in focus a little bit more. Though, I suppose that if they were, he wouldn't be Neil Gaiman anymore.

It's Like Homeward Bound, but with More Blood and More Cyborgs

Comic hardcover, 116 pages
Published 2011 (contents: 2004-05)
Acquired January 2012
Read March 2012

We3: The Deluxe Edition

Writer: Grant Morrison

Artist: Frank Quitely

Colorist and Digital Inker: Jamie Grant
Letterer: Todd Klein

We3 is an odd little comic. It's about a government project to abduct three pets (a dog, a cat, and a rabbit) and wire them into killing machines so you can have a living soldier on the battlefield without it being a human being.  The project gets shut down, and the scientist ordered to terminate the animals actually releases them, forcing the government to come after them, all guns blazing.

There are some great things about this book.  Most of that is due to Frank Quitely's art.  The absolute best page is where we see a man being torn apart by a hail of bullets, and we are positioned on the opposite side of his body from the shooter, all the bullets coming right at us after having passed through him.  It is the most beautiful image of a man being torn apart by bullets that I have ever seen.  Indeed, the whole book is filled with oddly beautiful images of violence, which cause you to reevaluate what you think of violence more than any number of gruesome images ever will.  In fact, the beautiful images that are not overtly violent are still only possible because of violence, such as the three animals' star-filled escape.  Sure, it's gorgeous, and sure, it's a two-page splash emerging from a cramped grid of panels-- but a page earlier those animals murdered a bunch of people.

The notes at the end by Morrison and Quitely indicate that they think they're doing something innovative, and I don't fully buy it, but they're almost there.  At first I rejected the tiny inset panels, though a great technique unique to comics, as having been done by Crisis on Infinite Earths back in 1985 (and though I like George Pérez, he's not exactly avant garde), but I realized that these are different. While Pérez's images show a number of moments all happening simultaneously to each other, Quitely juxtaposes multiple moments that don't actually take place simultaneously, but come on top of each other so quickly that they seem to. But I can't come up with an effect caused by the 3D panels that comics couldn't do before already.

The story itself is kinda obvious-- it really is any old "escaped animal" story but with violence and cyborgs.   The characters are mostly types, especially the human beings (but maybe that's the point).  We3 is formalistically complex, but not married to a story that makes full use of that complexity.

Archival Review: All-Star Superman, volume 2 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

Comic trade paperback, 154 pages
Published 2009 (contents: 2007-08)
Acquired October 2010
Read March 2011

All-Star Superman, volume 2

Written by Grant Morrison

Pencilled by Frank Quitely
Inked & colored by Jamie Grant
Lettered by Phil Balsman

I didn't like the second volume of All-Star Superman as much as the first. It's got some great stuff, but unfortunately, it starts a bit slow, with a two-issue story about Superman venturing into the Underverse to meet Zibarro, who is the Bizarro version of Clark Kent. I've never found the Bizarro concept interesting, and this spin on it didn't do a lot for me either. The replacement Superman story is competent, but a little weak too-- Superman is conveniently saved from his dilemma. Which is par for the course for the crappy Silver Age stories this tale is emulating, but not necessarily something I want to see here.

"Neverending," though, is where things get great again, as Superman writes his last will a testament. This is just chock full of great moments, but my favorite is Superman flying a bus full of terminally ill kids to Egypt to see the Pyramids. I smiled so big at that one. That's why Superman's great. (Unlike Mark Waid in the introduction, though, the scene where Superman stops a girl from committing suicide did nothing for me, probably because she was goth. It was a little stereotypical.)

And as for the two-part finale, where Superman battle Lex Luthor under the red glow of the tyrant sun after Earth's own sun has been extinguished... well, of course it's good.

This volume isn't quite the near-perfect Superman story of the first volume, but overall, All-Star Superman is a twelve-part explanation of everything that makes Superman my favorite superhero.

(I'm sure Frank Quitely's excellent art has received lots of praise-- he does a great Clark, especially-- but I just want to mention that his Lois has amazing legs.)

Archival Review: All-Star Superman, volume 1 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

I read volume one of All-Star Superman back in September 2008. Coming to the second volume nearly three years later(!), I decided my best move was to reread the first, which I scarcely remembered at all:

Comic trade paperback, 154 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 2006-07)
Acquired and previously read September 2008
Reread March 2011

All-Star Superman, volume 1

Written by Grant Morrison

Pencilled by Frank Quitely
Inked & colored by Jamie Grant
Lettered by Phil Balsman

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely get a lot of kudos for All-Star Superman. For telling a great, fantastic, groundbreaking, amazing story. But I don't think that's true.

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely tell a perfect Superman story. They don't really do anything extraordinary here. They don't reboot Superman, or question his core morals, or kill him off, or show him in an alternate timeline. They just tell a Superman story. Oh sure, there's a plot about how Superman is dying from... the sun or something, and I guess he's got to perform Twelve Labors, though he seems to forget that. But the adventures he goes on here are all just run-of-the-mill Superman adventures. Nothing impressive.

Except that they're perfect.

Superman turns evil, and only Jimmy Olsen, Metropolis's best hipster, can save him. A perfectly done Jimmy Olsen weirdness story.

Clark Kent goes to interview Lex Luthor in prison, and there's a prison riot where Lex thinks he's orchestrating everything, but really Superman saves the day every time. A perfectly done Lex Luthor story.

Superman remembers the last day he saw his father. A perfectly done Pa Kent story.

Morrison and Quitely do the bumbling, they do the weirdness, they do the heroism. They do nearly everything right.

Nearly everything? The two issues about Lois learning who Superman really is are good... but they sidestep the most interesting parts of the story. But aside from that, they're perfect too.

All-Star Superman, volume 1 didn't blow my mind. But it did do exactly everything I wanted a Superman story to do.