NEW: Update: (August 20, 2014) Full review with spoilers for The Muliversity #1 is now available here.
This week – August 20, 2014 – sees DC Comics releasing Grant Morrison’s The Multiversity #1. This follows the slight spoilers-filled eight page preview of the book at the same time that DC also revealed the villains behind the October 2014 debuting weekly series Earth 2: World’ End over two pages.
Why are both series quasi-connected? Well, let me explain. The Earth 2 World’s End weekly series along with DC’s two other weeklies – Batman: Eternal and The New 52: Futures End – seemingly set up DC Comics’s Spring 2015 event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the classic Crisis on Infinite Earths. Like with DC’s three weeklies, Morrison’s The Multiversity ends at the same time and would seem to also set up DC’s Crisis-like 2015 event.
However, these books could also be leading into writer Geoff Johns upcoming Darkseid War event (which may be a prelude to this 2015 crisis or be its actual name). There’s also the several time anomalies of the DC New 52 that may also factor into the publisher’s big plans.
In terms of The Multiversity, if you haven’t seen Grant Morrison’s massive map of the multiverse as a lead in to The Multiversity, you really should as it is really impressive and informative.
Ok, now that you’re caught up, we can share with you six more interior pages shared by DC Comics as part of its free preview for The Multiversity #1. Those preview pages, and the books five covers are peppered below with Grant Morrison’s various teases for The Multiversity maxi-series. Enjoy!
Spoilers follow. You have been warned!
Grant Morrison has revealed that the quasi Justice League at the heart of The Multiversity is a team with the best heroes from across the multiverse; who also happen to be quite diverse:
“There’s another fringe benefit to this narrative experimentation and fluidity: a tremendous amount of cultural diversity in the book’s primary characters, something many fans have been increasing demanding from their superhero comics. There’s one and only one “straight white guy” on Morrison’s super-superteam, which also includes a gender-swapped Aquaman, a gay male Flash analogue called Red Racer, and Thunderer, a storm god inspired by Australian aboriginal mythology. The first (first) issue focuses on Calvin Ellis, a black man who is both the Superman of Earth-23 and its American president; Morrison describes him as “Obama meets Mohammed Ali.”
The characters of the various worlds of the multiverse will communicate, somehow, via their world’s comic books. This is a tip of the cap to some of the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths communications between then Earth 1 and Earth 2.
Grant Morrison has also indicated he’s bringing a little Marvel to DC and going back to one Monitor instead of a multiplicity of them:
“The last of the Monitors is “set in place to protect the Multiverse,” so he’s “kind of my author’s character,” Morrison said. Thunderer is a character who is one of the DC “Marvel characters,” an analogue for Thor who’s an aboriginal God.
In that same interview, we also learned the following:
There is also a guidebook, and it defines every one of the 52 worlds, with all of the characters that live on each one – “I thought I owed you that after all this time,” Morrison said…. [However, there] are seven “unknown worlds,” which used to be a DC theme.
Flashpoint and the other revisions are addressed in the Guidebook, where “all of the history becomes true.”
There’s nothing that’s specifically a “pre-52″ universe, but a lot of stories that will remind you of comics you used to read.”
It also appears that the Marvel nod doesn’t end with the Thunderer according to Morrison. The below was in response to how The Multiversity fit within the broader context of the comic book industry in 2014:
“I think especially since Marvel and Jonathan Hickman’s been doing this big sort of Marvel “Multiversity” story. Our first issue opens with the DC characters meeting the DC version of the Marvel Universe — so there’s now this really weird thing happening, where everyone’s doing versions of everyone else’s characters meeting somewhere. [Laughs] So the world kind of caught up with that one. We’ve got a confrontation between our own Justice League and “The Retaliators,” this kind of version of the Avengers, in the first issue. It’s almost as if it’s happening at the exact same time as Jonathan’s doing his book.”
“…I think [“The Multiversity”], particularly, is a culmination of everything I’ve been doing since I came back to DC in 2003. This kind of calls back to “Final Crisis” and “Seven Soldiers.” It’s all in there, and it does feel like, ‘here’s the capstone to that.’ But every time I say that, I go away and do something else, and then get a new angle on these characters and I want to come back.”
Lastly, it appears Grant Morrison initially had some mixed feelings about the New 52 relaunch:
“For me, it was kind of weird to see a lot of the history disappear, but then it’s exciting a new generation of writers coming up and putting their own ideas in and creating a new version of all that.”
Thanks for reading. All feedback welcome.
