REVIEW: The Multiversity, #2

[JKtheMac]

And I agree that $800 was not much for saving "reality".

It was payment enough to keep the proverbial wolf from the door, which to most artists would be more than they usually get. Perhaps a commentary on the art for cash world of comics. To risk overstretching the point we are theoretically moving towards the end of Morrison at DC so it may be a kind of explanation.

[Thor-Ul]

If you think you had read weird interpretations to the Multiversity, you must read this one. It offer a different perspective.

[Patrick_C]

If you think you had read weird interpretations to the Multiversity, you must read this one. It offer a different perspective.

It sure does. I did a double take as I read this:

What makes this hero-corruption stick in my mind is the fact that Uotan is black and the Gentry are white by proxy.

But I guess that's the beauty of Multiversity. Each and everyone can use it as a tool to face their own inner demons. That's waht makes it awesome.

[t hedge coke]

Doesn't seem all that odd to me. They are colonizers and gentrifiers, the Gentry. And, it's not as if race or racism is being actively avoided in The Multiversity, or personal relationships with fiction, the strength of symbols and metaphors, fears and anxieties.

So, not everyone responded to the Gentry as "it's all about comics or my relationship with DC." That's no weirder than the people who insist it all has to be commentary on DC or that Intellectron has to be Dan Didio.

[hsalf1901]

If you think you had read weird interpretations to the Multiversity, you must read this one. It offer a different perspective.

Wow! I don't think the reviewer took into account there were different artists, the skies were different colors, or the lighting came from different directions.

As far as possible mental illness the first view of Nix's desk shows he is on an antidepressant, Zoloft. And he reviewed comics big time. He already had all of the issuse to do a "live" vivisection. When the first issue came out(to us) there were a few who thought that the series would be some kind of psychotic hallucination seen through Uotan's mind. First, let me say that Zoloft is not for psychotics or bi-polar diseases. On the other hand,
it was a story seen through Grant Morrison's imagination.

Tp get a better look at GM's inner workings then buy "Supergods" a sort of bio and his look at the history of comics.

That reviewer missed commenting on Captain Rabbit's statement that he has a hard time telling humans apart. He only goes by the colors of their uniforms. The fact that one Superman is white or black (or maybe even male or female) never comes into pay.

Which, I think, makes the "Diversity" in "Multiuniversity" makes that review sound a little, well, demagogic, IMO

later

bill

[t hedge coke]

The fact that one Superman is white or black (or maybe even male or female) never comes into pay.

That's not really true, at all. Not here, nor in President Superman's last appearance before Multiversity.

If Doc Fate is Calvin Ellis, he's likely wearing that mask all the time because he's hiding the fact he's black. Something Morrison has alluded to, himself, as well as the fact that the most "perfect" of the worlds, Thunderworld has all white superheroes and isn't quite healthy in its gender roles. Which world gets gentrified by the Gentry in the biggest way? The Ultimate Marvel Earth, which is the Earth where there was a conscious effort to have some more diversity from the ground up. Our Earth has a superhero, and what does he look like? Blond white guy. With a sacrificial lookalike woman. If you don't think racism, colonization, and gentrification come into play in Mastermen...

Right here on CBR, if you go back to the threads for the first issue, there were fans getting worked up that there were too many black characters, what was Morrison trying to say with all these black guys and women and oh god is that Flash gay?

I don't think she's saying that this is the only way to feel about the material, or even that it's Morrison's complete or only plan. She' saying these aspects, that the story as metaphor or symbol for these things leapt out at her. But to pretend that President Superman being black doesn't have anything to say or that there's nothing about race or racism in these comics...

[t hedge coke]

In fact, she very clearly does not say that The Multiversity is just about race or all about race.

"Anyway, it isn’t only the top-down gentrification that’s to blame. You’re complicit, too," is perhaps the best summation of the whole comic that I've seen. Simple. Pure. Direct.

[Patrick_C]

She's certainly quite right in that the story can be read in that way. It was intended to absorb the reader's own insights. You are supposed to exorcise what you identify as bad ideas. And I'm sure that Grant did some racial commentary, like he always does (Tough I think it was minor). However, she does overanalyze. He doesn't lose his right eye because it's his "good" eye. He loses his right eye because he's Nix Wotan.

Everyone overanalyzes, sure. But let's not pretend this isn't a heterodox way to go with the series.

[Darrin Kelley]

I went along for the whole Multiversity ride. Stuck it out even when there were some issues I really didn't care for.

Thunderworld was my favorite. The rest, really didn't appeal to me.

I likely won't be buying anything else by Grant Morrison.

[t hedge coke]

She's certainly quite right in that the story can be read in that way. It was intended to absorb the reader's own insights. You are supposed to exorcise what you identify as bad ideas. And I'm sure that Grant did some racial commentary, like he always does (Tough I think it was minor). However, she does overanalyze. He doesn't lose his right eye because it's his "good" eye. He loses his right eye because he's Nix Wotan.

Everyone overanalyzes, sure. But let's not pretend this isn't a heterodox way to go with the series.

She counters the eye thing herself.

I find it a lot more agreeable and easy than "Grant Morrison hates me and hates comics and hates Dan Didio," which seems to be a very common assertion from some critics/readers. Or, "It would have made sense if they released it eight years ago, but now it doesn't make any sense." "The egg is Batman and the Walrus was Paul."

It's nowhere near as reaching as any "This villain is clearly Alan Moore" leveled at Multiversity, Action Comics, Seven Soldiers... including All-Beard, which I totally believe. The main difference is, she's not comparing it to something else in comics, to Alan Moore or Flashpoint or how "I" secretly hate myself for reading comics.

But, it helps that the first thing I think of when I see "The Gentry" and a young guy who can't make his rent is gentrification and landlords. We get out what we put in.

[K. Jones]

I've been pleased with the diverse opinions on The Multiversity's topical value.

For me, I've mostly been musing on the nature of the Gentry as a fairy-caste and how that colors the Empty Hand's ostensibly being a Fifty-Two multiversal rebirth of Neh-Buh-Loh who always seeks out some form of dystopia. It's as much a thesis on the evolution of stories (fairy, fantastical, mythmaking, et al) and the people who make them, consume them, and critique them.

Morrison's definitely a "writer's writer."

[t hedge coke]

The Gentry as fairies makes the little robot people of Earth Li'l People funnier for me. And, does go a way to explaining why their lord king there doesn't actually seem all that malicious, just weird and unknowable.

[Patrick_C]

She counters the eye thing herself.

I find it a lot more agreeable and easy than "Grant Morrison hates me and hates comics and hates Dan Didio," which seems to be a very common assertion from some critics/readers. Or, "It would have made sense if they released it eight years ago, but now it doesn't make any sense." "The egg is Batman and the Walrus was Paul."

It's nowhere near as reaching as any "This villain is clearly Alan Moore" leveled at Multiversity, Action Comics, Seven Soldiers... including All-Beard, which I totally believe. The main difference is, she's not comparing it to something else in comics, to Alan Moore or Flashpoint or how "I" secretly hate myself for reading comics.

But, it helps that the first thing I think of when I see "The Gentry" and a young guy who can't make his rent is gentrification and landlords. We get out what we put in.

Well, I do think that most of what Grant does has at least a layer of comic book industry commentary, so I'm guilty of that. From Grant's own interviews and stated views, I find it far more believable that he's commenting on his own industry than about racial erasure. Which is not to say, again, that she's wrong in putting her own experiences into the story. Just that that reading is heterodox. Over-Monitor really is metaphor for a blank page.

You know, that is funny, because I had never seen the term "gentrification" before. To me, the Gentry is just another name for the fairy people, the people from the Other Side. Like Fair Folk or Sidhe (Sheeda). That's why I didn't even consider another option. It's right there in Morrison's usual choice of inspiration.

[Thor-Ul]

I remember than at least in one interview Morrison used the term gentrification in the same sense as the reviewer talked about. So the name wasn't at random. But that is the point, how many interpretations can have one simple story.

[hsalf1901]

[QUOTE=t hedge coke;1179564]That's not really true, at all. Not here, nor in President Superman's last appearance before Multiversity.

QUOTE]

I was commenting on Roger Rabbits statement.

later

bill