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  1. #16
    Extraordinary Member t hedge coke's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anjohl View Post
    So the Gentry were corporate, and the monitor is the comic writer? Little bit too meta considering the scope of the thing.
    The Gentry (and the Li'l League) were servants of an ultracosmic monster.

    They're also metaphors for certain bad feelings/thoughts, and certain supervillain archetypes. And, their boss is a metaphor for entertainers/authors and our collective need for new or retold stories.

    But first and foremost, they're monster and robot servants of an ultracosmic devilgodthing with spooky eyes and a need.

    Nix didn't write any comics in The Multiversity. He talked about comics on the internet. He fought alongside and against superheroes. And he read comics. But he didn't write any, even if he did sketch some in a notepad at home.
    Patsy Walker on TV! Patsy Walker in new comics! Patsy Walker in your brain! And Jessica Jones is the new Nancy! (Oh, and read the Comics Cube.)

  2. #17
    Extraordinary Member t hedge coke's Avatar
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    "Meta" is the single most overused word when discussing comics.

    Jack and Stan go to their character's wedding, no one panics about meta.

    Lex Luthor is reinvented as a metaphor for corporate greed, nobody panics about meta.

    Cary Bates goes into the DCU and becomes a superhero-killing villain... crickets.

    Grant Morrison creates an egg with bat wings that makes fun of you, and people get worried its all meta.

    It is an egg with bat wings. Who insults people.

    The zombies are zombies because... zombies. And the zombies in the Ultimate Marvel universe because... Marvel zombies is funny. Can you make metaphors out of that? Of course you can. You can make metaphors out of anything.

    But, when an evil egg with bat wings tells you you're stupid and shameful and locks you in hell, you really have been locked in hell by an evil winged egg before anything else.
    Patsy Walker on TV! Patsy Walker in new comics! Patsy Walker in your brain! And Jessica Jones is the new Nancy! (Oh, and read the Comics Cube.)

  3. #18
    Invincible Member Kirby101's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by t hedge coke View Post
    "Meta" is the single most overused word when discussing comics.

    Jack and Stan go to their character's wedding, no one panics about meta.

    Lex Luthor is reinvented as a metaphor for corporate greed, nobody panics about meta.

    Cary Bates goes into the DCU and becomes a superhero-killing villain... crickets.

    Grant Morrison creates an egg with bat wings that makes fun of you, and people get worried its all meta.

    It is an egg with bat wings. Who insults people.

    The zombies are zombies because... zombies. And the zombies in the Ultimate Marvel universe because... Marvel zombies is funny. Can you make metaphors out of that? Of course you can. You can make metaphors out of anything.

    But, when an evil egg with bat wings tells you you're stupid and shameful and locks you in hell, you really have been locked in hell by an evil winged egg before anything else.

    There is little self-references in comics, yes they are meta, but they are an aside to the main story.

    In this book, especially this issue, Meta commentary seemed to be the main focus, much more than any story resolution (which was none).

    So mainly speaking of the meta here is appropriate.

    It's what Morrison set out to do, to criticize posters who emphasize it is disingenuous.

  4. #19
    Extraordinary Member t hedge coke's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by edhopper View Post
    There is little self-references in comics, yes they are meta, but they are an aside to the main story.

    In this book, especially this issue, Meta commentary seemed to be the main focus, much more than any story resolution (which was none).

    So mainly speaking of the meta here is appropriate.

    It's what Morrison set out to do, to criticize posters who emphasize it is disingenuous.
    I'm not saying it's not there. I'm saying it's not "the most important thing" the only thing.

    The egg is, foremost, an egg monster.

    That said, I do sound like a dick up above, and I'm sorry about that. It wasn't my intention.
    Patsy Walker on TV! Patsy Walker in new comics! Patsy Walker in your brain! And Jessica Jones is the new Nancy! (Oh, and read the Comics Cube.)

  5. #20
    Invincible Member Kirby101's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by t hedge coke View Post
    I'm not saying it's not there. I'm saying it's not "the most important thing" the only thing.

    The egg is, foremost, an egg monster.

    That said, I do sound like a dick up above, and I'm sorry about that. It wasn't my intention.
    I really liked most of the books in this series. The characters and stories were compelling. But this final issue was a let down in those areas. The meta is the main thing that is interesting with this one for me.

    And when a major story point is the power of an actual comic, you can't say the meta isn't among the most important things.

  6. #21
    Wimp Lo Liquid's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by t hedge coke View Post
    I'm not saying it's not there. I'm saying it's not "the most important thing" the only thing.

    The egg is, foremost, an egg monster.

    That said, I do sound like a dick up above, and I'm sorry about that. It wasn't my intention.
    I still like the theory that Lord Broken was supposed to represent Marvel.

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Liquid View Post
    I still like the theory that Lord Broken was supposed to represent Marvel.
    I do too, though I subscribe that his most important representation is Morrison's own Arkham Asylum. These are the tropes overused the most by Morrison himself. Countless others, too, yes, but it's Morrison's exorcism here. If Neh-Buh-Loh the Empty Hand is an avatar made out of wicked Earth-33 psychic projections into the DCU, than it's Morrison's inner dark side that is producing the most direct psychic generation, since he has a direct hand in ordering the thing itself. And so the Gentry represent all Earth-33 influence on the DCU, but the bad ideas of the writer of this particular story most of all.

    Intellectrons, Dames Merciless, Hellmachines, these are hyperfauna created by back-and-forth interaction between Universe-33 and the Multiverse. They breed in the space between our eyeballs and the pages.
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  8. #23
    Astonishing Member Johnny Thunders!'s Avatar
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    I rarely understand Morrison comics the first or third time around, but I figured the empty hand was meant to represent consumers, always wanting another comic to complain about. It seems mean spirited for Morrison though.

  9. #24
    OUTRAGEOUS!! Thor-Ul's Avatar
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    That depends on for who you open the door.
    "Never assign to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity or ignorance."

    "Great stories will always return to their original forms"

    "Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable." James Baldwin

  10. #25
    It sucks to be right BohemiaDrinker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anjohl View Post
    What the hell was that?! I feel COMPLETELY ripped off


    (not a shot at you, by the way. I just got reminded of this and laughed)

  11. #26
    Fantastic Member Anjohl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BohemiaDrinker View Post


    (not a shot at you, by the way. I just got reminded of this and laughed)
    Lol, well played.

  12. #27
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    First, let me say that I enjoy Morrison's work. But anyone with his body of comic writing can let out a stinker, now and then.

    This, at least to me, was not a stinker. Even w/o the bookends I read the individual issues many time over, especially S.0.S. and Mastermind. But Multiversity 2 was a bit weak. It does just look like another jab at the comic book industry. Although the thing behind Intellectron, etc, still escapes me. Sure, it's easy to imagine that it was top editorial, leaving Intellectron to be the critics. But I'll leave it there.

    It didn't help that this was to be on the tail of Final Crisis. Which was supposed to start right after Blackest Night. But sticking Brightest Day and Flashpoint may have made Multiversity just hanging there. Look at an old Grant interview here on CBR and you will see what I mean. Or one about Final Crisis, which should have come no later than after 52. You can find interview after interview regarding things such as Final Crisis was supposed to explain the reason for Crises and Summer Crossover. Editorial putting Starlin's Death of the New Gods (which I did like) screwed with a major oint in FC that Orion was supposed to be the LAST New God to die.

    Sorry I strayed off topic. But whatever the framework was for Multiversity would probably be different.

    And I agree that $800 was not much for saving "reality". Of course Nix could have just been a comic reader who flipped and this was an hallucination. And the "hand is empty" just represented his landlady wanting the rent as no Earth-0 time passed, the story went right back to page one of Multiversity 1.

    bill

  13. #28
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    This review feels petulant. First acknowledge the meta-textual context of the unending crisis of comic books but then criticise it for having a loose and baggy ending. It makes the reviewer look stupid when obviously he knows what is going on. Is this a meta-textual review?
    “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.” ― Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

  14. #29
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Johnny Thunders! View Post
    I rarely understand Morrison comics the first or third time around, but I figured the empty hand was meant to represent consumers, always wanting another comic to complain about. It seems mean spirited for Morrison though.
    I don't see it as mean. It's kind of an inside joke that is obviously daft from the outside. Like when a company employee finds himself complaining about customers publicly. To the heroes in the story they see the world that seems to create their continual crisis as the uber bad guys, but we know their entire existence relies on us.

    Bookending this series with bad guys that represent forums like this is quite fun I think.

    Of course the unseen bad guy who would probably have been in Morrison's head as he typed, is Alan Moore complaining that this whole story is just a blatant rip off of 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?'.
    Last edited by JKtheMac; 05-09-2015 at 02:48 AM.
    “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.” ― Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

  15. #30
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by K. Jones View Post
    Intellectrons, Dames Merciless, Hellmachines, these are hyperfauna created by back-and-forth interaction between Universe-33 and the Multiverse. They breed in the space between our eyeballs and the pages.
    I'm not sure these images are born out of quite such localised ideas. They seem to me, to represent the wider world. The mill that comics have to go through on their passage from idea to printed page and beyond into the world of criticism.

    The idea that by being over intellectual right now I am summoning and channeling Intellectrons which may get inside my head, have life breathed into them and change the way I think is a challenging criticism of the wider comic book world. A sharp and pointed commentary on all of us right here as part of a wider ranging critique of comic book culture.
    “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.” ― Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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