The Good
While these Multiversity titles are over-sized (with a pricepoint to match), it’s still one helluva thing to have to build an entire world and populate it with characters in the span of only one single issue. It’s a testament to the talent of Grant Morrison that he’s capable of doing just that: throwing the reader into a world, but acclimating them to the comings and goings of it almost immediately. He does this two ways, the best of which is introducing us to a situation right upfront that completely sets up this world and the characters’ relationship to it, letting us know who they are and how they interact. What we get for the rest of the issue is rising tension and the uncovering of a grand, apocalyptic mystery all while the characters continue to interact and develop organically. From well-known players like Damian Wayne and Kon-El to new arrivals like Alexis Luthor and the characters step on-panel and define their character within the page with incredible economy. This is a world where the heroes have become discontent and irritable with a dearth of challenges as Superman’s Super Robots have the world’s protection on lock. They’re treated as next-level celebrities, throwing lavish parties and artistic galas, as well as snipping and sniping about who’s invited to what and who’s dating whom. That last one, especially, comes into play throughout the story, and even more by issue’s end. And, of course, there’s the matter of the inter-dimensional comic book that seems to kill anyone who reads it. Can’t forget to mention that.
Ben Oliver handles both linework and colors, with an assist from Dan Brown, and they were the absolute right choices for this issue in this series. Oliver’s visuals are a heady mix of surreal and ultra-real, two things that Morrison blends in varying degrees, and they ground the book in a way that makes it far, far more compelling than if it were being intentionally bizarre. This is a world of forced mundanity with strange forces on its very, very edges that are creeping in so subtly that they may not even be noticed until it’s too late. The colors are muddy yet somehow still incredibly striking, blending and merging but never becoming homogenous or indistinct. Again, this serves to communicate with every panel that there is something very, very wrong with this world and it’s about to become worse.
The Bad
By design a story like this can’t just define itself through situational context cues without being considerably longer and unfortunately this necessitates a LOT of expository dialog. Characters inform other characters of information they already know, clearly for the readers’ benefit, but they never acknowledge it’s for their benefit, which a title like this could have easily gotten away with. The issue also ends JUST as it’s about to reach the climax, another problem with the format, but like the previous MULTIVERSITY titles, I’d love to see an issue #2 of this one.
The Verdict
Grant Morrison has, apparently, had the idea for MULTIVERSITY floating around the aether of his brain for quite some time, and it seems like it’s been worth the wait. The concepts introduced here are so profoundly interesting on their face that the only truly disappointing thing is with the issue’s length and one-shot format. The visuals are perfect at communicating exactly what this book is all about, both on the surface and under and it’s still a story worth reading and a world worth exploring, even if nothing else is done with it, it sounds corny, the ideas and imaginings it conjures are worth the ride on their own.