Sunday, August 31, 2014

Marvel at 75 and Grant Morrison’s The Multiversity: the month in comics

Graeme Virtue on the latest venture from the Scottish genius, involving a black Superman and the return of Captain Carrot!


The Multiversity
The Multiversity. Photograph: DC Comics
Alternate universes have existed in comics for as long as domino masks and BDSM subtexts. You might expect that Grant Morrison – the cult creator of The Invisibles and a dead ringer for Lex Luthor – would want to mount the biggest and most mindbending alternate universe story ever: the punky Scottish comics warlock has never met a fourth wall he couldn’t break. Perhaps more surprising is that Morrison has been given the keys to the kingdom of DC Comics with a mandate to birth a gigantic Russian doll of nested worlds, reviving dusty old characters and inventing radical new ones along the way.

The first issue of The Multiversity, an ambitious nine-issue mini-series Morrison has been talking up since 2009, deliberately sidesteps the familiar faces of the Justice League to spotlight Calvin Ellis, the black president Superman of Earth-23, and Captain Carrot, a volatile bunny in a cape, as they battle encroaching baddies The Gentry across 52 universes. These realms include one where all DC’s iconic superheroes are supercute Japanese chibi characters, and one where Santa Claus is real (or at least as real as Green Lantern, the space cop with a magic wishing ring). 
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