The Multiversity #2

[superfangirl1]

Comments

[lordultimus]

"Empty Hand, I choose you!"

[chrisdv]

Okay, who decided to let Johnny Quick join in with the Flash Mob?

[glprime]

1) Beggars can't be Choosers 2) how dare you sneak in such a glorious and brilliant pun

[captainbellman]

On the originally solicited cover, instead of Atomic Knights Batman and Lord Havok's World Iron Man we were going to get grownup Damian Wayne and Nazi Flash. I'm assuming someone reeled in that idea, maybe Morrison himself decided it'd be too much...

[violetclm.livejournal.com]

The one in white looks like the Flash from Just Imagine.

[captainbellman]

Fun fact: in Morrison's "Multiversal Map", the Stan Lee's Just Imagine world is exactly opposite to the Kamandi world full of Jack Kirby's creations.

[captainbellman]

Note that Mr. Purple Wendigo Empty-Hand Multiverse Eater has the same symbol on his forehead as Ultra Comics had on his chest, and, er, cover.

Don't know if that means anything.

[silverhammerman]

Ooh, good catch. I'll leave parsing it out to David Uzimeri in his annotations at Comics Alliance, but there's probably something there. Ultra is after all the only hero (that I can think of) who got an issue but didn't appear in this wrap up, and he's from Earth-33, "our" world, just as the Empty Hand guy is said to be in the final few pages.

[captainbellman]

Not only that, but also this issue opened up with a reverse of the sequence that Ultra Comics #1 closed on, suggesting some kind of reversal symbolism. Who knows, perhaps this guy is Earth-33's first functioning super villain the way Ultra was our first functioning superhero.

(I mean, according to Morrison, obviously)

[thanekos]

Alternatively..

[captainbellman]

Welllll, Mike Allred was cheeky enough to draw Grant on his variant cover alongside Ultra,
and holding a lightning bolt...plus purple is his colour...

What does that say, though, if the one spreading the bad ideas and destructive tendencies through comics is the writer himself?

[bardbrain]

It says "Be careful what you let into your head."

[bardbrain]

There's a more interesting reveal here.

The Gentry's master apparently is the hand at the dawn of time.

And that hand apparently was never creating the universe. It was just destroying the universe that came before the current one.

That's kind of a nice twist. The universe/multiverse just keeps rebuilding itself like a viral infection and the hand at the dawn of time isn't creating the universe but is trying to destroy it. That actually makes all kinds of sense in retrospect.

There is no benevolent creator. The universe made itself. And the closest thing we have to God feeds on destroying the universe over and over again. That seems truly comicbook-y.

[q99]

"Speedsters always make the ultimate sacrifice."

Isn't it really just the one time...? Most speedster deaths I know are normal deaths.

[mrstatham]

Yeah. I also don't like how Grant doesn't seem to think we're smart enough to catch a reference to one of the most memorable deaths in superhero comics, and has to spell it out that he's referring to COIE.

[laughing_tree]

Red Racer's a comic book fan, and in his world DC Comics are published as fictional stories, just as they are in our world.

[deh_tommy]

Well, Barry also acidentally created the Flashpoint paradox, and then rebooted the whole universe to fix everything.

[chrisdv]

Death is the ultimate sacrifice.

[q99]

When you do so on purpose to accomplish something, yea. But purposefully giving their lives to save the day... really isn't all that common among speedsters.

[aperturedreams]

Nah, Barry in Crisis On Infinite Earths, Wally in Infinite Crisis (sorta), and Barry did create the Flashpoint Paradox in, well, Flashpoint. Also Bart just flat out got killed by the rogues if that counts. Johnny Quick...Max Mercury...they all died too.

[q99]

Barry died, the ultimate sacrifice. Wally disappeared for a bit in IC. Barry simply caused trouble in Flashpoint. Bart died, but it wasn't done as a purposeful sacrifice, it happened because he was temporarily depowered. Johnny... ok, that was a heroic sacrifice, becoming one with the speed force. On the flip side, Max was possessed by a villain, and never died, and even got brought back.


Five names, six events, two people actually purposefully sacrificing themselves.

Considering they're superheroes, I don't think that's an unusually high number of sacrifices.

[big_daddy_d]

So is that some..evil Shadow Superman? O.O