Charlton Meets The Multiverse!

I picked up Multiversity- Pax Americana for the very simple reason that I love the old Charlton Action-Heroes and this is as close as we're ever going to get to seeing new adventures featuring those awesome characters.

These characters, created largely under the aegis of editor Dick Giordano were a brief but brilliant attempt to mine the superhero market which blossomed briefly during the Silver Age. Captain Atom and Blue Beetle were dusted off and revamped with new heroes such as Peacemaker, Nightshade, The Question and Judomaster brought along to fill in the ranks.

These characters of course these days are mostly remembered as the inspirations for Alan Moore's iconic Watchmen series and many dismiss them beyond that point. Alas, in this story Grant Morrison, a storyteller with stones, tries to revisit these heroes but clearly through the goggles of the Watchmen variations.

We are invited into a complex story, told by Morrison and artist Frank Quitely, which travels back and forth through time and space with all sorts of visual hijinks, all serving to create some larger mystery and make some larger point. The heroes are not as developed as individuals but merely used as elements of the one-shot story which explores the nature of heroes and justice and how the society can best make use of them.

We get good looks at Captain Atom, a man removed from his fellows by the dint of awesome power and who seems lost inside himself and the universe he sees differently from everyone else. The lovely Nightshade is a very young government agent who seeks to find the right way, but seems out of her depth most of the time. Peacemaker is a man on a mission which makes little sense for most of the story. The Question as always seeks answers regardless, while the Blue Beetle is a loyal government man.

We get glimpses of Sarge Steel and while Rip Jagger the Judomaster doesn't make the cut, his sidekick Tiger is around for a few pages as a member of a superhero unit which has a lot of vintage fun picking out a sobriquet.

The story even has a reference to Charlton's first superhero, the Golden Age Yellowjacket.

(Frank Quitely)

This is a complicated yarn, a mystery which has an answer, but which demands mighty attention from the reader and frankly more than one pass through the material. 

At five bucks for a copy, I guess I should thank Morrison and Quitely for giving me a comic which demands to be read more than once, since the density makes the entertainment value rise.

This is a book any Charlton Action-Hero fan should read, if only to see some vintage imagery and old rather obscure Charlton references hanging around in various panels. It has been collected up a few times. 

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The Multiversity!

I pretty much stopped buying new mainstream comic books in 2007 after forty years of dutiful allegiance to some combination of Marvel and DC with a few Indy breaks thrown in. The dollar to entertainment ratio in the mainstream Marvel and DC books was becoming unsustainable and frankly the incessant rebooting allowed me to comfortably sever my longstanding following of venerable storylines and characters. But just as I was adamant that I wouldn't slavishly follow any comic book company again, so was I adamant that such a decision would not blind me to something which seemed especially tasty when it hit the stands. And that was certainly the case with The Multiversity. 

I was already a tremendous fan of Grant Morrison from his stellar run on JLA, so anything he hit the road with got my attention if not my money. The Multiversity with its wild abandon and ferocious support of alternate universes was just my cup of tea. Also it featured my beloved Charlton "Action Heroes" all duded up in their Watchmen-like finest in one of the issues. I bought that one when the series was rolling out and made up my mind then and there that I'd get the collected edition. I did and read immediately, though I think this is the first time I've discussed it here.  The first installment of the framework two-parter is a lusty introduction filled to the top with Morrison invention as well as some almost familiar faces. That rough and tumble Captain Carrot is a hoot and a half. 

In between the two frame stories there are several one-shots which nonetheless tie into the main plot. The device is a metatextual one in that it is by means of comic books themselves that the myriad universes within the vast multiverse communicate. Just as Barry Allen was inspired by the comic book adventures of Jay Garrick in the role of the Flash, so in this storyline comics serve as a means of coummnication as well as other things.  In Society of Super-Heroes we get a tasty pulp version of a superteam with members Doc Fate, The Atom, Immortal Man, Abin Sur the Green Lantern and Lady Blackhawk and her all female flight wing. They fight the predations of Vandal Savage who invades from another universe. All of this handsomely drawn by Chris Sprouse. 

The struggle then shifts to another universe in which heroism has fallen on hard times thanks to the valiant efforts of the previous generation which made the world safe. With the work of the superhero made obsolete on "Earth-Me",  the sons and daughters of the super types are given great power but no responsibility and live wasted lives filled with  self-aggrandizement in the form of feckless fashion, pointless parties, and endless gossip. The world of The Just as they dub themselves is much too much like our own world for my tastes. 

Pax Americana is what brought me to this wonderful project and it is the best of the lot. On this universe the Charlton heroes such as Blue Beetle and Nightshade fight for the benefit of the world and the United States. The President of the United States carries a powerful secret concerning the number "8" and when his bodyguard The Peacemaker shoots him down, we must learn what that secret is. Captain Atom is the only hero with powers and these make him aloof from mankind, able as he is to see the future as well as the past and present. Frank Quitely artwork in this story is simply magnificent.

Almost as good looking is Cameron's Stewart's artwork on Thunderworld Adventures which features Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family as they battle the latest scheme from the deadly Dr.Sivana. And if you think one Sivana was bad wait until you behold a veritable legion of Sivanas from across the multiverse drawn together for the ultimate evil plot. 

The Multiversity Guidebook is the most peculiar of the entries, being at once an adventure story featuring a science fiction of Batman come to a world in which little kid versions of the DC heroes prevail. We also meet Kamandi and his gang as they seek the answers in their own universe. In the middle of this book though is a map of the sprawling Multiverse as well as a guidebook to each of its "52" individual components. It's a whopping fun read this one is. 

Much more grim is Mastermen, the story of a universe in which the Nazis come into possession of the power of Superman thanks to a little rocket ship from Krypton. We see Hitler at his most primitive and we behold a world shaped according to his mad desires which lives for generations though Uncle Sam and his Freedom Fighters do eventually rise up to challenge their overlords. The artwork by Jim Lee is very well suited to this adrenaline-laced misadventure. 

Ultra Comics is the weirdest of the weird in that the comic book is also the hero. We've seen this comic appear in other universes and is presumed to be haunted. It's at once the means by which we encounter the adventure between its cover and the hero who proceeds with that adventure. It's as if Morrison as writing a sentient comic book in real time. It's weird but as drawn by Greg Mahnke quite handsomely done. 

The amazing saga wraps up in The Multiversity #2 which brings the story to a close of sorts as the enemy The Gentry are confronted as is their master. Heroes from across the broad Multiverse are drawn together to battle the menace and by the end we meet a new super team called "Justice Incarnate". It's a fund and rather exciting ending if one typically dense with Morrison's blend of text and meta-text. I heartily recommend The Multiversity -- you've never read anything quite like it before. I promise. 

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Getting A Mutliversity Degree!

It's no secret to anyone who visits here with any regularity that I do not as a rule buy new comics. I get lots of new collections of old comics, but new stuff by modern creators -- not so much. One talent I will sometimes make an exception for is Grant Morrison. I've read plenty of Grant Morrison stories I didn't really fully understand (and sometimes understand at all) but I've never read one that didn't hold my interest. He's a great comic book writer who understands the medium as well or better than anyone who ever tapped into it.

So The Multiversity was a project long in the planning and execution but one which I really was attracted to for a host of reasons. One was Morrison who I trust. A second was the significant role the heroes of Earth-4, the heroes of the Charlton universe, played in the story. But when it came to picking up the series, I only ever picked up the Charlton installment and let the rest lay, waiting for the eventual collection. It has arrived and I've read it and as usual it was full of compelling imagery  and fascinating ideas and I almost understood it. Standard for a Morrison story. 

It begins with a cosmic threat which serves to bring together heroes from across a sprawling Multiverse. They are confronted by an invasion of "The Gentry", weird conceptual aliens from beyond the known realities and heroes like Superman (the President of his world), Captain Carrot, The Thunderer, Aquawoman, Dino-Cop and countless others gather under the auspices of the Monitor (sort of).

The next installment called Society of Super-Heroes (S.O.S.) is radically different and showcases pulp-like versions of heroes like Doc Fate, the Atom, Green Lantern (Abin Sur), and Lady Blackhawk to confront the evil Vandal Savage who comes from another universe. We see a five-year war which has taken the stuffing out of a society weary of it, but we meet heroes who strive on anyway.

In the next tome we meet heroes who are not up to the task. In The Just we meet second generation heroes who appear to live listless lives since their fathers and mothers have appeared to have solved all the major problems in the world. This one answers the burning question of what would the world be like if the Kardashians had superpowers. Sadly in many painful ways this story seemed the most realistic to me.

In Pax Americana (the one installment I picked up off the stands) we meet the Charlton heroes as they deal with a Watchmen-like threat, and we are pulled into a time-traveling adventure which explains why the assassination of an American President might not always be such a bad thing. Weird, but compelling stuff and beautifully rendered by Frank Quitely.

Thunderworld is the next one and we find Earth-5 heroes Captain Marvel and his associates battling an gang of deadly Sivanas as the evil scientist has found a way to add a deadly day to the week, a day when Sivana wins. This one is fun, fun, fun.

The Multiversity Guidebook is two or three things at once. There's a story of two Batmen (one Little Batman and the other from a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world) who must struggle to understand the nature of the threat to the entire Multiverse. We also meet Kamandi and his comrades as they too uncover valuable secrets. This also offers up a user guide to the fifty-two worlds with descriptions and maps and whatnot. Offbeat and useful to boot.

Mastermen is a dark dark tale of Earth-10 in which Superman arrives in Nazi-controlled territory and becomes the Uberman Hitler dreamed of. We follow the story of a world in which the Nazis won and rule and which is being threatened by Uncle Sam and his cadre of Freedom Fighters. Rockem' Sockem' action in this one.

Ultra Comics is the one I expected not to like, but I found I loved it. It's a comic book which is self-aware and serves at once as a plot device and an entertainment as well as a warning. We follow Ultra as he discovers much about himself/itself and meets other "Ultras" from the sprawling panoply of the DCU. This one also points up one of the cleverer deceits of the series, that comic books are a means of communication across universes, not at all unlike that which was revealed to many a Silver Age fan in Flash #123 with the discovery of Earth-2. I couldn't take my eyes off this one.

And finally in The Multiversity #2 we meet "Justice Incarnate", a team of cross-universal heroes who bond together to battle the threat of the Gentry and perhaps beyond. After the free-wheeling and oddball nature of the in-between chapters the two bookends seem somewhat quaint, but still good comic book reading.

And that's what I find with this series, a good comic book read which will stand up to repeated visits over the years. The Multiversity is going on the shelf and soon will be slipped off for another encounter.

Highly recommended.

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