THE MULTIVERSITY #1

Cover
We see President Superman, Calvin Ellis of Earth-23, where there's an all-black Justice League,
first seen in Final Crisis #7 (2009). We see Captain Carrot of Earth-C (which I imagine will get an
official number before this is over), first seen in an insert in New Teen Titans #16 (1982). We also
see a Mary Marvel, earth origin unknown, and a red-skinned Green Lantern with horns (Abin Sur of
Earth-20).
Page 1
The camera opens on a city with people running around like bugs, zooming in closer and closer to a
woman knocking on a door, closer still to lice in her hair. The omniscient narrator intones about life
taking root wherever it can. Morrison often announces his themes with the opening panels, Iike with
Anthro in Final Crisis #1, and I don't believe this to be an exception.
Page 2
A young black male is typing in commentary on the Cosmic Cosmos Forum about a new comic
book from DC titled Ultra Comics, which is rumored to be haunted. I don't know if it's significant,
but there was a comic book published by Fawcett that ran 14 issues from 1951-53 titled This
Magazine Is Haunted.
The man is addressing a stuffed monkey as Mr. Stubbs. Mr. Stubbs was a circus chimpanzee in the
1880 children's book Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus, which was adapted into the Disney
movie Toby Tyler in 1960.
The young man is listening to music (presumably) on earphones; music will play a big role in this
series, so that might be important.
Page 3
The captions in Ultra Comics appear to be warning not just the young black man but also us readers
to not read any further. Morrison has often broken the fourth wall, and appears to be doing so here.
Mr. Stubbs comes alive (in a pirate outfit) and urges the young black man to change into his alter
ego, Nix Uotan, the last of the Monitors, as seen in Morrison's Final Crisis.
Page 4
Nix Uotan refers to his super alter ego as Superjudge. That's a new reference, unless you count the
obscure album by the obscure band Monster Magnet.
Page 5
The comic book has evidently summoned Nix Uotan to Earth-7, which he travels to in a ship named
Ultima Thule. "Ultima Thule" was used in ancient times as a generic reference to someplace far
away, generally impossible to get to. By Medieval times "Ultima Thule" was used to denote far
Northern lands about which little was known, and at various times was a reference for various far-
Northern areas, such as Scandinavia, the Shetlands, even an island in the Baltic Sea. The Thule
Society, formed in 1918 in Germany, believed that Thule/Hyperborea was a perfect place in
antiquity, possibly Atlantis, far in advance of us technologically, and the birthplace of the Aryan
race. (As you can imagine, these Aryan-lovers were tight with the Nazis.) In modern times, Thule is
a place in Greenland. Whether Morrison is referencing any of this, or even Conan's Hyperborea, or
Aquaman's Atlantis, or Lori Lemaris' Atlantis, or even Arion's Atlantis, isn't clear.
Earth-7 is adjacent to the House of Heroes on the map, immediately to the left.
When Superjudge and Mr. Stubbs arrive on Earth-7, it is in ruins. Dead super-people litter the ruins,
although I can't distinguish any of them. The words "We Need Your Help" appear in the air.
Page 6
The words in the air are apparently a message from an ethereal, vaporized Invisible Woman analog.
A fiery face appears to be a transformed Human Torch analog. A stretched-out Mr. Fantastic analog
dominates the foreground, while some of the ruins are sentient and moving, apparently all that's left
of this planet's version of The Thing.
Page 7
Superjudge describes Earth-7 as "so badly out of tune, the laws of physics have been disabled."
Another reference to music.
We also meet The Thunderer, the Thor analog of this world, likely based on Australian Aborigine
myths or folklore, given his dialect. At his feet are various dead super-people that are avatars of
both Marvel and DC characters, including Captain America, Superman, Vision, Blue Devil and
Wonder Woman. (There are more, but I can't distinguish them, although one of them is possibly
Cyclops.)
Page 9
The chief bad guy appears, announcing he and his kind as The Gentry, who want to remove all
hope. Weirdly, he reminds me of the sidekick in Berni Wrightson's Captain Sternn. It's essentially
an eyeball with bat wings. That's actually a fairly common image, but I don't know where it comes
from.
We see The Thunderer from behind this time, so the figures in the background are clearer. Still can't
tell if that's supposed to be a faux-Cyclops or not.
Page 14
Thunderer mentions "the Rainbow or Worlds," possibly a reference to the Multiversity Map. (He
also loses his "Thor" powers -- and his front teeth -- as he reverts to Don Blake an ordinary
Aborigine.
Page 15
Thunderer says "the Pitiless Ones" are from "behind the invisible rainbow" and are "opposite of
everything natural." One must assume again that he is referring to the Multiversity Map, and that
The Gentry are from beyond its borders.
Nix Uotan references "The Orrery" and the "House of Heroes" from the Map.
Page 16
We meet the other Gentry: Dame Merciless, Hellmachine, Lord Broken, Demogorgunn and
Intellectron. These names are not familiar to me. The latter two are portmanteaus of
Demiurge/Gorgon and intellect/electron. There is a demogorgon in mythology, but it's not a
significant figure.
Page 17
The "anti-death equation" is described as something that won't let you die and/or extends the
moment of death indefinitely, as opposed to the anti-life equation -- central to Final Crisis -- which
removes free will.
Page 18-19
We visit Earth-23 and President Superman. On Earth-23 Brainiac is apparently Superman's
computer/major domo.
Page 20
The President's assistant is Courtney. I am unfamiliar with any significant Courtneys in DC history
that look like this twentysomething brunette. Courtney Whitmore is a blonde teenager.)
Page 21
We meet Earth-23's Justice League, whose headquarters resembles the pre-Crisis Justice League's
satellite. Members include Steel, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Zatanna, Black Lightning, Batman,
Green Lantern, Red Tornado, Vixen and a man in a leather jacket with a half-helmet of gold -- likely
Mr. Terrific, but possibly Dr. Fate or Guardian. All are black except possibly Batman, who is
probably black, but if he is, he's very light-skinned.
Superman has destroyed a robot of unknown origin and unknown materials that degrades upon
contact with real-world physics -- obviously, something from The Gentry's neck of the woods.
Wonder Woman suggest they look for its origins "in higher planes and rare geometries, or in the
harmony of spheres where endless worlds and voices sing in rhapsody sublime."
This might be a good time to mention that all of this talk of music, musical spheres and harmony
has resonance with the ancient theory of "the music of the spheres" as well as the original
separation of Earth-One and Earth-Two by vibrations.
For Music of the Spheres I can't do better than Wikipedia:
"Musica universalis (lit. universal music, or music of the spheres) or Harmony of the Spheres is
an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—
the Sun, Moon, and planets—as a form of musica (the Medieval Latinterm for music). This "music"
is not usually thought to be literally audible, but a harmonic
and/or mathematical and/or religious concept. The idea continued to appeal to thinkers about
music until the end of the Renaissance, influencing scholars of many kinds, including humanists.
The Music of the Spheres incorporates the metaphysical principle that mathematical relationships
express qualities or "tones" of energy which manifest in numbers, visual angles, shapes and sounds
– all connected within a pattern of proportion. Pythagoras first identified that the pitch of a musical
note is in proportion to the length of the string that produces it, and that intervals between
harmonious sound frequencies form simple numerical ratios.[1] In a theory known as the Harmony
of the Spheres, Pythagoras proposed that the Sun, Moon and planets all emit their own unique hum
(orbital resonance) based on their orbital revolution,[2] and that the quality of life on Earth reflects
the tenor of celestial sounds which are physically imperceptible to the human ear.[3] Subsequently,
Plato described astronomy and music as "twinned" studies of sensual recognition: astronomy for
the eyes, music for the ears, and both requiring knowledge of numerical proportions.[4]
Meanwhile, the original concept introduced in "Flash of Two Worlds" in Flash #123 (1961) was
that each universe vibrated at a slightly different rate, so the Flashes could travel from one world to
another by adapting their internal vibration to the universe they wanted to visit.
Morrison appears to be tying the vibrational concept to a literal Music of the Spheres.
Page 22
On Earth-23, Lex Luthor was trying to access the multiverse with a "Transmatter Symphonic Array"
-- which suddenly activates and whisks Superman to ...
Page 24-25
... the House of Heroes, "outside of normal time and space -- between universes" at the center of the
Multiverse (according to the Map). We learn this and a whole lot more exposition from Captain
Carrot, who has also been pulled to the House by a Transmatter "Hutch' as have a host of other
heroes, each pulled by a Transmatter machine of some kind, which materialized on their worlds
after Thunderer sent out an SOS. Captain Carrot describes the fluid in which the worlds exist as
"Bleedspace" that's rotating through the fifth dimension (where Mr. Mxyzptlk lives) around a fixed
point of the multiversal Orrery of Worlds."
Addendum: Captain Carrot thinks he has met Superman, but he's thinking of the Superman from
Earth-One, whom he met in Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew #1. CC says that all humans look
alike to him -- a racial slur on our planet, but here, the reverse: Captain Carrot literally cannot tell
the black Superman from the white one. They're all equal in his eyes.
He also refers to the House of Heroes as "a watchtower," which has JLA resonance.
It is also called Valla-Hal, Valhalla sideways.
Page 26-27
We meet more heroes snatched up by the SOS. We see (and will later be introduced to) Spore and
Dino-Cop (Spawn and Savage Dragon) from Earth-41, Red Racer and Power Torch (Flash and
Green Lantern) from Earth-36, Vixen and Bloodwynd (no Earth specified), a Hawkman of unknown
origin, Aquawoman of Earth-11 (probably the world of gender swaps we've seen before), Lady
Quark and Lord Volt (of Earth-6, first seen in Crisis on Infinite Earths #4, 1986, and subsequently
killed, so these may not be the same ones), plus chibi versions of Wonder Woman and Steel.
Incidentally, the Image planet Earth-41 is exactly on the opposite side of the Map as President
Superman's Earth-23, which is probably significant, as we'll see next issue.
Page 28-29
Superman's Brainiac belt buckle makes contacts with the computer which is ... Harbinger. Or
"Harbinger Systems," with a big floating Lyla "Harbinger" Mychaels head. Of course, she's been
dead for a long time, and even showed up as a Black Lantern in "Blackest Night." She refers to
herself as having been sleeping, but ... oh, who knows? Can't have a Crisis without a Harbinger, I
guess.
Harbinger says "Earth-4. Earth-5. Earth-10. Earth-16. Earth-20. Earth-33. The Multiverse needs
you!"
However, the team that goes to rescue Nix Uotan are not from those planets, so I don't know what
that means.
ADDENDUM: Since Earth-20 needs help in the next issue, maybe those are the six Earths we're
going to see imperiled in issues #2-7.
Page 30-31
The rescue party will consist of Superman of Earth-23, Thunderer of Earth-7, Red Racer of Earth-
36, Aquawoman of Earth-41 and Captain Carrot of Earth-C. (I wonder if Earth-C is Earth-26, the
one with the cartoon eyes on the Map? Seems likely.)
We learn that the Ultima Thule is made of "frozen music."
We learn that Red Racer, like Barry Allen, is a comic book fan.
We learn that the adventures of the various heroes appear in other universes as comic books, just
like Barry Allen reading about Jay Garrick back in "Flash of Two Worlds."
We learn that Red Racer's civilian name is Ray (Palmer?) and Power-Torch's is Hank (Hall?). Their
good-byes are very intimate, and one assumes they are gay. Their world's Superman was named
Optiman, and he's dead.
The Justice League on Earth-36 is called Justice 9.
Marvel Comics on Earth-36 are called Major Comics.
Page 32
Morrison drives home the Music of the Spheres bit.
Red Racer: "-- vibrations! Of course -- the worlds of the Multiverse vibrate together! Separated only
by their different pitches."
Thunderer (who has gotten his powers, and his front teeth, back): Fifty-two worlds occupying the
same space. All ringing. It's all one big song."
Superman discovers the Ultima Thule is a trans-dimensional yacht powered by sound vibrations. "A
musical engine for traveling between universes." He powers the ship by playing music, and selects
destination by alter the pitch.
Page 33
The crew sees a horrible monster in the Bleed between universes. Remember life taking root
wherever it can, filling in every niche? I think that's what is happening here -- and possibly with
The Gentry as well.
Page 34
We see Lord Havok (Dr. Doom) facing off against the Future Family (Fantastic Four) on Earth-8.
He has the Omni-Gauntlets (Nega-Bands? Infinity Gauntlet?), the Genesis Egg (no idea) and the
Lightning-Axe of Wundajin (hammer of Thor) which he claims will give him the Power Eternal
(Power Cosmic?).
It should be noted that a Thor analog named Wandjina first appeared in Justice League of America
#87 (1971) as part of the Champions of Angor, which included Bluejay (Yellowjacket), Silver
Sorceress (Scarlet Witch), Captain Speed (Quicksilver), Bowman (Hawkeye) and Tin Man (Iron
Man), all of whom are dead, at least they were.
Pages 35-39
We meet the Retaliators (Avengers) of Earth-8, which include Wundajin (Thor), Crusader (Captain
America), Machinehead (Iron Man), David "Behemoth" Dibble (Bruce David "Hulk" Banner), Bug
(Spider-Man) and characters that look suspiciously like Falcon, Captain Marvel, Black Widow and
Hawkeye.
The Behemoth isn't just childlike like the Hulk, he's actually a giant, blue, super-strong baby in a
diaper (like Baby Huey).
Red Racer is the one who knows the names of their foes, from reading Major Comics (Marvel
Comics) and seeing their movies. He also mentions the G-Men (X-Men) and Stuntmaster (probably
the Daredevil analog, given that the Stuntmaster was a DD villain, but he rode a motorcycle, so he
could be a Ghost Rider analog).
Captain Carrot is governed by cartoon (Tex Avery) physics, which appears to be a super-power of
sorts.
Pages 40-43
Lord Havok cracks open the Genesis Egg, apparently killing him (with the help of "Hawkeye") and
the Future Family. He dies saying "I saw their faces," which I'm guessing is a reference to The
Gentry.
Page 44
Nix Uotan is now calling himself "The Judge of Worlds" and has apparently been corrupted by The
Gentry.
Once again the captions speak directly to the reader. If nothing else we should assume that the
comic book we are reading is telling true events from elsewhere in the multiverse, and that it is,
perhaps, haunted.
Page 7
We see ghostly images of characters from previous alternate worlds like Fury (Hippolyta Trevor))
and Firebrand II from Earth-Two, Nightstar and Hawkman from Kingdom Come and Starfire
from Earth-One among others.
Page 25
Doctor Hoot was an actual foe in Captain Carrot And His Amazing Zoo Crew.
Page 28
Superman exclaims "Great Vathlo!" Vathlo was a Bronze Age addition to Krypton. It was the home
of a "highly-advanced black race". They meant well...
Page 35
The winged woman is wearing a costume similar to the Falcon's original green and orange outfit.
MULTIVERSITY #2
Cover
Doc Fate, Green Lantern (Abin Sur), Lena of the Blackhawks, the Mighty Atom of Earth-20 face
off against invading zombies from Earth-40, done in pulp fiction style. From his depiction here and
later, it's obvious Doc Fate is this world's Doc Savage analog.
Page 1
A narrator (soon revealed to be Immortal Man of this world) approaches the Tower of Fate -- which,
unlike on Earth-Two (and perhaps Earth-0), where it's a windowless stone tower in Salem, Mass.,
here it's a windowless black obelisk in New York City. It resembles, mildly, the black monoliths of
2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Immortal Man mentions a Professor Rival (I'm unaware of any actual reference there) once
dubbing him Anthro. If you'll recall, Anthro was the beginning and the end of Final Crisis, which
looms large in Morrisson's ouevre.
Pre-Flashpoint, Earth had both an Immortal Man -- an early comic-book character resurrected as
one of the justly named Forgotten Heroes -- and a Resurrection Man. In some iterations, they are
the same character. This Immortal Man may be the avatar of one of both. He is usually the arch-
enemy of another immortal, Vandal Savage. More on him in a minute.
Pages 2-4
We see Immortal Man, and he's dressed like a soldier of fortune of the 1930s, of the heroic mold
(Captain Easy, Indiana Jones, et al).
We meet the five women who comprise the Blackhawks, who are more analogous to the Spice Girls
than any Blackhawks I know.
Their leader Lena (Scary Spice) addresses Immortal Man as "Stranger." Phantom Stranger?
Immortal Man mentions "Al Wadi." That's a fairly common term -- and geographic feature -- in the
Arab world. Algebra, or whatever his name is in Demon Knights, mentions it as his homeland, so
maybe it's a place in DC geography.
Lena mentions "The Gulf," which could be any number of gulfs, from Mexico to Tonkin. Usually --
at least in this century -- it refers to the Persian Gulf. Given Al Wadi above, I wouldn't be surprised
if someone can find a specific mention in some DC comic book or other!
Immortal Man mentions the adventure "The Man-Eating Men of Ghoulistan," which is an unknown
reference (at least to me), but sounds very pulp-y, and is a play on Gulistan, which is both a number
of places in Iran and a famous collection of poems and short stories by the Iranian poet Sa'di.
Immortal Man gives the Eye of Giaour jewel to Lena. "Giaour" is an unflattering term for outsider
or infidel in Turkish, similar to gaijin in Japanese or kaffir in Arabic. It's also a famous poem about
Lord Byron, inspired by the Turkish custom of the time of drowning adulterous women in sacks. It
also, according to Wiki, has an element of vampirism attached to it. (Allah may curse Giaours to
become vampires who feed off the blood of their loved ones.)
That's two poetry references in a single page. Weird.
Immortal Man references "the orphanage" and "the Museum" as if they are places with which he
and the Blackhawks are familiar, and the context suggests philanthropy. Did any pulp heroes
support an orphanage or museum? That seems to be the vibe. Indiana Jones, of course, supplied
antiquities to a university and museums.
We meet Al Pratt, aka The Might Atom, age 18, very similar to the one we know. He wears a full-
face, blue mask with a hydrogen symbol on it. That is, of course, explainable as a symbol
representing his nom du combat. Of course, it's also the symbol sported by Dr. Manhattan of
Watchmen, and given Al's blue face mask, the connection is strong. Of course, the original Atom
wore a blue face mask, so it could be coincidence. (Atom is otherwise un-costumed, wearing a
sleeveless, V-neck sweater in the collegiate style of the time.)
Al says he is the only person who ever completed "the Iron Munroe bodypower course." This can
be a reference to the ubiquitous Charles Atlas ads that ran in comics forever. Also, Iron Munroe was
a super-strong comics character first appearing in Shadow #1 in 1940 (published by Street & Smith,
the pulp publisher of The Shadow and Doc Savage), who was loosely based on Aarn Monroe, a
super-strong pulp character of the '30s. After Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-86), Superman had
been erased in pre-Crisis DC history, so Iron Monroe was inserted in his place. This version of the
character was the illegitimate son of Hugo Danner, the superhuman protagonist of Philip Wylie's
Gladiator, who was an inspiration for both Doc Savage and Superman (with Savage also an
inspiration for Superman).
Interesting that both Doc Fate and The Mighty Atom have Superman connections. Which is this
world's Superman analog? And if one is Superman, who is the other? Or are all these characters,
being from the pulp genre, pre-Superman? I think I know, and I'm setting up the answer.
The Atom says he wants to hook up with other superheroes to see if he's got the right stuff.
Interesting that in this pulp setting, superhero -- a concept which followed the pulp heroes in our
world -- is a conventional term and familiar concept. You would think Atom would say "mystery
men," not "superheroes."
Immortal Man calls himself a "friend to the animal kingdom," which could be a connection to
Tarzan, Animal Man or even B'wana Beast. Given that Morrison wrote a famous run of Animal
Man, it can't be discounted as a throwaway remark. Or it could be there to cement his connection to
pulp heroes, especially the many jungle heroes, not just Tarzan but Thun'Da, Ka-Zar and all the rest.
It's entirely possible he is all of them, as well as Anthro, Immortal Man and Resurrection Man. He
is legend!
Immortal Man also mentions walking "from the center of the earth," which could be a reference to
any number of concepts, from Warlord to Pellucidar. Or, again, it could just be cementing his
connection to heroes of pulp science fiction, not just ERB's David Innes but also Jules Verne's Arne
Saknussemm.
Lena mentions "the Great War against Herr Hex and his Desert Crescent allies." In our world, the
Great War was World War I, where the Turks fought on the side of the Germans, so that may
explain it all. The mention of Hex -- as in Jonah Hex -- raises other possibilities as well. In
interviews, Morrison has mentioned that this world has just finished fighting something akin to
World War II, so perhaps on Earth-20 Earth WWI and WWII were combined.
Page 5
Dr. Fate says he prefers the nickname Doc, which was what his father called him, further cementing
his Doc Savage cred.
Fate mentions Ibn al Ghul and his suicide djinn. The former seems a reference to Ra's al Ghul, or
perhaps Bruce Wayne's son Ibn al Xu'ffasch in Kingdom Come. Or perhaps, on evil Earth-40, Bruce
Wayne becomes Ra's successor (as Ra's wants him to be on our "good" earth), and takes the name
Ibn al Xu'ffasch.
I don't know of any "suicide djinn" priors.
Ultra Comics is once again called cursed or haunted, this time by Fate.
Lena curses in Polish (swiety bog, more or less "good God"). Janos Prohaska, DC's Blackhawk, was
Polish.
Page 6
We meet Abin Sur (who appeared on the cover to issue #1), who was undoubtedly Earth-0's Green
Lantern, albeit unseen, during the pulp era and is so here, where he is likewise the Green Lantern of
Sector 2814. Unlike our Abin Sur, this one has horns, like The Demon or Blue Devil. If there is
some pulp reason he looks like the popular image of Satan, I don't know it. In story, it gives Abin
Sur a reason not to show up until he absolutely has to. And here he is.
Abin Sur's ring is from the Guardians, but it looks like Alan Scott's. Appropriate for the era, one
supposes.
Abin Sur says his ring "turns my thoughts into material things." Yes, that's how power rings work.
But it was also a theme in Morrison's Animal Man and Final Crisis, where the importance of stories
in constructing reality was a theme.
Al Pratt makes his second comic book reference. Like The Flash of Earth-One and Red Racer of
Earth-36, he is a comic book fan. Will every team have one, and if so, why? Or does this mean Al is
the Flash analog of Earth-20? (No.)
Page 8
Doc Fate's crystal ball shows a phantom airship that appears to be a gigantic Flying Wing. Flying
Wings were researched by the U.S., Germans and Soviets between the world wars and sparked the
popular imagination. It seems likely they appeared a lot in pulp fiction, as they still do in today's
period fiction (Captain America: The First Avenger, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, etc.).
However, I'm not pulp-era expert enough to know if this is a specific reference, or if any specific
character was closely associated with the Flying Wing. It does seem that bad guys of the era are
always either in Flying Wings or dirigibles.
Page 9
We see our superhero team assembled: Mighty Atom, Immortal Man, Doc Fate, Lady Blackhawk,
Green Lantern. Normally when five heroes assemble, they are analogs to the Big Five of the Justice
League: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern. It's hard to see that here,
even if you squint. Maybe Immortal Man is Batman and Atom is Flash, since he's a comic book
fan? (No.)
Doc Fate gives the team a name: Society of Superheroes, or S.O.S. The Gentry sent an SOS in issue
one to attract Nix Uotan. The Thunderer sent an SOS from the Hall of Heroes to assemble the team
to save the multiverse. Here's another SOS in a series, collect 'em all. (And now we know why Al
Pratt said "superheroes" and not "mystery men." Morrisson needed the "S"!)
Pages 10-11
We see the Flying Wing. It is from a parallel world that is completely opposite the one we've just
been introduced to. (And it's on the opposite side of the Multiversity Map as well.) We're told that
every 100,000 years two opposite universes become one, and this is such an occasion. That might
explain why the universes remain at a static 52 -- new ones come into being, but combine with
existing ones.
Weirdly, it also mirrors the storyline in Jonathan Hickman's current Avengers titles! Talk about
parallel worlds ...
It is Vandal Savage that is told this by Felix Faust, the latter wearing headgear similar to his early
Justice League of America appearances but otherwise dressed in period adventurer clothes
(johdpurs, canvas shirt). They are clearly the opposites of Immortal Man and Doc Fate, respectively.
Faust is getting his information from a copy of Ultra Comics. I hear it's haunted, you know.
Savage decides he is a pirate from a pirate universe. Mr. Stubbs wore a pirate uniform in the first
issue for no apparent reason.
Pages 12-13
Vandal Savage conquers America with commandos, killer robots and zombies. Killer robots show
up everywhere, I know, but were the other two familiar tropes in the pulp era? There was also a
killer robot fighting Superman on Earth-23 last issue.
Page 15
The Atom makes another reference to the cursed comic book.
He also talks of his face, and yells "I saw it!" In context, it seems he is referring to "the fear thing"
that we will soon learn is Parallax, from Earth-40. But in the previous issue, a distressed character is
unmanned by seeing "their faces," presumably The Gentry. It can be read either way.
In the presence of Parallax, The Atom sees what he fears most, the death of Abin Sur. This isn't
made clear immediately.
Pages 16-17
As Doc Fate spins up his own Transmatter, The Atom hears the music of the spheres.
Doc Fate calls Parallax "The Makara," which is a Hindu sea god, half-man and half-fish. It is
associated with monsters but is also, oddly, associated with love and desire.
Fate knows of the Monitors, and says that Nabu (of the helmet, as on Earth-Two, New Earth and
then Earth-0) sometimes speaks with the voice of Novu, the proto-Monitor. This jibes with DC
history, where the original Monitor subdivided into a lot of little Monitors, the first of which was
Dax Novu. (The last of which, of course, is Nix Uotan.)
Fate says "When the Monitor race died, things from outside came to occupy the vacuum they left
behind." This takes all the way back to page one of issue one, where the omniscient narrator notes
that life fills any available niche. Other references in the first issue support the idea that The Gentry
are from outside "the rainbow of worlds" -- a decent description of the Multiversity Map -- and
have come here because the death of the Monitors left a niche for them to fill. It's also mirrored by
the monster we saw in Bleedspace, filling a void with life. But that's not always a positive. In fact,
in three cases we've seen -- lice, the Bleedspace monster, The Gentry -- the life that fills the void is
vermin or monstrous. Perhaps it's always vermin, and that's what The Gentry will turn out to be.
Fate says Nix Uotan is imprisoned fighting an eternal battle for all mankind. This has resonance in
Valhalla, where the heroes battle for eternity, and other mythological battles that last forever, but
also with Roy Thomas' solution as to what to do with the JSA after Crisis on Infinite Earths: He had
them fighting Valkyries forever.
We know the specifics of Nix Uotan's imprisonment: He's fighting The Gentry, and will lose and
come back infected by them to face the gang assembled in the Hall of Heroes. But if I'm reading the
solicitations right, that story won't conclude until the last issue of Multiversity, #8. Issues 1 and 8
are bookends, and the six issues in between are all one-shots occurring on different parallel worlds.
Fate makes a point about Al Pratt not dying in the temple of Niczhuotan (Nix Uotan). Because Al is
one of his "children." Fate says "You're a super-- " but is interrupted. Maybe he was going to say
"superhero." But I'm guessing he was going to say "Superman."
Here's my thinking: I'm guessing the rest of S.O.S. is the old guard, and on their way out, and that's
why they don't correlate to the Justice League. And we've seen Atom's Superman connections: The
mask that makes him the analog to Dr. Manhattan, who is the Superman analog (first superhero) in
Watchmen, and the Iron Monroe connection, and the Gladiator connection. I think Atom is meant to
be this world's first superhero, its Superman. And those that follow him will match up to the
familiar archetypes. In other words, we simply don't have a Batman, Flash or Wonder Woman on
Earth-20 ... yet. We have a Green Lantern, but he isn't the modern one, and his ring acts like Alan
Scott's. So we don't have the Justice League Green Lantern yet. But if this world was allowed to
develop normally, I'm thinking, Atom would be Superman, and the first of the new breed of
superhero. Meanwhile, Doc Savage/Fate and the other pulp heroes would fade away. However,
that's not going to happen, as we shall see.
Also we see Kent Nelson ... and he's black. Another reason for a full face mask? The second issue in
a row with an oblique reference to race. (Remember Captain Carrot can't tell humans apart -- they
all look alike to him. He knows them by the color of ... their costumes.)
Page 18
We meet Blockbuster, the "Megaton Monster," the "Brute with the Billion-Dollar Brain." He
appears to be an amalgam of Blockbuster, Solomon Grundy and Ultra-Humanite, the latter of which
started as a Superman foe. And he is the Atom's opposite number ... because he's Superman.
The Atom pulls on a spare mask. Does he need the mask for his strength to work? Unclear.
Page 19
Doc Fate calls on Buddhakh-Amun and Ra-Amida. I can't find any specific deities with those
names, but you can squint and see Buddha, Amon, Ra and Amidah: one Buddhist reference, two
Egyptian gods and a Jewish prayer. That's good enough for me. (If you say them fast you get
Buddokan and Ramada, so maybe Morrison had a memorable hotel stay in Japan.)
Page 21
We meet Lady Shiva, Lady Blackhawk's opposite number. You all know Lady Shiva, right?
Savage is holding a piece of the meteor that made him immortal, and he plans to use it to kill the
Immortal Man. I don't recall this bit of lore from any previous Savage story, but there are a lot of
magic rocks out there -- the Philosopher's Stone, the Starheart, Star Sapphires, etc. -- and this could
be an echo of any of them.
Savage wants to raise a god from hell to do his bidding. One of The Gentry? Etrigan? Trigon?
Page 26
Fate says, "Zombies! I expected something more original." A commentary on today's pop culture?
Faust makes Earth-40's connection to The Gentry concrete.
Page 27
The Atom uses the Atom Punch, which he said earlier went against his principles. The original
Atom had an Atomic Punch, but it wasn't really anything but a good right cross, while in later
iterations he had super-strength derived from radiation, and could focus that radiation into an
atomic punch, so the term meant something a bit more.
Page 28
Al agonizes over having killed a man. He mentions his principles again.
Page 29
Parallax, the opposite number for Abin Sur, finally gets a proper name.
Doc Fate straps Faust into an "electro-re-habilitation program." This mirrors Doc Savage's methods
of rehabilitating criminals.
Page 31
Reflected sunlight off The Eye of Giaour briefly blinds Shiva, allowing Lady Blackhawk a
temporary victory.
Page 32
Immortal Man gives us the poop on the meteor rocks. On Savage's world, the meteor that gave
Savage his immortality became the first murder weapon, while on Immortal Man's world it became
a holy relic. Another parallel.
Page 33
Like the Egyptian swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Shiva confronts the Blackhawk squadron
and learns what happens when you bring a sword to a gunfight.
Page 34
Doc Fate fears that he has transgressed his own principles as well.
Atom mentions another fear, that he'll be disfigured. That never happened to any Al Pratt that I
know, but in DC history it happened to his son, Damage.
Page 35-36
Abin Sur recites the Green Lantern oath and destroys Parallax, the pawn of "Count Sinestro," whom
he is holding.
Page 38-39
Immortal Man turns his holy relic into a spearpoint, and kills Vandal Savage.
Immortal Man reflects that the first thing he made was a weapon. If he is Anthro and Final Crisis is
history, then the first thing he made was fire, after Metron gave him the knowledge.
In DC history, Vandal Savage is Cain of biblical lore. Him smiting Immortal Man with a rock in the
head is an echo of the first murder.
But Savage is pleased with the results. "All of you -- I've turned you into -- killers." Well, some of
them might have been before -- the Blackhawks weren't throwing beans from their airplane's guns --
but even Green Lantern and Atom have killed. Which I suspect means that no heroic age will come
to this world: Their Superman has broken his principles, so no super-people will follow. That's my
guess, anyway.
Savage also says spilling immortal blood will summon Nix Uotan (now corrupted by The Gentry).
Page 40
Sure enough. Perhaps this is the demon Savage meant to bring to earth. And Immortal Man says
"SOS!"
THE MULTIVERSITY #3
Cover
 The cover is modeled after a celebrity magazine like Us
Weekly or People, titled The Just. (All of which reminds me of a magazine my sisters liked when
they were teenagers in the '60s: Teen Beat. Some things never change.) It features vignettes of
several superheroes who appear to be second-generation heroes, dealing with them in a superficial,
celebrity manner.
From the list on the side of the cover, we see this issue features Earth-16. A blurb at the top right
nicknames it "Earth-ME!" -- which is also the title of the story.
First vignette
Blurb: ALEXIS -- SMILING!
Picture: Alexis Luthor holding up a key (and smiling)
Quote: "He gave the the key to the Batcave!"
This is a reference to the daughter of Luthor dating the son of Batman (Damian Wayne), which
inside is a secret.
Second vignette
Blurb: SASHA -- REBOUNDING!
Picture: Sasha Norman (Sister Miracle, daughter of Shilo Norman, the second Mr. Miracle, who
had a big role in Morrison's Seven Soldiers.)
Quote: "I'm gonna party Jakeem Thunder right out of my life!"
This is a reference to Sasha breaking up with Thunder (also referenced inside), who was introduced
in 1999 JSA comics as Jakeem Williams, but took the name Jakeem Thunder when he discovered he
controlled the magical genie formerly called Thunderbolt with the magic words "so cool." The
genie changed his name to Johnny Thunderbolt, because it was combined with the spirit of Johnny
Thunder, the original master of the genie. Jakeem Thunder has yet to appear in the New 52 AFAIK.
Third vignette
Blurb: SUPERMAN/BATMAN
Picture: Batman II and Superman II (Chris Kent)
Blurb: Is the WORLD'S FINEST bromance over?
Obviously, that's a reference to how the first Superman and Batman were the "World's Finest"
crime-fighting team. This "World's Finest" is just a friendship. The two do have an ongoing
disagreement inside, and there is some friction over Alexis, but they are still friends.
Chris Kent was introduced in the 1990s as Lor-Zod, the son of General Zod, who was rescued from
the Phantom Zone and adopted by Clark Kent and Lois Lane (they were married at the time). He
aged in spurts due to having been in the Zone, and was a teenaged Nightwing (Kandorian variety)
before the Old 52 ended in Flashpoint. He doesn't exist in the New 52 AFAIK.
Fourth vignette
Blurb: KON-EL -- "DON'T CALL ME SUPERBOY!"
Picture: Kon-El (Connor Kent)
Blurb: "... but can he make it in the art world?"
This is a reference to inside, where Kon-El is an artist who has a show at an art gallery. In the '90s,
Kon-El was a clone of Superman and Lex Luthor who couldn't age -- and here he is, still 16. In
addition to traditional Superman powers, he has "tactile telekinesis," allowing him to control things
he touches.
Fifth vignette
Blurb: ARROWETTE -- SHOCKING
Picture: Arrowette (Cissie King-Hawke)
In the Old 52, Cissie King-Jones was the daughter of the first Arrowette (who first appeared in
1960), Bonnie King, and her husband, "Bowstring" Jones. (Bonnie King, it should be noted, is some
sort of play on Ollie Queen. Had they married, would their daughter have been Cissie King-Queen?
Bonnie, Cissie and Ollie all have the same grammatical construction.) Anyway, here Bonnie King
married Conner Hawke, the son of Oliver Queen who was Green Arrow in the '90s and still is on
this world. (Evidently Oliver Queen, who died in the '90s, is still dead here.)
In Young Justice, Arrowette II retired from superheroing, and couldn't be induced to return to
"service." On Earth-16, this Arrowette desperately wants to be a superhero/celebrity. She is 16, and
dresses provocatively.
Blurb: "I'm not Daddy's little girl anymore!"
Blurb: "See her sexy photo-shoot for MAXIMUS"
Maximus is obviously this world's Maxim magazine.
I like the title "The Just" for a super-team on this world. Just can mean justice, but it also means just
"just." As we'll see, these "heroes" are not their mothers and fathers, they're "just" a bunch of
shallow wannabes.
Pages one-two
Sasha Norman is talking on the phone to Megamorpho (Saffi Mason, the daughter of Sapphire
Stagg and Rex "Metamorpho" Mason). Sasha is planning a "super-party." Saffi is depressed and
feelilng hopeless (this is an effect of The Gentry). She suddenly commits suicide.
Page three
We meet Ray "The Atom" Palmer, who is eliminating a techno-virus from Sasha's bloodstream. He
is identified as Sasha's "friend," not "boyfriend," but he doesn't appear appreciably older. So this
must be the "teen Ray" we had for a while in the '90s, at roughly the same time Marvel had "teen
Tony."
Pages four-eight
We meet Damian "Batman" Wayne and Alexis Luthor, who are a couple. Batman is watching
Superman robots battle an invasion from another universe. ("Invasions from other universes" is sort
of a recurring theme.) Alexis is reading Ultra Comics. They are having a debate about whether
comics are art or not. Alexis is bald, like her father (an affectation? unknown) and Batman wears
the cowl, but no cape -- he wears a dark trenchcoat. They are completely unconcerned about the
invasion.
Alexis jokes that Batman is gay for Chris "Superman" Kent. Morrison once gave an interview
where he argues that Batman is gay -- not in a sexual sense, but more in a conceptual sense. Fetish
gear, sweaty fighting with other men, etc. This is probably a reference to that interview, for which
he caught a lot of grief.
Batman's position is that people don't care about anything any more, and they should. This bothers
me, because he essentially takes the opposite side of the argument with Superman later, which is
one reason I found it so hard to get into this issue (I started it three times before I managed to get
through it).
Alexis refers to comics as "picto-fic," which may or may not be a reference to EC Comics' "Picto-
Fiction" line, its last-gasp effort to stay in the comics business after the Comics Code.
Damian says "TT" when he disapproves of something, like he and Bruce did when Morrison was
writing them. How is that pronounced, anyway? Is it the equivalent of "tch tch"? Is it just a grunt?
Is it a sigh? Inquiring minds want to know!
Alexis is aware that there's a "curse" on Ultra Comics, but doesn't appear to take that seriously.
Alexis says parents always screw up, and therefore screw up their kids, and references the poem
"This Be the Verse," by Phillip Larkin, which says essentially the same thing. Given who their
parents were, it's significant that Alexis calls it the "Best. Poem. Ever." It is an important theme of
this issue. Also, this is the third poetry reference in as many issues.
Page nine
Alexis and Batman begin to have sex. Foreplay begins with Alexis calling him a "bat-faced freak,"
and Batman calling her "sick" and "twisted" ... "all the things Batman likes." A metatextual
commentary on Batman? He badgers her to admit she's a "psycho-autistic mess!" Yeah, talk dirty to
me, Batman.
Just as they are getting to business, Batman hears Superman arrive. He makes Alexis hide in the
closet, covering her with his trenchcoat.
Pages 10-13
Superman brings the news of Megamorpho's death, calling it a "super-mystery." Finally, action! But
Batman takes the Alexis "I don't care" position, that the Superman robots will take care of it, as they
do everything. We get a lot of exposition on the robots, which Superman's dad created (before being
killed by Lex Luthor) as "the most foolproof and sophisticated planetary defense system ever
created" that "can't be turned off or tampered with." That not only explains why all the super-people
are bored on this earth and have nothing to fight, but is also foreshadowing, as we shall see.
Batman and Superman wander through Batman's apartment, which has souvenirs -- actually, mostly
costumes from the 1990s.
Superman mentions a team-up he once had with Sandman. ""What Sandman?" Batman says. "THE
Sandman? Neil Gaiman's Sandman?" It is that Sandman, which I'm guessing appeared as a comic
book on this earth, since he was off in Vertigo in the '90s. Plus, it's funny. Anyway, the team-up was
Superman battling all kinds of things in the dreamworld, which Batman dismisses. "And that was
your team-up? ... You fell asleep and had a dream?"
"You have to ruin everything," says Superman. "I don't know what's wrong with you." Again, this
was essentially Batman's position with Alexis earlier, where he argued that she "just likes offending
people" and that "real life is much more interesting" than comics. Now he's suddenly the nay-sayer.
Is this some point I'm missing? It actually just feels like a lot of exposition stuffed in the mouths of
convenient characters, like most of this story.
Then Superman says "why are you trying to distract me, anyway?"
Page 14
He knows the answer. He's mentioned already that he super-hears someone breathing, and now says
he's aware of a female figure under a lead-lined trenchcoat in the closet. (That explains the
trenchcoat!) He says he knows it's Alexis Luthor. He tells Batman he won't go to the big party if
Alexis is going to be there, because her father killed his father.
Batman agrees to help investigate Megamorpho's murder, but "jokes" that she probably committed
suicide out of boredom. Again, he is taking the negative side, whereas Superman says "You need to
take this superhero thing way more seriously than you do." Batman says they should investigate
separately and meet up later to compare notes. Perhaps this is a legitimate plan, or perhaps it's just
to get Superman to leave so he can get his girlfriend out of the closet. As events will show, she may
also be coming out of the closet as a supervillain.
Page 15
Alexis is furious. Not only can she not go to the super-party, but now Batman isn't going to Kon-El's
art gallery opening with her because he'll be working on the investigation. Alexis sees this as
Batman choosing Superman over her.
"Why don't you and Chris finally admit you love one another, Batman?" She doesn't appear to be
joking this time. "Don't expect me to put up with this! I'll get even!" More foreshadowing.
Page 16
Sasha tells Damian that she was telebonding with Saffi during her suicide and got a mental flash of
"a big creepy space lady." It's Dame Merciless of The Gentry, referred to throughout this issue as
The Gray Lady.

Sasha cries Ray Palmer out of her system, onto a

microscope slide. This triggers all sorts of memories in me that I can't place. Both Atom and Ant-
Man have shrunk down and gone into other people's bloodstreams, both undoubtedly lifting from
Fantastic Voyage. But hasn't Atom been cried out before? Or was that Ant-Man? Atom shrank down
and entered Superman in World's Finest #236 -- I looked it up -- but he didn't come out through
tears. Did he do so in a later issue? Or am I just thinking of this Jimmy Olsen cover? No shrinking
here, just tears.
Page 17
We see Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) and Offspring (Ernie O'Brian, son of Plastic Man, and
Megamorpho's boyfriend). Evidently the 1990s continued unchanged on Earth-16; Kyle Rayner is
still the last of the Green Lanterns (and Hal Jordan is still dead). Offspring began in Mark Waid's
1999 Kingdom, the sequel to Kingdom Come, before appearing in the DC Universe proper.
Offspring and Rayner are talking comics. They both read Major Comics, with the Retaliators,
Future Family and Bug. We met these Marvel doppelgangers as real people on Earth-8 in the first
issue, where we also learned that they were Major Comics characters on Earth-36 as well. Not only
are they comics characters here on Earth-16, but they made a Bug movie as well.
Offspring has read Ultra Comics. He is not terribly concerned about his gf's death, as he expects her
to return. He gives Ultra Comics to Rayner, who pages through it.
Page 18
Rayner meets with others superheroes in Megamorpho's apartment looking for clues. He tells them
Offspring is in shock. We see Flash (whom we later have identified as Wally West), Green Arrow
(Conner Hawke) and Bloodwynd, who in the '90s was initially Martian Manhunter in disguise, but
then emerged as a real character later. He is that character here.
Rayner asks if Conner's going to join them for "Red Amazo Crisis." We learn later that these
superheroes re-enact old battles for entertainment, like Civil War re-enactors.
Page 19-20
Alexis Luthor and Joker's Daughter are discussing Kon-El at his art opening at the Suicide Slum Art
Gallery. Evidently even slums have been tamed and gentrified in this boring utopia.We see more
'90s characters: Max Mercury, Gunfire, Loose Cannon.
Alexis correctly assesses Superboy as degenerating into a Bizarro, like all her father's cloning
experiments.
Superboy accidentally inhales Vapor (Carrie Donahue), a character who was part of the
Conglomerate in Booster Gold comics in, yes, the 1990s. I hope Morrison didn't damage his brain
re-reading all those terrible comics.
One of Superboy's paintings is of The Gray Lady (Dame Merciless).
Alexis Luthor continues to complain about being barred from Sasha's party.
Page 21-25
We meet the Justice League at the re-enactment. They are Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), Aquaman
(Garth), Wonder Woman (Artemis), Argus (Nick Kelly, who got his powers in the 1993
"Bloodlines" annuals), Alpha Centurion (Marcus Aelius), Atom (teen Ray Palmer), Red Tornado
(who has been bonded with Amazo at a molecular level), Green Arrow (Conner Hawke), Flash
(Wally West), Bloodwynd, Steel (Natasha Irons, niece of John Henry Irons). It's hard to remember
now, but back in the '90s Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Atom, Aquaman, Flash and Green Arrow
had all been replaced by younger versions, all at the same time. The originals all came back, one by
one, on our earth. But on Earth-16, the replacements were permanent. Hal Jordan, Oliver Queen and
Barry Allen are dead, Diana Prince is working at a Big Belly and Ray Palmer has been de-aged.
Anyway, something goes wrong and Leaguers are actually getting injured. Green Lantern goes
berserk, starts calling the android "Major Disaster," accuses it of killing his girlfriend, and almost
destroys it.
Rayner is referring to his girlfriend Alex, who was killed by Major Force in 1994 and stuffed in a
refrigerator (which pre-famous Gail Simone used as the launch of her "Women in Refrigerators"
website, which launched her career). It's strange to see GL refer to Major Disaster rather than Major
Force; that's probably just a mistake.
Steel says the Amazo robot has been infected with something from a higher dimension (that is
foreshadowing, my friends). Rayner explains his behavior by saying "Those comic books brought it
all back. It's like something crawled into my head. Something so bad ... " Again, it's The Gentry
working through Ultra Comics.
Pages 26-27
Batman questions Offspring, who is still weirdly disjointed in his response to his gf's death. Shock,
or The Gentry? He has read Ultra Comics after all. He shows Batman his comics collection which is
mostly Major Comics, but also the previous issue of Multiversity and the issue of Ultra Comics. We
learn here that while regular Marvel analogs are called Major Comics, Ultimate heroes are called
Essentials, and the world of Essential Major Comics was depopulated in the Essential Genocide
Crisis -- suggesting Marvel's Ultimate Universe was represented by Earth-7, which we saw post-
destruction by The Gentry in the first issue. Anyway, Batman gets an idea and calls Superman ...
Page 28
... who is questioning Menta (Holly Dayton, daughter of Steve "Mento" Dayton and probably Rita
"Elasti-Girl" Farr), who used the Mento helmet to freshen her breath look for traces of
Megamorpho's consciousness. She gets flashes of The Gray Lady.
Page 29
Superman meets with the Dr. Mid-Nite of the '90s (Pieter Cross), Bloodwynd and Gypsy (Cynthia
Reynolds), of Justice League Detroit and Justice League Task Force. Batman arrives and interrupts.
Didn't he just call Superman two pages ago? How come Superman didn't know he was coming?
Pages 30-31
Arrowette meets with her father, to ask for trick arrows, because she and he friends are forming a
new group, The Just. Hawke tells her that crime is a thing of the past, and trick arrows won't make
her a superhero, and that it's dangerous. She wheadles, and he relents, and gives her five arrows.
Pages 32-33
Batman points out to Superman that many of Offspring's comic books aren't published on this earth.
(Cities and publishers are familiar to us, though: Fawcett City, Hub City and the like.) Superman
realizes they're bleeding through from other dimensions and infecting the readers, like Megamorpho
and Offspring. (Superman refers to Offspring as Eddie, although his name is Ernie. Either that's
another mistake, or this Superman doesn't remember names well. He hasn't been portrayed as
particularly bright.) Batman realizes Alexis has read Ultra Comics.
Pages 34-35
Bloodwynd, the "Mega-Mage" of this earth (Sorcerer Supreme?), confirms that the comic books are
carriers. He says Megamorpho's spirit is saying "Who's that knocking on the door," which is either a
reference to a Rod Stewart song or a reference to the beginning of the first issue, with the landlady
scene. Also, of course, it's The Gentry invading this dimension. Dimension-invading is the new
black. Sorry, this book is getting to me.
Pages 36-37
Superman and Batman (and several Superman robots) go to Alexis' apartment. Pictures -- Ultra
Comics disassembled? -- are pinned to a wall with twine pegged between and circles and arrows in
a way that TV always tells us is obsessive and crazy. S&B realize she's gone bad, and ask
themselves who has a grudge and unlimited power to help her. The obvious answer is Jakeem
Thunder, and just then a robot cold-cocks Superman as Alexis and "Jay-Jay" walk in. She explains
that the genie -- who is from the fifth dimension, the "higher" dimension referred to earlier --
learned how to control technology via the Red Amazo android, and now she controls technology
and magic ... and the robots. which can't be reprogrammed, can't be tampered with and can't be
stopped. She has Thunder summon the genie, which he does with a strange variation of the "So
cool" magic words. (He seems a little strung out, to tell you the truth.)
Pages 38-39
The party. It's the 1990s gone wild: Impulse, Mas y Menos, Miss Martian, Fire, the shaggy Krypto.
Sister Miracle does a little tweeting that doesn't seem to have any relevance to our analysis. They
are all aware of the invasion, but of course nobody is worried.
Page 40
Superman robots attack a city, burning up everything with heat vision. Will they destroy this earth?
The local heroes sure don't seem up to the task of stopping them. (Although there's one panel of
Batman still fightng the robots. No sign of Superman, though.) All will no doubt be resolved in
Multiversity #8.
MULTIVERSITY #4: PAX AMERICANA

Well, there sure is a lot to work with here! Let’s begin:

COVER
The cover shows part of a peace symbol in flames. This image, or rather a circle, will be repeated in
part or whole throughout the book. "Peace" -- or different ideas on how to achieve it -- is a theme of
the book as well. This mirrors Alan Moore’s use of the “Happy Face” button with a streak of blood
on it on the cover of the first issue of Watchmen, which represented a number of themes in the book
and was repeated in a variety of ways.
“Pax Americana,” the title, is Latin for American Peace, and refers usually to the peace among
world powers after World War II, largely due to American arms and hegemony. The term has been
applied to other historical eras in U.S. history, but most people think of the late twentieth century as
the Pax Americana. It should be noted that Pax Americana superseded the Pax Brittanica (British
Peace) imposed by British sea power in the 19th century, and both terms are plays on the Pax
Romana (Roman Peace), a reference to a period of 200 years of relative calm due to Roman
hegemony during its empire days.
Cover quote: “Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn.” – Delmore
Schwartz
This is a reference to the poem “Calmly We Walk Through this April’s Day” by Brooklyn poet
Delmore Schwartz, first published in 1938. Strangely, it is a misquote: The line in the poem is
actually “This is the school in which we lEarn, time is the fire in which we burn.” Since Schwartz
wrote in English it can’t be a mistranslation, and the word shift doesn’t seem to appreciably change
the meaning. Possibly a mistake.
The poem is about how we go about our daily lives without regard to the fact, or disregarding the
fact, that everything ends. Even when we’re young, even in spring – everything will eventually end.
This is a theme that is repeated throughout the book, that every era comes to an end.
This is the fourth consecutive issue to quote poetry or make reference a poem or poet.
The cover also indicates that this is Earth-4. In Crisis on Infinite Earths, Earth-4 was the world of
Charlton Comics heroes (which DC had recently purchased), before it was combined with the other
remaining earths at the end of the series. Multiversity re-establishes Earth-4 as the world of the
Charlton heroes.
PAGE ONE
This page, and most subsequent pages, has a rather rigid structure of two tiers of four panels. This
seems to be a visual reference to Watchmen, itself a take-off on Charlton heroes, which mostly held
itself to a rigid grid of three tiers of three panels.
The first panel is a continuation of the cover, which was also a Watchmen technique.
The first panel indicates a burning flag with the peace symbol on it.
It quickly becomes obvious that we are seeing events playing in reverse time. Blood is seen on the
seal of the president, our second circular image, and also mirroring the Happy-Face-with-blood
from Watchmen. It is evident that the president is shot. On his hand is a ring with an infinity symbol
on it, which turned sideways is the number 8.
Both Pax Americana and Watchmen #1 begin with a murder.
PAGES TWO-THREE
Time continues to play backwards, until we see confirmed that it is the president who has been shot
(and certainly killed) while holding up the peace flag (which burst into flames because the
assassin’s high-velocity bullet ripped through it). The assassin, it is revealed, is the superhero
Peacemaker.
In Charlton Comics he was Christopher Smith, a millionaire, pacifist diplomat, a “man who loves
peace so much he’s willing to fight for it,” according to the cover of his first issue. He founded the
Pax Institute and fought a variety of evil dictators with a variety of non-lethal weapons. Peacemaker
appeared in two issues of Fightin’ Five as a backup strip, and then five issues of his own title.
He was introduced at DC Comics after Crisis, with the name and costume the same, only this
version used lethal weapons and killed frequently and casually. He was also probably insane – he
thought the voices of his parents (one was a Nazi concentration camp commandant) and some of his
victims were talking to him through his helmet. Of course, this is comics, so perhaps they were.
After that version failed, various other Peacemakers were introduced in various DC Comics over
the years, not all of them named Christopher Smith, which usually faded away rather quickly. One
was a supporting character in the Jaimie Reyes Blue Beetle in the Old 52. Grant Morrison depicted
the character briefly in Final Crisis: Aftermath.
Peacemaker is the basis for the character The Comedian in Watchmen.
The Peacemaker’s symbol is a dove on a yellow shield. Doves, a symbol of peace, occur frequently
in the book.
PAGE FOUR
We see that Christopher Smith is being interrogated. His interrogators say that they have been
running the film of the assassination forward and backward, explaining what we just saw. One says
“Nothing makes sense.” Time running forward or backward – or a story being read out of order –
thereby confusing things, is a theme of the book (and series), and will be referenced again.
Also, this story is being told out of order, mostly backwards, so there's that to consider as well. It
actually didn't make sense to me until the second read.
PAGE FIVE
President Eden and his daughter, Eve “Nightshade” Eden, are seen having a discussion as they walk
somewhere. President Eden has just assumed the presidency, upon the assassination of his
predecessor.
Nightshade first appeared in Charlton’s Captain Atom #82, created by Joe Gill and Steve Ditko, as a
partner and love interest for the superhero. She also had a backup story in the last three issues of
Captain Atom, #87-89.
At Charlton, Nightshade and her mother had fled another dimension where everyone could
transform into two-dimensional shadows. Nightshade had this power.
At Charlton, her father was a senator. Here, he is the veep-cum-president. Although not mentioned,
it seems entirely likely that he was once a senator here as well.
Nightshade had one appearance at AC Comics as a member of the Sentinels of Justice in that team’s
single, eponymous issue, along with Blue Beetle, The Question and Captain Atom.
After Crisis on Infinite Earths placed her in the DC Universe, she worked for various covert
agencies, including Task Force X/Suicide Squad, CBI, Shadowpact, Agents of L.A.W. (an
organization and miniseries utilizing all the Charlton “Action Heroes”) and the ATOM Project
(which teamed her with Captain Atom again).
At DC her origin was very similar; she came from the Land of Nightshades with her mother. (I don't
recall the place being named at Charlton.) She had the power to transform into a shadow and
teleport. Later she absorbed “The Succubus” from the Land of Nightshades and her powers
increased as her appearance altered (dead-white skin, shadow hair). “The Incubus” had killed her
brother, and was killed in turn by Deadshot. (In both origins she and her mother had fled the
shadow dimension but left her younger brother behind. That dangling plotline was never resolved at
Charlton.)
Nightshade was the basis for the character Silk Spectre II in Watchmen.
President Eden is making the case that the era of the superhero has ended, and a new era begun.
Two themes underscored here, that everything ends, but that events continue to continue endlessly
(a circle).
Pres. Eden: “… unanswered questions remain. Ambiguous shadows prevail.” This seems an oblique
reference to The Question and Eve herself.
The conversation continues across four panels, as Christopher Smith is marched across a huge
lobby with the presidential seal on the floor (a circle image again). Pres. Eden is saying the
assassination has killed the idea of the superhero, and Eve is arguing that she wants to continue,
since she likes being a superhero.
Pres. Eden says “try to take an elevated view, Evie,” as he ascends a staircase to a more elevated
position.
Pres. Eden says “we’ve turned a corner” as the two turn a corner.
Eve asks “where does that leave the Pax?” which turns out to be the superhero team that’s operated
on this world since 9/11, of which Nightshade is a member. This also references the Pax Institute
from Peacemaker’s Charlton days, which also exists in this world.
In the final panel, we see a closeup of Peacemaker’s dove symbol, with three dots of blood on it.
(Someone at the comics shop said Morrison had done this sort of conversation-through-the-panels
somewhere else, but alas, I am not Morrison expert enough to say.)
PAGE SIX
Pres. Eden had closed the previous page by saying “one door closes, Evie …” while on the first
panel of this page he says “… another one opens,” as he opens a door.
Eve says “Mom was right about you,” which the president dismisses that by saying “your mother
claimed she was born in the ‘shadow dimension.’” Apparently that’s not true on this earth as it was
at Charlton and the Old 52, as even Eve responds “Mom’s not well.”
Pres. Eden says “The American Empire faces a descent into chaos” as he descends a staircase.
Eve says “You twist everything” as the shot shows Eve descending on a staircase left, as the
president has already turned on a landing and is descending right – their positions “twisted.”
Pres. Eden: “Enemies become friends. Reflection is the mother of compromise.” This could be a
reference to the theme Morrison develops about stories running forward and backward. Also, there
are several references to reflection in the book, both physically and philosophically.
Pres. Eden says “—everything goes into reverse,” seeming to confirm my hypothesis, but the
camera is also reversed, so the characters are now going the opposite way they were in the previous
panel.
Eve underscores the point: “You go back on everything you say.” He does so physically, in this
panel layout, and in his politics, methods and support for his predecessor’s positions.
Pres. Eden says “the country’s hit rock bottom” as they hit the bottom of the stairwell.
Pres. Eden says “the pressure for change is unstoppable” as he presses a button that will,
presumably, change things.
Pres. Eden says “What we need now is a convincing exit strategy” as he exits the page.
Eve says, “You mean a retreat into the past?” which they do physically on …
PAGE SEVEN
Pres. Eden and Eve walk by an exhibit titled “Cold Soldiers 1960-1990.” It should be noted that the
Charlton Action Heroes began with Captain Atom, who debuted in 1960. (I don’t know what the
1990 date references, if anything.) A lot of Charlton’s Action Heroes stories dealt with cold war
issues, especially Captain Atom’s adventures, as he was USAF Captain Allen Adam in his original
identity, before being transformed into Captain Atom. Only two people knew Captain Adam and
Captain Atom were the same, his buddy Gunner and an unnamed general. At DC, Captain Atom
was Nathaniel Adam, but this are the original Charlton heroes, so his name is Allen Adam.
The exhibit contains seven items, all pertaining to Charlton superhero comics. The first is armor of
The Red Knight, who fought the original Blue Beetle (Dan Garrett). Closer to the camera are
gloves, guns and holster which might be part of The Specter’s outfit, who fought Blue Beetle II
(Ted Kord). The third is the green flying cloak of The Banshee, who fought The Question. The
fourth is the outfit worn by The Ghost, a Captain Atom/Nightshade foe. The fifth appears to be the
head (!) of The Smiling Skull, who fought Judomaster. The sixth is the headdress of Punch, part of
the criminal duo Punch and Jewelee, who fought Captain Atom and Nightshade in motley with
puppet gimmicks. The seventh is the exoskeleton of Iron Arms, a Captain Atom enemy.
As Pres. Eden and Eve walk past transparent glass, Eden references “a new transparency.”
As he passes by The Ghost’s outfit, he references “old ghosts.”
He says the new world will need “a firm hand.” Iron Arms? Sarge Steel, who has a metal hand?
The president says offering up superheroes after 9/11 was selling “the dreams of children to fearful
adults. The super-agents gave people something simple and strong to believe in.” Hence Eve and
her teammates.
Pres. Eden mentions that Captain Atom is missing. As this world’s Superman surrogate, that puts
him in good company – as Figserello mentioned, missing Supermen is a theme. In issue two, either
there is no Superman yet, or it’s The Atom – and he’s betrayed his principles and is being shipped
through a dimensional door. On Earth-Me, Superman was dead (and his son is, frankly, an idiot).
The Multiverse map at dccomics.com says that Superman is missing on Earth-42 (inhabited entirely
by chibis). On Earth-36, where Red Racer and Power Torch are members of Justice 9, Optiman is
dead.
We see where the duo has been heading: to a press conference.
Pres. Eden says “Can you take a leap of faith with me,” where on the very next page …
PAGE EIGHT
The Question is leaping through the air. Blue Beetle’s Bug is in hot pursuit.
These are the Charlton versions created primarily by Steve Ditko.
Blue Beetle was Ted Kord, a scientist who took over the role after the death of the super-powered
Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, who was his friend and mentor. Kord fought crime much like Spider-
Man, only with no powers – just his flying machine The Bug, and a gun that blinded foes with light.
The Question was newsman Vic Sage, who had a blank mask that covered his face that could only
be applied or removed with a special gas.
Blue Beetle was the inspiration for Nite Owl II, and Question the inspiration for Rorschach, in
Watchmen.
Beetle is trying to arrest or detain The Question, who keeps peppering him with what appear to be
nonsensical questions: “Who killed Nora O’Rourke? What is ‘Algorithm 8’?”
Blue Beetle says, “You know, there was this right-or-wrong, black-or-white guy I used to work
with.” This appears to be a direct reference to Rorschach, who didn’t exist in Charlton Comics. A
wink to the audience, then.
Question continues with mention of Captain Atom’s disappearance, the deaths of four scientists and
the Yellowjacket case, saying it’s all tied together. Blue Beetle says there is no Yellowjacket case.
Yellowjacket was a costumed crimefighter who starred in 10 issues of his own title from 1944-46,
published by the company that would eventually be Charlton. His secret identity was Vince Harley,
crime writer. The dead president’s surname is Harley as well.
PAGE NINE
Question accuses Beetle of selling out, of making compromises he can barely live with. Beetle
denies it, but Question says Beetle is suffering from anxiety attacks, an ulcer and erectile
dysfunction. (Nite Owl, the Blue Beetle character in Watchmen, could not perform sexually unless
he was in full costume.)
Beetle accuses Question of being gay.
Question asks what Beetle would do if he had a single magic formula to fix everything, “what
would you sacrifice?” This is actually the plot of the book, which isn’t revealed yet, so it’s uncertain
what Question knows at this point.
Question tells Beetle he’s “in over your head” as something looms over Beetle’s head.
PAGE TEN
Beetle tells Question to get a grip, as he does – by having a construction arm grip The Bug.
Question escapes into a subway tunnel, where he passes by posters, some of which advertise his
own TV show as Vic Sage. Another advertises the perfume “Futurebomb” by Nightshade, looking
very much like the ads for Nostalgia perfume in Watchmen.
PAGE 11
Question makes a hooker reference to Nightshade. Rorschach often accused women of being
prostitutes or of having low morals.
Question and Nightshade run into each other, but Question physically overpowers her easily. He
throws her a card with a question on it, and with a numeral 8 scrawled over that. He asks, “Who
controls the board? The soldier or the hunchback?”
Believe it or not, this comes from an Aleister Crowley essay, “The Soldier and the Hunchback.” The
terms are references to the exclamation point – representing ecstatic realization – and the question
mark – representing skepticism. Crowley’s essay argues that both are necessary to achieve higher
planes or enlightenment, each question mark leading to each exclamation point leading to another
question, until they come so rapidly they essentially blur into one.
Alan Moore, author of Watchmen, is noted for his knowledge of mysticism and mystics like Aleister
Crowley.
PAGE 12-13
Three different events are depicted, occurring in different times but in the same place: Peacemaker’s
Pax Institute in Colorado. The three events are, chronologically: Peacemaker leaving his
lover/confidante Nora O’Rourke to assassinate Pres. Harley; Nora alone, confronting an intruder
and being murdered; The Question investigating Nora’s death. The three events alternate
appearances per panel, conflating here and there.
The pages are designed in a strict panel grid, echoing Watchmen, of four tiers of four panels each.
Note: Just as Rorschach investigates the death of The Comedian in Watchmen with a flashlight and
a hunch, The Question does the same with Nora O’Rourke.
Panel 1: Nora is trying to call Peacemaker, because ...
Panel 4: She has cracked “algorithm 8,” and now knows the future, and it's obviously not going to
go as well as Harley thinks.
But in Panel 6 the phone goes dead.
Panel 5: Question notices that the bust of Janus has been removed from its plinth, and says “the
two-faced man. Symbolic and lethal.” Lethal, because it is the murder weapon. But Janus is
ridiculously symbolic for this story.
Panels 9, 12-14: Nora is arguing with Peacemaker. It’s become clear that Peacemaker has been
ordered to kill Pres. Harley by Pres. Harley himself, because he can calculate outcomes, and has
told Peacemaker that his assassination will result in the return of Allen Adam (Captain Atom), who
will resuscitate Harley, and world peace will be the result. And if not, Peacemaker says, “we’re
alone in the dark.”
Naturally, the next panel shows Nora alone and in the dark, after Peacemaker has left. She’s aware
someone’s in the room.
Panel 17, 19: Rorschach makes the point about Crowley’s hunchback and soldier very clear, even
noting their proximity in reference to himself: “The Question’s never far from the answer.”
Panel 22: We see the killer. Not his face, but he wearing the Iron Arms exoskeleton.
Panel 23: Question realizes the killer had superhuman strength (to lift the bust of Janus).
Panel 26: Question notes the killer went around the base of a statue clockwise to get to Nora –
clockwise, the direction of all those clocks in Watchmen.
Panel 31-32: Question determines to “keep asking questions – until the pattern becomes clear. Until
the hunchback becomes the soldier.”
PAGE 14-15
We see Captain Atom sometime earlier, before his disappearance.
Captain Atom debuted at Charlton in 1960. After appearing in several issues of Space Adventures in
1960-61, he disappeared until 1965, when Charlton started reprinting his previous adventures in
Strange Suspense Stories, followed by new adventures, followed by the title being renamed
Captain Atom and running to 1987. His powers were atomic based.
After Crisis he appeared in DC Comics as Nathaniel Adam and went through a number of revisions,
including a stint at WildStorm comics. He was one of the first characters launched in his own
(short-lived) title in The New 52.
Captain Atom was the inspiration for Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen.
Here we see him reading the haunted Ultra Comics that infects worlds.
He says he can see “a mobius loop curving through eight dimensions.” The mobius loop forms the
infinity symbol, just as the numeral eight does when turned sideways.
Captain Atom says, “I heard something knocking on the door to get in –“ Other characters have
used that expression as well, to indicate The Gentry trying to gain entry.
Four scientists are trying to get Captain Atom’s cooperation for some kind of experiment while he
continues to discuss the comic book. He digresses into how lower dimensions appear to higher
ones. The Gentry, of course, are coming from a higher dimension to invade ours. He determines
that our dimension must look like a comic book to higher-plane beings, who can read our story any
which way – going forward, backwards or sideways in time – and seeing our thoughts “weightless
in little clouds.”
Captain Atom has the hydrogen symbol on his forehead, as Dr. Manhattan did in Watchmen, and
The Atom did in issue #2.
He tells the scientists that they look 2-D to him, and he knows what they’re planning. But a button
is pushed, and a black hole opens up in Captain Atom’s head and, as one scientist says, he “has left
the universe.”
PAGE 16
A man with one steel hand enters. (Sarge Steel.)
Sarge Steel was a short-run character at Charlton who was, for all intents and purposes, their Col.
Fury. He had one steel prosthetic hand (his left) and worked for the government.
Steel lights a cigar, looking very much like The Comedian in the process. He shoots all the
scientists, punning that “The Big Bang’s what comes at the end.” These are the four mystery deaths
The Question mentions later, which is earlier to us.
PAGE 17
We see a circle. Circles – something without beginning or end, going forward and backward – are
symbolic here.
The camera pulls back to the cover of iScene magazine, which is five years old and shows the
formation of Pax Americana. We are in the apartment of Eve Eden’s mother, and it is her magazine.
She babbles about how Eve used to be blonde, and Eve explains that she still is, but uses a black
wig as Nightshade (which conforms to Charlton Comics). It is clear that Eve’s mother suffers from
dementia.
She spills coffee on the magazine. The coffee, running over the logo, look like blood, echoing the
first page.
Eve calls for “extraction” and tells whoever is on the other end that she can’t find a pattern in her
mother’s babbling. “She just goes round and round,” Eve says, “the view is the same in both
directions.” This said as the camera focuses on the circle again, echoing the first panel of the page.
More circular references.
PAGE 18-19
In the top tier of panels on these pages, we see Peacemaker and Nora before the assassination. They
are discussing Harley’s “ultimate algorithm.” Peacemaker tells her about Harley’s father, who was
killed by an intruder. He challenges her to solve the crime. Meanwhile, they are releasing doves.
They are going to flee the Pax Institute after the assassination, and are freeing the birds.
They reference the last story by comic book artist Vince Harley, Pres. Harley’s father, titled “Janus
the Everway Man.” The statue of Janus, which Nora sculpted, is in sight.
Janus is the Roman god of beginnings, endings, transitions, gates and doorways. He is depicted with
two faces, one looking to the future and one to the past. He is the ultimate metaphor for this whole
issue!
The middle tier of the pages shows us Peacemaker’s further interrogation after assassinating the
president. He is being punched repeatedly by a metal fist. It could be Iron Arms, but given that it’s
the left hand in both views, I’d say it’s probably Sarge Steel.
The bottom tier of the pages continues the conversation from the top tier. Peacemaker has plans
about using Algorithm 8 to train the next generation of Peacemakers. While he’s talking, the doves
he released fly out of view, but suddenly there’s a streak of blood, and feathers falling. One (or
both) of the doves has been killed by a predator. Foreshadowing for Peacemaker?
PAGES 20-21
Question is questioning a mob fixer/dirty cop in the employ of Eden before he became president,
whom Question describes as “a corrupt vice president.”
Question says “I’m giving you choices. A whole spectrum of choices. A rainbow –“ This is another
reference to the Multiversity map, which is encircled by a rainbow, also referred to by The
Thunderer in the first issue, as "the rainbow of worlds." The Gentry come from outside this
rainbow.
It could also be a reference to color-based Captain Atom villain Dr. Spectro, but I doubt it.
Question describes a theory of societal development along a color spectrum. Never heard of it, but it
probably exists. At the end he says takes a “full spectrum” approach, which would be a circle.
He then puns about how the cop is going to “die yellow.”
The cop says his orders came from “the Sarge,” which must be Sarge Steel again. Evidently he is
the Comedian analog in this story.
The cop mentions that Question was thrown out of the Pax.
PAGES 22-23
We see the formation of the Pax by Pres. Harley. We see Tiger (Judomaster’s sidekick), Nightshade
(in her original Charlton outfit), Blue Beetle (in the Dan Garrett outfit), Question (in his original
white trenchcoat and blue suit/hat) and Peacemaker.
Peacemaker calls them the Justice League of America (which is likely a comic book on this world).
Beetle suggests The Sentinels (as in the AC Comics one-shot), which gets shot down.
He suggests “The Law,” like the L.A.W.: Living Assault Weapon miniseries at DC.
The president arrives and whispers to Question, indicating he knows his secret ID.
Harley references his father, Vince Harley, which was also the secret ID of the Yellowjacket in the
1940s comics in our world. In the 1940s comics, Harley was a crime writer. In this iteration, he was
a comic book artist.
Harley says the Pax Americana is “not a hoax. This is not an imaginary story or an alternate reality.”
Which, actually, it is. But that mirrors a million comic book cover blurbs.
He says “Look! Up in the sky!” at this universe’s Superman, Captain Atom, who is …
PAGE 24
Raising three towers to replace the downed World Trade Center.
Atom hears “He’s kept sedated – his powers are at containment threshold level.” And responds,
“What? Sorry, I’m in the future –“
PAGE 25
… and he returns to a different time, where he is being held in sedation since “the U-235 incident.”
At Charlton, Captain Atom was created by a nuclear bomb. In Solar, Man of the Atom at Gold Key,
the hero was disassembled in a nuclear reactor accident, and pulled himself back together.
Watchmen stole Solar’s origin. So here’s a third origin for a nuclear hero, only obliquely
referenced.
But President Harley approaches him confidently, even though Atom accidentally disassembles his
dog.
PAGE 26
Atom stares at his disassembled dog and says something profound: “I thought the pieces would
explain the whole. But it’s hard to love the pieces.” Sometimes I feel that way about Grant Morrison
stories!
Atom then creates a second, living dog. But “it’s not the same.”
PAGE 27
Captain Atom addresses Harley as the president. Harley says “I’m not the president. Not yet.” But
Captain Atom sees future as well as past. As we're about to see, so does Harley. They’re both right.
Harley says he understands the organizing principle behind the world. He says he learned it at his
father’s gravesite. Later, we’ll see that it was a future Captain Atom who showed it to him in the
past.
PAGE 28
Atom says they should go back. Harley says they should go forward. Ultimately it’s the same, right?
Harley says, “On reflection, my plan was impossible.” Of course, he says this as they are reflected
in a body of water.
Harley says he sees the future, and it’s death camps “at history’s end.” He sees a different ending,
but the president must be sacrificed. He needs Captain Atom for his plan.
PAGE 29
Harley shows Captain Atom the now famous “Janus the Everyway Man” issue. He explains further,
and once you’ve read the issue two or three times, you understand what his plan is: To be killed and
then resurrected by a superhero.
Captain Atom says, “Your ring. The number eight.”
Harley says, “You know it’s not a number.” We know, too: It’s the infinity symbol.
But does this mean that Harley explained it to Captain Atom, so that a future Captain Atom can go
back in time and explain it to Harley? Chicken or egg? Or just a circle?
PAGES 29-32
Back in time, we see terrorists holding Pres. George W. Bush and Gov. Harley (the veep?) hostage
in the White House. Harely is unconcerned, mentions that his father kept doves.
Peacemaker attacks, takes out all the terrorists, decides he must try harder when a couple of them
die.
“Your world has just come to an end,” Harley tells the terrorist.
PAGE 33
Back in the post-assassination time, Pres. Eden tells Peacemaker the same thing. “You and your
kind are finished.”
We see it is Sarge Steel as the enforcer, as a drug forces Peacemaker to talk. Why’d he do it? To
save the world. “From whom?” demands the Prez. Peacemaker makes a shooting gesture at him,
and dies.
Flashback to just before the assassination, where Peacemaker tells Nora: “I asked him the real
reason he’d chosen to become the sacrificial victim. ‘I deserve it,’ he said. ‘Let the punishment fit
the crime.’”
We’ll soon see what that means.
PAGE 33
Flashback to early adventures of Beetle and The Question. (Note: Blue Beetle and Question were
never partners at Charlton, although they sometimes shared a book. It was Watchmen where the two
characters were teamed up, by proxy. So this is another Watchmen reference.)
The two are arguing, and we know these arguments will eventually separate them. Also of interest,
Question raises the “mystery” of what happened to Yellowjacket, America’s first superhero. Beetle
says “He disappeared. We’ve talked this into the grave.”
PAGE 34
Back in the past, young Harley is sitting at his father’s graveside, as seasons pass. Captain Atom
appears, and says “the door has one side and opens both ways,” echoing Janus, and just about every
other character at one point or another.
PAGE 35
Captain Atom blows young Harley’s mind, which suddenly grasps Algorithm 8.
PAGE 36
A young boy in his pajamas goes into his father’s work room. The radio is playing, with someone
discussing Yellowjacket in a contemporary manner – it’s obviously the mid-1940s. Equally obvious,
the father is a comic book artist. The boy finds a scrapbook with articles about Yellowjacket’s
adventures. He also finds a gun.
A voice from the window says “Forgot my key, kid.”
PAGE 37
The boy turns and fires. The intruder falls dead. He’s dressed oddly – like a superhero. There are
doves in cages, who are fluttering madly at the noise. A drop of blood shows on a white feather.
PAGE 38
The boy pulls the mask off the intruder, and recognizes his father.
MULTIVERY #5: THUNDERWORLD
COVER
 From the cover, it’s evident that this issue takes place on a
world of the Fawcett characters. That was Earth-S originally, later Earth-5, before Crisis wiped out
all the parallel worlds. This cover informs us that the world of the Fawcett characters is still (or
again) Earth-5, or “Thunderworld,” as the title would have it. The cover is dominated by Captain
Marvel (currently called Shazam in The New 52) in his original outfit, with multiple vignettes of his
arch-foe Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana in the background.

PAGE ONE
The title “Captain Marvel and the Day that Never Was!” and the depiction of the Big Red Cheese
on the cover inform us that the main character will be more as he was in Fawcett Comics (1940-53),
not as he is in The New 52, with an altered costume and the name Shazam. However, unlike the
Charlton characters in the previous issue, a great many DC Comics additions to the mythos are
retained for this issue, as we shall see.

The page is dominated by the Rock of Eternity, a diamond-shaped rock. A late entry in the Fawcett
books, the Rock was introduced in 1947 as a mountain floating at the center of time and space.
Initially the spirit of the wizard Shazam (who gave young Billy Batson the Captain Marvel powers)
was depicted as hanging out in his underground lair on Earth (accessible by magic subway), but
after 1947 he was always hanging around the Rock (likely they were one and the same). From the
Rock, the Marvel Family could go anywhere in space and anywhen in time.

The Rock was initially simply a mountain floating in space. It got its diamond shape in the DC
Comics graphic novel and series Power of Shazam (1994-1999).

Captions extol the wonder of the Rock. Morrison uses the phrase “Empyrean peaks” in his
descriptions. Empyreal is the adjectival form of the word, so “Empyrean” isn’t describing the peaks;
it means instead “peaks of The Empyrean,” which in ancient Greece was the highest heaven, which
was the domain of fire (one of the five natural elements, the other four being earth, air, water and
aether). Later Christian literature adopted the name and symbolism, as in the Divine Comedy, where
The Empyrean is the home of God, a concept which retained the light, if not the heat, of the Greeks’
fire. In the 1994 Power of Shazam, the Rock was created by combining a chunk of heaven and
chunk of hell, giving us both the highest seat and the fire, so it’s an apt comparison.

On Grant Morrison’s map, the Rock of Eternity is located at the very center of the multiverse. Or, as
the captions phrase it more poetically, “on the … borderland that separates What Is from What
Might Be.”

PAGES TWO-THREE
We are inside the Rock with the wizard Shazam, as he was in the Whiz Comics #2, seated on a
throne underneath a square cement block held aloft by a thin rope or thread. (In that issue, which
introduced Captain Marvel and the wizard, Shazam was killed by the block, leaving only his spirit
to advise Billy/Marvel.)

The wizard addresses the reader directly (“Hmm, it’s YOU again”) and we learn that the
descriptions of the captions on the previous page were actually said by the wizard, who was
“practicing my omniscient narrator voice.” More Morrison breaking-the-fourth-wall hijinks.

The wizard discovers a new day between Thursday and Friday, “Sivanaday,” as the Rock comes
under attack.

PAGES FOUR-FIVE
We see a second, much larger Rock of Eternity, that is a technological construct instead of a magic
mountain. (If looks like a Borg cube, only diamond-shaped.) Its master is Captain Marvel’s arch-foe
Dr. Sivana, who proclaims it, literally, “a new day.”

We also meet his children Magnificus, Georgia and Thaddeus Jr. All were introduced in the Golden
Age, and haven’t changed much. Magnificus is physically perfect, although a bit dim and vain.
Both Georgia and Junior resemble their father – short, hunched over and scrawny, with oversized
spectacles and a huge overbite. Oddly, Sivana’s fourth child, Beautia, does not appear and is never
mentioned. In the Golden Age she was the queen of Venus, so perhaps she’s busy with the affairs of
state.

Sivana has hijacked the power of Eternity, and the three children can now change into Captain
Marvel –type characters by saying “Sivana” instead of “Shazam” and receiving power from black
lightning. While the yellow magic lightning gives the Marvel family characters red, white and blue
uniforms, the black lightning gives the Sivana children, yellow, green and purple uniforms. They
are all magnificently-proportioned adults as well, even Junior and Georgia. In the Golden Age, all
of Sivana’s children were adults, although the malformed Georgia and Junior didn’t look it. So they
are like Freddy Freeman and Mary Batson, who change into Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel
respectively, but remain the same age; whereas they are unlike Billy Batson, who goes from child to
adult in his transformation. Another area of variance is Georgia, who grows a magnificent bustline
and figure, whereas Mary Batson retains her age after transformation and is therefore not fully
developed.
Mary Marvel's white uniform was another DC addition, arriving in Power of Shazam #28. However,
Morrison didn't lift Mary's evolution entirely from Jerry Ordway's series, as Mary turned into an
adult version of herself (resembling her mother) after saying her magic word in Power of Shazam,
but in Thunderworld she remains her true age, as she did while wearing the red in the Golden Age.

The Marvel Family is usually thought of as Billy, Mary and Freddy. The Black Marvel Family
introduced in 52 consisted of Adam, Isis and Osiris. The Sivana Marvel Family follows this pattern,
a boy-girl-boy trio. (Perhaps that’s why we don’t see Beautia.)

“Now maybe your mother will take me back” mutters Sivana. That’s funny enough not to need any
explanation, but it actually has one. In the Golden Age, Sivana was twice widowed. But in Power of
Shazam, his ex-wife – Venus – was still alive. In later issues, the ex-wife was named Portia.

PAGE SIX
Billy Batson is reporting on an invasion from different time periods by the Timequaker. This is a
throwaway bit not related to the main story, and I can find no reference to Timequaker in Captain
Marvel comics, past or present.

WHIZ radio owner Sterling Morris asks rhetorically about Billy “How does this kid do it?”
However, an unnamed tech answers literally “loosely enforced labor laws.” It’s illegal for Morris to
hire someone as young as Billy for adult work.

Billy refers to the “old abandoned subway station at Beck Street.” Billy first encountered the wizard
Shazam via an old abandoned subway station in Whiz Comics #2. “Beck Street” refers to co-creator,
co-writer and longtime artist of Captain Marvel at Fawcett, C.C. Beck.

A newspaper blowing by shows men landing on the moon. On our world, that took place in 1969,
which may place this adventure at the same time.

A future Billy Batson appears and warns the current one, then disappears.

PAGES SEVEN-EIGHT
The Marvelized Sivana chidren attack. Junior says to Billy “You think you’re so clever, don’t you?”
Billy responds “Just clever enough.” This line will be repeated.

Billy’s cleverness, which is in no doubt despite his modesty (a nice contrast to the immodest
Magnificus), delays the trio long enough for him to transform into Captain Marvel.

PAGE 10
Captain Marvel summons Mary and Freddy with a super-whistle, which they both know means
trouble. (“Uh oh.”) Freddy is working at a newsstand, which is consistent with his job as a newsboy
in the Golden Age, perhaps updated a bit for 1969.

PAGE 11
Sivana is thumbing through the second issue of Multiversity, proclaiming his distaste for comic
books, which have “maverick scientists presented as stereotypical, cackling madmen!” The irony
here is that Sivana literally is a stereotypical, cackling madman, but does not appear to realize it.

At any rate, he has twigged to the multiverse because of “parallel worlds sending messages to each
other via comic books.” Ultra Comics is surely doing that, by infecting worlds with itself. Evidently
Morrison’s Multiversity comics are also sending messages back and forth, as this is the second time
we’ve seen Multiversity #2: Society of Superheroes.

Sivana is working with a legion of Sivanas from various parallel worlds. On viewscreens we see a
vampire Sivana, a black Sivana, a female Sivana, a masked wrestler Sivana, a snake Sivana and
more. If any of these have appeared before, I don’t remember them.
Sivana says his fellow Sivanas have helped him assemble enough Suspendium to create Sivanaday.
Suspendium was first mentioned in DC’s first Captain Marvel issue, Shazam #1 in 1973, as the
method by which Sivana kept the Marvel Family and supporting characters (and, accidentally,
himself and two of his children) in suspended animation from 1953 (when Fawcett stopped
publishing Captain Marvel) to 1973 (when DC began).

PAGES 12- 15
Sivana is mining Suspendium from the Rock of Eternity, which he refers to as “crystallized time”
but Shazam describes as “the magic” that is the universe’s “secret heart.” That sounds significant, as
if Morrison is defining the multiverse, but I don’t have any explanations. “Secret Heart” has been
used as the name of a number of songs (one by The Monkees), a book, a movie and other tuff that
doesn’t seem relevant. Perhaps it’s a homonym for “Sacred Heart,” a Catholic devotion. Since
Morrison has already defined how the multiverse works – the music of the spheres – this seems a
superfluous description. Perhaps it’s just flowery talk.

Sivana describes the source of Captain Marvel’s power as “the source of all the energy! The fuel
rod! The fountainhead!” The Source is a big part of the New Gods mythos, and The Fountainhead
is a book by Ayn Rand. Neither reference seems significant.

PAGES 16-18
The Marvel Family (Cap, Mary, Junior) battle the Sivanas in a welcome Silver Age-style super-
battle.

PAGES 19-20
Captain Marvel Junior, who cannot say his own name or he’ll change back to Freddy Freeman,
tricks Georgia into transforming back by saying her own name. Billy’s not the only clever one!

PAGES 21
Sivana releases the “Monster Society.” The Monster Society of Evil was a group from a famous
storyline that ran for two years in Captain Marvel Adventures #22-46 (1943-45). The group has
appeared in later comics (some of them chronologically earlier, i.e. an All-Star Squadron
appearance) with varying membership. Usually the animating force behind the Society, as it was the
first time, is Mr. Mind, the evil telepathic worm.

The members here are an updated Mister Atom, a giant Crocodile Man (who may be based on the
Crocodile Man of the ‘40s, or on Sorak, the evil crocodile in 52), Oom the Mighty, Mister Mind (as
he appeared in 52) and a giant storm cloud with eyes, whose name and provenance I do not know.
My best guess is Chain Lightning from the Power of Shazam series.

PAGE 22
The Lieutenant Marvels arrive. (Grammatically, they should be called the “Lieutenants Marvel,” but
I never see them spelled that way.) They consist of Tall Billy, Hill Billy, Fat Billy, Uncle Marvel
and Tawky Tawny. All are wearing jetpacks to fly and have “monster-hunting weaponry.”
All of these characters are from the ‘40s, but have changed.

The three Lieutenants Marvel were introduced in 1941. They are three men named Billy Batson,
and could change into Marvel characters by saying “Shazam” simultaneously. Only they had to split
the power, with each only one-third as powerful as Captain Marvel. They have appeared post-Crisis
a couple of times, only to lose their powers each time. That appears to be the case here.

Uncle Marvel is Dudley H. Dudley, a con man introduced in 1943. When Dudley learned Mary
Batson’s secret, he tried to insinuate himself into the Marvel Family as Uncle Marvel, whose
“shazambago” prevented him from using his powers. The Marvel Family, with the wisdom of
Solomon, saw through the con, but allowed him to hang around anyway since he was harmless and
lovable. Ordway’s Power of Shazam made him an actual blood-relative of Billy, an uncle no less.

Tawky Tawny is an anthropomorphic, talking tiger who is unexplained in his introduction in 1947,
but becomes a supporting character whose adventures generally revolved around people freaking
out at the sight of a talking tiger. In Power of Shazam, Tawky was originally a children’s toy
temporarily given sentience and human size by Black Adam’s power, and later (and permanently)
by Ibis the Invincible. In Final Crisis Tawny kills Kalibak and takes control of his Tigermen. Tawky
appears in The New 52 as a zoo tiger who is given sentience by Billy’s power.

There is no mention of how these characters all band together (in Captain Marvel uniforms, no less)
or where their equipment comes from.

PAGES 23-27
Captain Marvel tries to get to the Rock of Eternity through the original subway station, which we
see is located at Phillips and First. (I don’t know if these names have any significance.) He bursts
through a back wall to find himself floating in a void with an endless array of magical subway cars
(like the one seen in Whiz #2) going in all directions. Presumably, this is a view of the subway
station from a multiversal perspective, with each subway car representing a different universe.

PAGE 28
We see more Sivanas on TV screens. One is a baby, another is wearing a Hannibal Lector face mask
and is covered in blood. He wants Junior and Mary, to “mess them up bad.” This unnerves even the
Earth-5 Sivana.

PAGES 29-30
Captain Marvel battles his way to Sivana. Another on-screen Sivana is a genius on his world “with
some personal problems.” He is aghast to discover all his parallels are criminals. The Hannibal
Sivana claims to have killed his Captain Marvel via time travel (another missing Superman) and
wants more Marvels to torture and kill.

PAGES 31-32
Sivana says this is a battle between science and magic. Captain Marvel says they’re the same thing.
Sivana uses the black lightning to become Black Sivana, who is far stronger than Captain Marvel,
as he is using the power of “fundamental forces” like the “velocity of a photon.”

PAGES 33-35
Cap turns into Billy, discovers the time crystals, goes back in time to warn himself, and we see the
scene we saw on Page 8 from the opposite perspective.

Sivana says, “you think you’re so clever, don’t you?” Billy replies, “Just clever enough.”

PAGE 36
Sivana loses, because all the other Sivanas cheated him on Suspendium, as he was cheating them.
Sivanaday is only 8 hours long, instead of 24.

PAGE 37
Captain Marvel says “New data came to light. There was a sudden paradigm shift.” This is clumsily
inserted, so it must mean something. I don’t know what, though. Maybe it was said in a previous
issue.

The Hannibal Sivana vows to get Mary Marvel. “I want that girl.” This is as close as this issue gets
to a bad ending, as several other issues have done.

PAGES 38-40
The Monster Society is shown to be defeated. Captain Marvel flips through Multiversity #2,
demonstrating he now knows about the multiple worlds, and messages in comic books. (Note that
this issue uses the Society of Superheroes issue instead of the haunted Ultra Comics, so no one is
infected by The Gentry.) Junior notes that SOS has been canceled, and that he collects DC and
Major Comics, which seem to be pretty multiversal.

Captain Marvel wonders “whatever happened to happy endings?” Morrison critiques the comics
industry again.

The Marvel Family flies up toward the reader, all smiles. A dove is flying upward with them, in
contrast to the Peacemaker’s doves in Pax Americana, who are killed, as is Peacemaker, whose
symbol is a dove, or Yellow Jacket’s doves, who get blood on their wings.
MULTIVERSITY #6: THE MULTIVERSITY GUIDEBOOK #1
 COVER

We see the Atomic Knight Batman of Earth-17 (left) and the chibi Batman of Earth-42 (with
lots of artistic license).

The two Batmen are surrounded by four circular, planet-like vignettes of 1) heads of many
superheroes of various earths, 2) Kamandi, 3) the House of Heroes under siege and 4) the
Multiverse map. All four of these are addressed within, as are the two Batmen.

PAGE ONE

The Hannibal Lecter Sivana (seen in Thunderworld) is killing the chibi Martian Manhunter
(from Earth-42) with a flamethrower. We see an impaled Aquaman-42 and a melted Cyborg-
42, both presumably dead. Manhunter-42 cries out “M’yri’ah!” as he dies, which is the name
of Manhunter’s dead wife on Earth-0, and likely everywhere else there’s a Martian
Manhunter. (It’s pronounced “Maria”). Sivana-42 is watching, but he’s a bit unnerved at the
brutality, as “I’ve never – gulp! – never killed anyone before …”

Obviously on Earth-42, as is usually the case, Martian Manhunter is vulnerable to fire.

The Lecter Sivana has a rolled-up comic book in his pocket, which appears to be the very
book we are reading.

The issue’s title is “Maps and Legends.” Legend here seems to use at least two meanings of
the word, that of a famous person or story, and also the description on a map or diagram
explaining the symbols used.

PAGE TWO-THREE
Batman-42 puts out the flame on Manhunter-42 with an aerosol-sized fire extinguisher,
presumably from his utility belt. With him is Hawkman-42 and Green Arrow-42. We have
seen Batman-42 before, in Action Comics #9 (2012, also written by Grant Morrison) where
we also first met Calvin Ellis, the President Superman of Earth-23. In that issue, we saw a
“demon-Superman” (Cal’s words) named Superdoomsday from a parallel world caged in
between dimensions. But in a two-panel flashback, we also saw something that informs this
work: The death of Optiman on Earth-36, and the death of chibi Superman on Earth-42!

Action Comics #9 also introduced the “transmitter symphonic array,” which the Luthor of that
Earth said came to him while he was on drugs. That’s sort of a dream, right?

Hawkman-42 says they have lost (chibi) Wonder Woman and (chibi) Steel to “that box.” He
appears to be talking about the transmatter cube. We have seen the Wonder Woman and Steel
of this Earth on the Hall of Heroes, where they had been summoned by the “S.O.S.” in
Multiversity #1, and now we know they got there by transmatter cube (if we didn’t know
already).

Batman-42 tells Hawkman-42 and Green Arrow-42 (who looks like the Neal Adams version
of the late 1970s and early ‘80s) to leave. He addresses Hawkman-42 as “Katar,” indicating
that the alien origin of Hawkman applies in this world, the one in place from the Silver Age
Hawkman’s creation in 1961 to the Crisis in 1985-86.

Lecter Sivana is accompanied by human-sized robots, which he orders to kill the three chibis
while he and the chibi Sivana leave via the transmatter cube. He mentions that it’s word-
controlled, and mutters some words we cannot “hear.” Once again, sound – vibrations –
activate the inter-dimensional transport.

The “Little League” (Batman-42 calls his team that on page 6) is ineffective against the
robots, but suddenly all the robots are gunned down.

PAGE FOUR

The Batman of Earth-17 arrives, from the Atomic Knights world. It is he who shot the robots.
He arrives through a square “door” – likely a transmitter cube on Earth-17.

He uses “Krakkin’ Ex” where we would use “effing hell,” or something similar.

He mentions “the Dark Tower of Luthex,” the “Cosmic Grail.” We don’t know what these
things are (yet), but we recognize references to Luthor and the Holy Grail, or ersatz versions
of them, anyway.

PAGE SIX

Batman-17 says he dreamed “the rose that grows in winter,” entered “the vault of ages” and
saw “the four-stone.” Again, we don’t know yet what these mean, and they don’t seem to have
any specific reference to our mythology or literature. There is a Fourstones village in
Northumberland, and Forestone manufactures musical equipment, but neither seems to apply.
He suggests Batman-42 might be a “mutoid” or “one of Darkseid’s crew.” Mutoid could be
generic, but there’s no missing a Darkseid reference. Obviously, there’s an Apokolips in his
universe.

Batman-17 also uses “Jokerdammit” where we’d say “Goddammit.” I’m not even going to
guess what that implies for his world.

Batman-42 says they’re on the Pacific Island HQ of Professor Sivana. I don’t know if Sivana
ever had a Pacific Island HQ in any Captain Marvel comics – he probably did – but it could
also be a reference to Oolong Island. That island began as the HQ of “Egg Fu,” an
inexplicably giant egg-shaped villain in Wonder Woman #157 (1965). (There were related
stories involving Egg Fu the Fifth and Dr. Yes.) After Crisis on Infinite Earths Egg Fu was
revealed to be a product of Apokolips. After Infinite Crisis, a new Egg Fu appeared, calling
himself Chang Tzu, who was also an agent of Apokolips. He captured or coerced mad
scientists to his Pacific island base, which was renamed Oolong Island. (Presumably for the
Chinese tea.) Eventually that plan came undone, and Oolong became a sovereign nation, and
is currently under the protection of the Doom Patrol. Given Oolong’s Apokolips connection
and Batman-17’s reference to Darkseid, they could be related.

Batman-42 calls Batman-17 “Bruce” and reveals himself as the Dick Grayson of this world.
Why is Batman-42 Dick Grayson when all the other chibis are Silver Age versions?

PAGE SEVEN-EIGHT

Lecter Sivana brings Sivana-42 back to the mechanical Rock of Eternity (seen in
Thunderworld), located in The Bleed, and we catch him in mid-story explaining how the
“League of Sivanas” came to be. They are the Sivanas of 25 parallel worlds. He describes the
transmatter cubes as “doors” between the worlds. He also describes Mech-Eternity (I’m
calling it that) as “smaller on the inside than it looks on the outside,” reversing the line usually
reserved for tesseracts, magic bags and Dr. Who’s Tardis.

The Sivanas reveal their plan to conquer the multiverse. But Sivana-42 is told by the snake
Sivana that he and his earth are only good for snacks.

Reference is also made to Dr. Hoot seeing the transmatter cube in a dream. Dr. Hoot is a
villain on Earth-26, Captain Carrot’s world.

PAGE 10

The Marvel Family of Earth-5 (Cap, Mary, Junior) arrive, clearly searching for the Sivanas as
we saw them at the end of Thunderworld. Lecter Sivana blames the Sivana of Earth-5 for how
the Marvels found them. Maybe, maybe not. (It’s hard to take the word of a Sivana.) “Count
Sivana” is ordered to get his “vampire troops.” (I’d guess they’d be from Earth-43, the Red
Rain world.)

Lecter Sivana makes his unhealthy interest in Mary Marvel known again. I’m guessing
foreshadowing, but I honestly hope it’s just characterization.
PAGE 13

Batman-42 describes how the Little League was trapped and mostly killed. He describes his
world as one where everyone is “only playing” and nobody gets killed. Even the villains only
use “crazy gadgets and mind games.” It’s almost like Silver Age DC!

Batman-42 mentions that his Sivana, Doc Sivana, learned about the transmatter cube in a
dream. Another bad guy, another dream, another transmatter cube. Meanwhile, Batman-17’s
dream was of the “Rose That Grows in Winter.” One assumes the villains’ dreams come from
The Gentry, but Batman-17 may be referring to Flower, whom Kamandi & Co. are looking for
on an island (probably the same one) on Earth-51.

Batman-17 can’t operate the transmatter cube, and he describes his Gotham as one with a
“rad-pit” and “mumdads” turning into “shamblers.” Mom and Dads turning into mutants?
Perhaps his own Mom and Dad, inspiring him to be Batman? Just speculation on my part.

Batman-42 finds the Multiversity Guidebook, apparently left behind by Lecter Sivana.
Batman calls it a “picture book” – there are apparently no comic books on this childlike
world, which is either commentary or irony – and correctly figures out the whole parallel
Earth business. He may be tiny, but he’s still a Batman.

As he speaks he’s looking at …

PAGES 14-15

Earth-51, where we see Kamandi, Ben Boxer and Prince Tuftan (from Kamandi comics) in a
raft, arriving at “The Island of the God Watchers.” As I said above, this being a Morrison
book, it is probably the same Pacific island Batman-17 and Batman-42 are on, just in a
different universe.

PAGE 16-17

The trio are searching for “her,” which we will find out is Kamandi’s quasi-girlfriend Flower.
(The Rose that Grows in Winter?) Their dialogue is a bit stilted, doubtless a nod to the
famously stilted dialogue of Jack Kirby, writer-artist-creator of Kamandi.

They find the empty tomb of Darkseid, with footprints leading out.

Tuftan wonders if “god watchers” means the gods are the watchers (as we’ll see, he is right).
He also finds the flower Flower usually wears in her hair – it’s how she got her name –
indicating that she had been there.

Meanwhile, dialogue indicates someone is watching the trio and commenting that “all that we
feared has come to pass.”
PAGES 18-19

The watchers are Jack Kirby’s New Gods, whose Supertown, instead of floating in space, is
on a mountain (like Mt. Olympus). One watcher describes how they had slept after their
“celestial labors” and Darkseid took advantage of their absence to seed himself on many
worlds, wearing many faces. Presumably the gods watch this island to prevent Darkseid’s
escape, but napped on the job.

We see the throne room of Supertown, where we see (clockwise) Takion, Big Barda, Mr.
Miracle, Highfather, Himon, Lonar, Fastbak, the Invisible Woman Avia and Lightray, all New
Gods from Kirby’s “Fourth World” books. There is no Orion, who is probably wherever
Apokolips is, given that Mr. Miracle is here – that is to say, this is before or after “The Pact.”

The New Gods discuss Darkseid and New Gods on other earths as reflections of themselves.
The suggestion is that these New Gods are the primal ones, the originals, the blueprints.

As they watch Ben Boxer decides to activate his Cyclo-Heart. He calls upon the satellite Br’er
Eye to “OMACTIVATE!”

PAGE 20
Ben Boxer becomes BiOMAC, a combination of two Kirby concepts, the armored form of
Ben Boxer and OMAC, the One-Man Army Corps activated by the satellite Brother Eye, seen
here and referred to as Br’er Eye. Earth-51 is evidently the Earth of Kirby Koncepts! In the
original Kamandi, Ben Boxer simply turned into an armored form of himself (not OMAC)
after yelling ACTIVATE and pressing his Cyclo-Heart.

PAGE 21

Boxer solves one mystery by telling us who took Flower – Kangarat Slavers.

The trio discover hieroglyphics that are essentially a comic book on the wall. We know that
comic books can be used to allow entry to The Gentry, or to pass messages from one universe
to another, so any “comic book” in this story could be dangerous.

As if to remind us of one of Morrison’s themes, BiOMAC says, “Be careful, Kamandi. Stories
can be dangerous.”

The story is a “picture history” from “before the before,” and is apparently Morrison’s Book
of Genesis for the DCU.

PAGES 22-23

In a style somewhat similar to illuminated manuscripts – suggesting a religious undertone –

we learn that when nothing and everything were the same thing, all of it constituted Perfection
(a vast field of white). But then an imperfection appeared. “A flaw that ‘is’ Everything
Perfection is not.” (Amusingly, the “is” in quotes made me think of the Clinton attorney
wanting to know what the definition of “is” is.)

The vast field of white, as Morrison has said in interviews, is the blank page. And the stories
being drawn on it are the imperfection, which irritates the blank page, which sequesters the
imperfection away, in what we now call the DC Multiverse, and the container we call the
Orrery of Worlds.

The imperfection first appears as a red, electric-looking thing. It’s very small, though, so
perhaps we’re not seeing it clearly. However, if it is a red, electric-looking thing, that suggests
The Flash. Could this be the Speed Force?

Perfection became aware of the flaw and in response named itself Monitor-Mind the Over-
Void. This tells us something important: The outer “universe” containing the DC Multiverse
(the “Over-Void”) is sentient! This is something we’d naturally call “God,” but I don’t think
it’s going to work that way. For one thing, Perfection is pretty imperfect in its actions. To wit:

“Of the Over-Void is Monitor born and Anti-Monitor, the Conflict generator, the Story
Machine.”

It’s unclear here how the Monitor/Anti-Monitor come about. The passive tense indicates
Perfection didn’t mean for them to come into being, it just kinda happened, perhaps as a result
of Perfection suddenly being less than Everything – giving itself an identity to separate itself
from the imperfection. But the second half is more straightforward: Morrison is once again
establishing stories – narrative – as the driving force of the universe. Now we see the need for
a “devil,” the Anti-Monitor: He brings chaos and conflict, from which stories spring. Without
him, the universe would be static. This, clearly, is the theology that Morrison is establishing
here (and perhaps subscribes to himself).

Perfection contains the imperfection in what we will someday call the Orrery of Worlds. It
creates Science Monitor Dax Novu to study it. Novu is infected and splits into two (the
Monitor and Anti-Monitor, presumably, of Crisis on Infinite Earths) and in other stories, the
Monitor splits into 52 to monitor each individual world. That is not mentioned here, however,
where instead Novu is “blinded, corrupted by the Flaw’s lightning dazzle.”

“And so begins all things,” reads Kamandi, “with a Flash …” as he touches a symbol showing
a lightning bolt splitting a circle.

Ohhhh, boy. There’s a lot to speculate on here. Let’s get the obvious out of the way: The Flash
launched the Silver Age (Showcase #4), and discovered the Multiverse (Flash #123), so he’s
present at the creation of those two seminal events. He also played a central role in both
Crisis on Infinite Earths and Flashpoint. So, yeah, it all begins with a Flash – Barry Allen, to
be precise.

But that’s metatextual. Within the text, does it suggest that the “dazzle,” the “Flash” that
blinds Novu, is the Story Engine, and therefore the Anti-Monitor? Or does it suggest that the
Speed Force, from which all Flashes spring, is the original imperfection Over-Void contained
in the Orrery, and is the wellspring of all story? Or is it something else entirely?

It may or may not be significant that the “imperfection” in the Over-Void’s perfect white
expanse looks like red lightning – like The Flash.

Further, the symbol is a lightning bolt over a circle, similar to Barry Allen’s first chest
symbol. However, the bolt isn’t lying over a circle, it’s splitting it – suggesting that the
“dazzle,” the “Flash,” (or perhaps the Speed Force) is what splits worlds into multiple worlds,
i.e., how the multiverse gets created.

Or maybe it destroys worlds. Discuss.

Meanwhile, BiOMAC discovers some comic books. Specifically, the one we are reading. As
we know, comic books are The Gentry’s entry into the multiverse, and/or are messages
between universes. The comic book we are reading, however, seems benign (as opposed to
Ultra Comics).

PAGES 24-29

Morrison doesn’t corroborate any of the above speculation, but he does spend four pages on
Barry Allen and the history of the multiverse as revealed in comic-book stories, which is
probably significant. Morrison does a brief overview of Barry Allen’s discovery of the
multiverse, from a Morrisonian perspective. He uses captions with little hands pointing to
things mentioned in the caption, which Carmine Infantino used to do in Silver Age Flash
comics.

Morrison says Flash can approach the speed of light, but he doesn’t refer to it as the speed of
light … he just calls it “light.” Is the Speed Force the “let there be light” of DC’s Genesis?

He refers to Earth-Two’s vibrational frequency as “only a bass tone.” That can also be read as
“only a base tone” – because Earth-Two, the world of the Golden Age heroes, is the basis for
everything else.

While the original stories always referred to Flash’s ability to cross the multiversal barriers as
a matter of vibration, Morrison always uses the language of music to describe it. Since music
is essentially ordered vibration, that’s pretty clever.

Morrison says “… was Barry Allen a fiction in some higher, as yet undiscovered world?”
Well, yes, because Morrison has established that. Specifically, Barry Allen in is a fiction on
Earth-36, and maybe elsewhere.

The fourth panel on Page 24 is a reproduction of the cover to Flash #123 (“Flash of Two
Worlds,” the first Earth-Two story).

The fifth panel on Page 25 is a reproduction of the cover to Justice League of America #21
(“Crisis on Earth-One,” the first JLA/JSA crossover).

The first panel on Page 25 shows a variety of Flashes from a variety of worlds. Some are
familiar (Jay Garrick of Earth-Two, Jay Garrick of Earth-2, Barry Allen), but most are not.
Front and center is a chibi Flash, presumably from Earth-42.

The second panel on Page 26 looks very much like the wraparound cover of DC 100 Page
Super Spectacular #6 by Neal Adams, although it isn’t drawn in the Adams style.

The third panel on Page 27 depicts the battle against the Anti-Monitor from Crisis on Infinite
Earths.
The first panel on Page 28 depicts a scene I do not recognize, of Parallax standing triumphant
over Superman while holding the empty uniform of Barry Allen. However, it does sort-of
symbolize the Parallax story.

Panel two of Page 28 depicts the “pounding of Superboy’s fists” – the Superboy of Earth-
Prime (Earth-33) who first appeared in DC Comics Presents #87 and was the central
antagonist of Infinite Crisis. He is symbolically shattering the barriers between universes.

The third panel of Page 28 depicts Booster Gold, Rip Hunter and Nova from the last Booster
Gold series, where Booster was essentially a space/time repairman.

The fourth panel shows Monitors observing the Orrery of Worlds, while the captions say they
kept a record of all the changes in the multiverse in the fictions of Earth-33 – Earth-Prime.

The first panel of Page 29 says Nix Uotan, the only son of Novu, as the last monitor. But the
panel shows him hugging his girlfriend, also a monitor, which is a mixed message. Also, this
is as good a place as any to mention that Morrison said in an interview that Uotan is
pronounced “Wotan,” the Teutonic version of Odin, which can’t be coincidental.

The second panel depicts Barry Allen and Thomas “Batman” Wayne from Flashpoint.

The third panel depicts the open hand with the universe in it at the dawn of time, first seen in
Green Lantern #40, which DC has essentially been trying to explain ever since. However, in
this depiction, we see the flaw/orrery of worlds in the center of the open hand. (Incidentally,
one Crisis or another established that the hand was that of Krona, who messed everything up,
then that ofThe Spectre, reaching back to the beginning of time to straighten everything out. I
guess Morrison is ignoring that story.)

In the fourth panel BiOMAC mentions that it is the Kangarats who freed Darkseid in some
“barbaric rite,” answering the question Highfather asked earlier. I have to say it’s pretty
curious that the freeing of Darkseid to proliferate throughout the universe has just happened in
this book, when it clearly happened much earlier in “our” storylines. Morrison doesn’t explain
it, and I have no guesses.

In the final panel, Batman-42 twigs to what Multiversity Guidebook is, and says the maps will
“save us all.” Batman-17 cannily sums the book and the story as their “reality from the
outside.”

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PAGES 30-31

The now familiar map of the Multiverse, which has been available in print online for some
time.

However, I have never before been able to read the legend on the left. With the aid of
afternoon sunlight and a magnifying glass, I was finally able to do so, and found some
interesting things:

* Beyond the Source Wall is not only the Over-Void, but “The Source” and “The
Unknowable.” They are capitalized, so they are proper nouns, but I don’t know who/what
they are.

* Limbo is “where matter and memory break down,” not – as I assumed – where
forgotten/canceled characters hang out.

* All gods and demons, not just of comic books but of real-world religions, hang out in the
“Sphere of the Gods.” The Christian heaven and hell, for example, are here – equal and not
superior to Skyland, where the pagan gods hang out, and New Genesis, where the New Gods
hang out. Evidently Jesus, Jehovah and Mohammed are just characters in the multiverse,
lower in rank to the Over-Void.

* “Dream” isn’t just the home to Neil Gaiman’s Morpheus, but also Santa Claus, the Easter
Bunny and Amethyst’s Gemworld. (Has Gemworld been revealed to be a dream of some
kind? I know it’s been retconned a couple of times.)

* Hell isn’t just the home of the Christian devil, but also comic-book devils/demons like
Etrigan, the Demons Three (Abnegazar, Rath and Ghast), Trigon and Neron. If your theology
has a devil, he’s here.

* Wonderworld is the home of “primal superheroes.” I wanna see what Morrison thinks are
primal superheroes!

PAGES 32-33

Batman-17 references the “Dark Tower” again. Perhaps that’s Darkseid’s tomb on his world,
located on the same Pacific island as on Earth-51.

Batman-42 reveals that Li’l Gotham #12 is connected to Multiverse. The cover blurb “Who’s
that knocking on the door” isn’t just a reference to an old Rod Stewart song, but also to The
Gentry.

The next panel puts an unsolved Rubik’s Cube front and center. You’d think that with
Batman-42 puzzling out the comics and transmatter cubes, it would be a solved cube!

Batman-17 also makes the same reference in panel three of Page 33, “We don’t have time!
They’re knocking at the door!” Although he may be referring to Sivana’s robots. Either way,
it’s a reminder that The Gentry are still out there, trying to access all 52 universes.

Batman-42 refers to the 52 worlds as “the local multiverse.” That implies a broader one out
there, beyond the 52 universes we know.

PAGES 34-67
Descriptions of the Earths of the 52 universe. My page numbers don’t match up to the ones on
the book, because I’m counting ad pages and the Guidebook does not.

Earth-0: The New 52.

Earth-1: The world of the Earth-One series of graphic novels, which so far include three
Superman books, two Batman books and one Teen Titans book. While Wonder Woman is
depicted, she has yet to appear in any Earth-One graphic novels.

Earth-2: The updated Earth-Two, currently being depicted in the books Earth-2, Worlds’
Finest and Earth-2: World’s End.

Earth-3: Home of the Crime Syndicate of America, the version that recently appeared in the
“Forever Evil” storyline. Another version first appeared in Justice League of America #29-30.

Earth-4: Home of the original Charlton characters. Peacemaker and Captain Atom are
depicted as alive and well, despite the events in Pax Americana.

Earth-5: Home of the original Fawcett characters, as depicted in Thunderworld.

Earth-6: A parody of Marvel, including a Secret Invasion (of Durlans instead of Skrulls) and a
Civil War, but using variations of DC characters. First appeared in Final Crisis: Superman
Beyond #1.

Earth-7: Thinly veiled version of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe. Destroyed in Multiversity #1,
as it is soon to be destroyed at Marvel in Secret Wars #1.

Earth-8: Thinly veiled version of Marvel’s regular 616 universe, with Future Family
(Fantastic Four), The G-Men (X-Men), The Retaliators (Avengers), American Crusader
(Captain America), Machinehead (Iron Man), Behemoth (Hulk), Bug (Spider-Man), Wundajin
(Thor), etc.

Earth-9: The characters from the Tangent line of books. First appeared in Tangent: The Atom
#1.

Earth-10: Formerly Earth-X (X being 10 in Roman numerals), a world where the Nazis won
World War II, first seen in Justice League of America #107-108. The familiar DC superheroes
are the bad guys, while the characters from Quality Comics (Uncle Sam, Doll-Man, Phantom
Lady, Human Bomb, etc.) are the good guys, known as the Freedom Fighters. It appears the
next issue of Multiversity will focus on this world.

Earth-11: Gender-reversed world. First seen in Superman/Batman #23.

Earth-12: Home of Batman Beyond and Justice League Beyond.

Earth-13: A supernatural variation, where the superheroes are monster-ish. Because, you
know, 13. First seen in Countdown: Arena #1.

Earth-14: Unknown. I like that some of the worlds are unknown. That leaves room for other
writers to spin their own tales; or to place our favorite cartoons, movies or Elseworlds stories;
or to imagine our own alternate earths. Morrison, like any good writer, leaves doors open.
Earth-15: Home of Superboy-Prime … before he destroyed it. Nothing is left except for a
Green Lantern power battery, which Morrison describes as “immensely powerful” and
“hidden somewhere among the many worlds of the Multiverse.” It’s called the “Cosmic
Grail,” akin to the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend, which Batman-17 referred to earlier.

Earth-16: “Earth-Me,” the world of the bored and privileged sons and daughters of the DC
heroes, as seen in Multiversity: The Just. Various characters have been ascribed to this world
(some later un-ascribed), such as Bob Haney’s Super-Sons, the Young Justice cartoon and
Christopher Kent. It also seems to represent the DC Universe of the 1980s, without any of the
later changes (Kyle Rayner is the only Green Lantern, Wally West is still The Flash,
Bloodwynd is in the Justice League, etc.).

Earth-17: Home of the Atomic Knights of Justice, led by Captain Adam Strange. A variation
on the old Atomic Knights stories, complete with a nuclear war in 1963. (That’s Morrison
tipping his hat to John Broome, I imagine.)

Eath-18: Home of DC Western characters, like Superchief, El Diablo, Cinnamon, etc. This
world was first seen in the Elseworlds Justice Riders.

Earth-19: Home of Victorian/Edwardian versions of DC heroes, some of which were seen in

the Elseworlds Gotham by Gaslight and Batman: Master of the Future. Could include Wonder
Woman: Amazonia and JLA: Age of Wonder.

Earth-20: The pulp era Earth, as seen in Multiversity: Society of Super-Heroes.

Earth-21: The JFK-era Justice League, as seen in Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier.

Earth-22: The Kingdom Come Earth.

Earth-23: Home of Calvin Ellis, President Superman. It appears on this Earth that black is the
dominant skin color/race, as all of the Justice League (except Batman, for some reason) are
black. President Superman was the star of Action Comics (second series) #9, and his first
official appearance is listed as Final Crisis #7. However, The Flash ran into a black Justice
League back in Crisis on Infinite Earths. If a black Superman appeared in the group shot – I
don’t remember if one did – that’s too much of a coincidence, so I would consider that his
first appearance.

Earth-24: Unknown.

Earth-25: Unknown.

Earth-26: Home of Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew. A land of cartoon physics,
formerly known as Earth-C.

Earth-27: Unknown.

Earth-28: Unknown.

Earth-29: Bizarro world. (Yay!)

Earth-30: The Earth of Superman: Red Son.

Earth-31: Home of the privateer Captain Leatherwing (Batman), first seen in Detective
Comics Annual #7.

Earth-32: A JLA-in-a-blender world, riffing off the Elseworlds Batman: In Darkest Night (in
which Abin Sur gives his ring to Bruce Wayne). Barry Allen, Clark Kent and Diana of
Themyscira are also given Green Lantern rings on that Elseworlds, which is not the case here
– instead, along with the Batman/Green Lantern mash-up called Bat-Lantern, you have a
Super-Martian (Superman/Martian Manhunter), Black Arrow (Black Canary/Green Arrow),
Wonderhawk (Hawkman/Wonder Woman) and Aquaflash (Aquaman/Flash) as members of
the Justice Titans (Justice League/Teen Titans). I have to say, some of those blended
superheroes seem a lot more useful than the originals! (I’m looking at you, Wonderhawk.)

Earth-33: Earth-Prime, where Ultra Comics comes from. Originally Earth-Prime was our
planet, and real people like Julius Schwartz, Cary Bates and Elliot S. Maggin were depicted in
various issues of Flash and Justice League of America. And we had our own Superman,
briefly, called Utraa. Now, however, Earth-Prime appears to be just another fictional universe.
We’ll learn more, I imagine, in Multiversity #2. It should be noted that the Guidebook says
Earth-33’s lone superhero is Ultra Comics, which is such a weird name that it’s probably
either a story point or a mistake. I’d guess the later, given his literary predecessor’s name was
just Ultraa.

Earth-34: DC’s Wiki says this world is the one that appeared in Wonder Woman: Amazonia,
but it looks more to me like a thinly veiled Astro City.

Earth-35: The Rob Liefeld universe, with Supremo (Supreme), Majesty (Glory) and others I
can’t identify, because I never read Awesome Comics.

Earth-36: The Earth of Justice 9, where Optiman (their Superman) was killed by
Superdoomsday in Action Comics (second series) #9. We met Red Racer (Flash) and
Flashlight (Green Lantern) in Multiversity #1. Marvel Comics are called Major Comics on
this Earth.

Earth-37: Home of the Thrillkiller characters.

Earth-38: Home of John Byrne’s Superman and Batman: Generations characters.

Earth-39: Home of Tower Comics characters, called Agents of W.O.N.D.E.R.

(T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents). They include Cyclotron (Dynamo), Doctor Nemo (NoMan),
Corvus (Raven), Accelerator (Lightning) and Psi-Man (Menthor).

Earth-40: Another pulp era world, where the major characters are all villains, as seen in
Multiversity: Society of Super-Heroes. The Guidebook says Earth-40 and Earth-20 form a
“binary universe” that resonates in “catastrophic harmony.” Incidentally, the characters who
met a fatal end in S.O.S. are shown hale and whole here.

Earth-41: The Image universe, with Dino-Cop (Savage Dragon), Nimrod Squad
(Youngblood), Nightcracker (Darkhawk), Spore (Spawn), etc.

Earth-42: The chibi world, which the guide says “hides a great and terrible secret.” We know
from later in the story that part of the secret is that the Little League (and perhaps the entire
population) is made up of robots. As mentioned, the Superman of this world was “killed” by
Superdoomsday in Action Comics (second series) #9.
Earth-43: A world riffing off the Elseworlds graphic novels Batman & Dracula: Red Rain,
Batman: Bloodstorm and Batman: Crimson Mist. In those books Batman was a vampire, but
in the illustration, it appears the entire Justice League is vampiric.

Earth-44: A sort of Justice League-Metal Men mash-up world: Gold Superman, Iron Batman,
Platinum Wonder Woman, etc. In a cute twist, the only robot Justice Leaguer (Red Tornado) is
the only human here – Professor Will Tornado (the Doc Will Magnus analog). The DC wiki
says these characters – Metal Justice, maybe? Metal Hurlant? – appeared in Final Crisis #7
and Justice League of America (second series) #43, but I don’t remember them.

Earth-45: The world where Jimmy Olsen, Clark Kent and Lois Lane came up with thought
technology, which was used by Overcorp to create Superdoomsday, who killed the Superman
analogs of Earth-36 and Earth-42 before being destroyed by President Superman of Earth-23
and The New 52 Superman of Earth-0.* I don’t know of any other super-chararacters from
this Earth, and Earth-45’s one-eyed Lois Lane is now living on Earth-23 (the Clark and
Jimmy of Earth-45 are dead).

* Brief digression: I do think of The New 52 Superman as just another Superman, and not
“THE” Superman. I think THE Superman went away with Crisis on Infinite Earths, and we
have been subjected to a parade of pretenders ever since. That’s because I’m an old fart, of
course, but also because of stories like this, which reinforce the idea that every world has its
own Superman, which they think of as THE Superman, so why should I think of any of them
as the original?

Earth-46: Unknown.

Earth-47: The world where Prez and Brother Power, the Geek happened. It also seems like a
world where fashions, styles and the drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll culture of the late 1960s never
changed, so we have Sunshine Superman (named for a 1966 Donovan song, with a ginormous
blaxploitation-style Afro), Speed Freak (the Flash analog, named for a slang term for an
amphetamine addict), Magic Lantern (probably a riff off the 1968 Steppenwolf drug anthem
“Magic Carpet Ride”) with the Timothy Leary phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out” on his shirt,
and so forth.

Earth-48: Home of the Forerunners seen in Countdown to Adventure. However, the Guide
tells us that it is the home of Lady Quark and Lord Volt, first seen in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Earth-48 is nicknamed War World, not to be confused with Mongul’s Warworld.

Earth-49: Unknown.

Earth-50: Home of the Justice Lords from the Justice League/Justice League Unlimited
cartoon.

Eearth-51: As seen earlier in this very issue, the home of Jack Kirby’s major concepts for DC:
Kamandi, New Gods and OMAC.

PAGE 68-69

In the first panel, Kamandi speculates that on another world “on an island like this one, people
like us are … “ I’m guessing this confirms my speculation that they are on the same island on
Earth-51 that the two Batmen are on, on Earth-42.

In the second panel, the fiery hand appears, writing on the wall. This looks identical to the
Moving Hand of The Source that would give instructions to Kirby’s New Gods in the 1970s.
Only in this scenario it doesn’t appear to be benign. It is writing “I Found You” as Kamandi,
Tuftan and biOMAC flee, because the walls are shaking.

Highfather, still watching, says the walls of all the worlds are shaking. That Darkseid is just
one theme in a symphony. (A symphony of evil, one imagines, that is coming to crescendo.)

Highfather mentions Nix Uotan as “the son of the Monitor Novu – a young supergod broken
and corrupted by demons.” We saw that happen in Multiversity #1, where the “demons” were
The Gentry.

Highfather also mentions a power “beyond them all – that dread and empty hand! Whose
name none dare voice.” This seems to be a reference to the empty hand from Green Lantern
#40, but is also said in proximity to the fiery hand, suggesting that IT is the “dread and empty
hand.”

Highfather says he fears “That One” has awakened, but there’s nothing they can do until their
powers “return in full.” Because they’ve been copied to 51 other earths? Unclear.

Lightray indicates that the New Gods consider Kamandi “our last, eternal boy.”

The skies turn red in the third panel. Red skies were a sign of the approach of the Anti-
Monitor’s anti-matter wall in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

The final panel of Page 69 has Nix Outan claiming to have freed Darkseid in the name of The
Gentry and hin whom they both serve, “The Empty Hand.” For a character we didn’t know
about until last page, that empty hand is getting quite a workout!

PAGE 70

Batman reads the line in the Guidebook about Earth-42’s “terrible secret,” but doesn’t know
what it is. How do you not know you’re a robot?

Batman-42 figures out how to activate the transmatter cube just as Sivana’s robots break in.
Batman-42 sees the “dead” J’onn J’onzz, whose robotic parts are showing, revealing the
“terrible secret.” Or part of it, at least. Batman-17 hears his friends through the transmatter
cube, so it is likely tuned in to Earth-17. Batman-17 throws Batman-42 through the cube, but
he stays to fight the robots. (He does know how to activate it now, so he has a chance.)

Batman-42 reaches Batman-17, where Captain Adam Strange, and the Atomic Knights Flash
and Wonder Woman (all riding giant dogs, like the original Atomic Knights) want to know
where their Batman is. Batman-42 is carrying the flower that came from Earth-51, which
Strange declares is the Rose That Grows In Winter. Could that simply mean any flower that
grows … in a nuclear winter? Like the one on Earth-17?

In the final panel of Page 70, the skies turn red. Obviously, bad news is on the way here, too.
 PAGE 71

Batman-17 escapes Earth-42 and ends up in the Hall of Heroes. We see Dino-Cop of Earth-
41, Lord Volt of Earth-48. Bloodwynd of Earth-16 and Steel of Earth-42. They say the
characters sent to Earth-7 (back in Multiversity #1) have failed to return. (That would be
Superman of Earth-23, Thunderer of Earth-7, Red Racer of Earth-36, Aquawoman of Earth-41
and Captain Carrot of Earth-C.) They say the entire multiverse is under the attack (explaining
the red skies, I guess) and that they are on the front lines.

Incidentally, Lord Volt was killed in his introductory story, Crisis on Infinite Earths #4. I
guess he got better.

PAGES 72-75

Hellmachine, one of The Gentry, has manifested on our plane and is attacking the Hall of
Heroes. The Harbinger Mind computer sends out an S.O.S. (another in a series, collect ‘em
all!).

The Steel and Wonder Woman of Earth-42 go blank-eyed and start chanting “empty.” Back on
Earth-42, Four of the “dead” Little Leaguers (Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg and Martian
Manhunter) are to “Get up” and “reset” by … AN EMPTY HAND! “You have died before,
and you will die many times more before I am done with you. See how my hand is empty.”

The four robots get up, saying “Empty is thy hand” in unison. So now we know the “terrible
secret” of Earth-42!

PAGES 76-80

House ads.

MULTIVERSITY: MASTERMEN #1

COVER
 The legend on the left indicates this issue is about Earth-10.
Two characters are depicted arm-wrestling with a globe as the “table.”
One figure is Uncle Sam, a character created for Quality Comics by Will Eisner as the spirit of a
slain Revolutionary War soldier.
Uncle Sam was among the many Quality Comics characters bought by DC in the 1950s. He first
appeared at his new publisher in Justice League of America (first series) #107-108 as part of a
group of insurgents battling Nazis on Earth-X, where the Axis won World War II. With the help of
the Justice League, Uncle Sam and his guerrillas defeated the Nazis.
Uncle Sam and other Quality characters moved to Earth-One (and their own title) in 1976. Post-
Crisis, his origin was re-written so that he was the Spirit of the United States, created by the
Founding Fathers through Masonic rituals and incarnating in various eras when the U.S. is in peril
(The Spectre, third series, #37-38). He has made various appearances since with, more or less, this
concept, although Father Time of S.H.A.D.E. said in Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters that he
was an unclassifiable being.
Uncle Sam’s opponent is a Nazi version of Superman named Overman, with the runic lightning-bolt
symbol used by the Nazi SchutzStaffel (SS) appearing on the character’s chest instead of the
Superman “S.”
“Overman” is the literal translation of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche’s Ubermensch, a
concept introduced in his seminal work Also Sprach Zarathustra. The Overman (which can also be
translated more loosely as Superman) focuses on the material world as an alternative to Christianity,
and its focus on otherworldly rewards. The Nazis adopted some aspects of the Overman concept
for their philosophy as Germans being the Master Race.
The battle over a globe is likely a metaphorical representation of two sides battling for, presumably,
world conquest on one side and world freedom on the other.
The tableau is contained in an ornate frame with the traditional German eagle symbol (also adopted
by the Nazis) at the top.
It should be noted that the original Earth-X of the old multiverse is now Earth-10 in The New 52
multiverse. Clever, as “X” is “10” in Roman numerals.
PAGE ONE
Hitler is shown on the toilet reading a Superman comic book. The cover is one that never appeared
in our world, of Superman punching Hitler (a scene that did appear on the cover of Captain
America Comics #1). The closest equivalent is Superman #17, which depicts Superman astride a
globe, holding by the scruff of their necks Hitler in one hand and Hirohito in the other. Also, a
famous story in a 1940 Look magazine featured the two-page comic strip “What If Superman Ended
the War?” that included Hitler, but not the scene on the cover of Hitler’s Superman comic book. So
that comic book isn’t one that exists on our world.

PAGE TWO
An aide refers to Hitler as “Leader.” Hitler was often referred to as “Der Fuehrer,” which translates
to (among other things) “The Leader.” It soon become evident that all the speakers in this book are
speaking German unless otherwise indicated, and it is simply being translated without comment. I
will reverse-translate where appropriate or interesting.
The aide mentions Col. von Hammer, who could be a very old Hans von Hammer, the star of DC’s
World War I series “Enemy Ace.” The von Hammer depicted in those stories would not have been
very happy with Hitler’s philosophy, but would very likely have felt bound by honor to fight for his
country – as was the case in WWI, where he did not care for the Kaiser or his ambitions but fought
anyway. But it's more likely a relative or descendant, as we shall see.
Hitler is depicted as being constipated, and refers to himself as “writhing in agony.” Hitler suffered
from many chronic ailments, among them constipation, stomach cramps, diarrhea and
uncontrollable flatulence.

PAGE THREE
Hitler refers to the comic book as “waste paper.” Famously, the official newspaper (and propaganda
organ) of the SS lambasted the Superman story in Look magazine. Also, Bundists (American Nazi
sympathizers) threatened Timely Comics for its anti-Nazi stories. The Nazis, as this reference
indicates, were no fans of American comic books.
The last panel is a scene-setter for a place called Peenemunde, which is a port city on an island in
the Baltic Sea near the coast of Germany. Peenemunde translates literally to “Peene Mouth,” as the
city is located at the mouth of the Peene River, where it debouches into the Baltic Sea. During
World War II, Peenemunde was home to Germany’s most advanced rocket research, and developed
the Vergeltungswaffe (Retribution Weapon) 2, known colloquially as the V-2 rocket. The scientists
at Peenemunde, which included the famous Werner von Braun, were referred to as
“Peenemunders.”
Various voices are raised saying “Hail Hitler!”, which is the literal translation of the Nazi salute
“Heil Hitler.”

PAGE FOUR
Werner von Braun appears as a rocket engineer at Peenemunde, as he was in real life.

PAGE SIX
The rocket found in the Sudetenland (obviously the one that landed in Kansas in our world) is
indestructible. Just as in our world, things from Krypton are indestructible on Earth.

PAGE EIGHT
The baby from Krypton is shown to be indestructible. This is in line with the Silver Age Superman,
whose powers were 100 percent from the moment he was under a yellow sun, as opposed to the
Golden Age and post-Crisis versions of the character, where his powers developed gradually as he
absorbed yellow-sun radiation.
The baby says “Aay-ell” twice, perhaps trying to say his name, Kal-El.

PAGE NINE
Hitler leaps to the conclusion that the baby is a time-traveler, and christens him the “Man of
Tomorrow.” That is one of Superman’s nicknames.
We see a copy of The American Crusader comics from Major Comics, corresponding to Captain
America Comics and Timely (later Marvel) Comics. Major Comics is the Marvel Comics substitute
on a number of worlds in this series.
Hitler refers to the child as being the “Man of Iron.” One of Superman’s nicknames is the Man of
Steel. It seems right that Hitler would gravitate to iron, though, as that metal signifies strength in a
number of cultures, and strength was a big deal in German culture even before the Nazis, who
raised it to the highest virtue. The Germans’ highest medal for generations, for example, was the
Iron Cross, while Otto von Bismarck’s famous speech about German unification in 1862 was titled
“Blood and Iron.” Our own culture boasts Iron Man the superhero and Iron Man triathlons, as well
as the “iron fist in a velvet glove”

PAGES 10-11
A grown Overman is depicted leading victorious Nazi forces through Washington D.C., signifying
Nazi victory in World War II.

PAGE 12
Nazi troops burn American comic books, one depicting, ironically, Superman. The Nazis were
notorious book-burners, so it’s unsurprising. But the time is 1956, only a few years after mass
comic-book bonfires in America by Americans!
Uncle Sam is seen, battered and defeated like the country he represents.

PAGE 14
Uncle Sam swipes a Superman comic book from the bonfire. Although the story doesn’t say so, it is
likely Uncle Sam uses comic books to contact other dimensions, as they have been used in other
Multiversity books.

PAGE 16
Overman is dreaming of the death of Overgirl, in a pose reminiscent of the same scene of Superman
holding Supergirl on the cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths #7. Other Nazi-themed Justice Leaguers
are shown dead or defeated at his feet. Lord Broken, one of The Gentry, is in the background.
A panel informs us that it is now 60 years later (2016).

PAGE 17
Superman awakens with his wife, “Lena.” That could be Lena Luthor (or Thorul), but it’s more
likely Lana Lang. Superman’s civilian name is Karl, not Clark.
He says he has the dream every night. Obviously, Lord Broken has achieved some influence here.
Lena tells him he must be “strong,” a very Nazi-like thing to say.

PAGE 18-19
We see Nazi versions of the Justice League, called here The New Reichsmen, including versions of
Batman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman and Aquaman. This represents the founding
members of the Justice League in 1960, with the curious exception of a Green Lantern analog.
Of special interest are the Flash analog, who is female here, and the Wonder Woman analog, who is
decked out in Bavarian gear – she obviously is connected to the Norse/Teutonic gods instead of the
Greek gods. (I would think she would be connected to the Roman gods, since Italy was a member of
the Axis, and they are the Greco-Roman gods after all. But I didn’t write or draw the book.)
We also see what looks to be Nazi-world versions of Jimmy Olsen and Alfred Pennyworth.
A memoir begins, obviously being written years after the events we are seeing. It refers to the Fall
of Metropolis and the Twilight of the New Reichsmen. The latter is an obvious reference to
Ragnarok, loosely translated to “Twilight of the Gods,” which in Norse mythology is the death of
the gods.

PAGE 20
It is revealed that the writer of the memoir is the Jimmy Olsen analog, Overman’s best friend here
as he is Superman’s best friend on our world.
Olsen describes Superman and the New Reichsmen in heroic terms that would fit the Justice
League. But as we discover, he betrays Overman and the Reichsmen. Why is never made clear.
Olsen makes mention of Overman’s “seemingly ageless consort.” That’s not Brunnhilde as you’d
expect, but Lena, who does not age due to a serum from a planet “now dust” (p. 36). Undoubtedly
this is a Silver Age Superman reference that I don’t remember.

PAGE 21
It is mentioned that English is a banned language.
We see Uncle Sam’s gigantic face in the clouds.

PAGE 22
The Human Bomb of this world appears.
The female Flash is referred to as “Lightning.” That makes sense, as lightning – Blitz – was a
favored word of the Nazis, as in Blitzkrieg (lighting war).

PAGE 23
Blitz also has a stylized SS lightning-bolt insignia.

PAGE 24
The New Reichsmen HQ is a satellite, much like the Justice League has had a satellite at various
times. It is called “The Eagle’s Nest” (die Kehlsteinhaus) the same name as the house built by
Martin Bormann for Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday above Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps.

PAGE 25
We finally see a Nazi Green Lantern, as well as a Nazi Red Tornado. Note that Nazi Martian
Manhunter has used his shapeshifting powers to appear with white skin – a necessity in a world run
by Nazis.
Overman implies he has remorse for “the shame of our past,” presumably war atrocities. He is not
ashamed of the superhero-type battles they’ve had, which appear to correspond to Justice League
battles, and mentions the Star Conqueror (Starro on our world), Konstrukt (Construct, with the
Germanic spelling), the Luthor League (Injustice League?) and Kanjar Ro (Kanjar Ro).

PAGE 26
Batman’s name here is Leatherwing. The pirate world features a Captain Leatherwing. (I guess die
Fledermausmann was too unwieldy.)
Leatherwing refers to his "grandfather von Hammer," meaning the Col. von Hammer who found
Overman's rocket ship in 1938 could have been his father.
Aquaman’s name is Underwaterman, Unterseemann in German, as German submarines were
unterseeboots, or U-boats. Later, Leatherwing even refers to him as “U-Man.”
We learn that Atlantis fought on the Allied side, and would have been wiped out if Hitler didn’t
come to believe that Atanteans were the root of the Aryan race.
Wonder Woman’s name is Brunnhilde, the name of a character in Teutonic mythology made famous
in Richard Wagner’s “Die Ring des Nibelungen” tetralogy, confirming her connection to a different
pantheon than on our world.

PAGE 27
Brunnhilde confirms that English is not only banned, but a “dead language.”
Blitz picks up a weapon from another universe and detects “weird vibrations.” This correlates to
what we know, that the different dimensions vibrate at different speeds and that those connected to
the Speed Force are especially sensitive to those vibrations.

PAGE 29
We see trophies, which include a Thanagarian hawk mask (did they simply kill Hawkman as an
alien?), the Construct prison (I think), something I can’t identify and Kanjar Ro’s outfit.
Evidently, Martian Manhunter is just called “the Martian” on Earth-10 (die Marsmann).
Brunnhilde makes some typically Nazi remarks about strength and weakness.
PAGE 30
Uncle Sam’s revolutionaries are depicted on an island near the damaged Statue of Liberty. Ellis
Island, maybe? Sam recites an ersatz version of the Emma Lazarus poem at the base of the Statue of
Liberty. Once again, Morrison makes a poetry reference.

PAGE 31
We learn America is called Germanica on this world. Germanica is Latin for German.
The Doll Man and Doll Girl of this world appear to be Jehovah’s Witnesses. They won’t fight
aggressively, but will defend. They believe that their world is in the Biblical end times, as Jehovah’s
Witnesses tend to do. Uncle Sam then recites a line from Revelations.

PAGES 32-33
We discover that the source of the other-dimensional weaponry is the Sivana of Earth-10, Doktor
Sivana (implying he is one of the group of Sivanas we have met before).
Sivana has given super-powers to some of those who have joined Uncle Sam, survivors of “the
purges of the ‘50s and ‘60s.” They come from “out” groups that the Nazis would likely exterminate:
Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Romani (gypsies), Negros. As Sivana says, the “usual suspects.”
The “Freedom Fighters” (which is what the Quality characters were called on post-Crisis Earth)
include a muscular Phantom Lady, a genuinely black Black Condor, The Ray, Doll Man and Doll
Girl. These are all variations of Quality Comics characters.

PAGES 34-35
It appears Jimmy Olsen’s name on this world is Jurgen.
It appears New York has been renamed New Bayreuth. Bayreuth is a city in Bavaria.
Overman makes explicit reference to Wagner’s “Ring cycle” – formally known as “Die Ring des
Nibelungen,” which I referred to above.

PAGE 40
The Ring Cycle is being performed.

Page 42
Uncle Sam points and says “We want YOU! To pay for your crimes!” akin to the famous James
Montgomery Flagg recruiting poster of 1917, with Uncle Sam pointing and saying “I want YOU!
(for the U.S. Army)”

PAGE 44
The issue ends with the title, “Splendour Falls.” This is a reference to an Alfred, Lord Tennyson
poem from his longer work “The Princess,” with the speaker wondering about his legacy. That in
turn references Overman, whose guilt over past atrocities and dissatisfaction with the Thousand-
Year Reich is the subtext of the issue. (And, once again, Morrison makes a poetry reference.)
MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS #1
 COVER
As seen in previous issues of Multiversity, this “haunted” comics depicts Ultra Comics of Earth-
Prime (a super-character wearing the primary triad, a Superman analog) telling us “Only YOU can
SAVE THE WORLD! If you VALUE YOUR LIVES, you MUST read this COMIC!” Only “NOT”
has been scrawled by a later hand between “must” and “read.”
The legend on the left indicates this issue takes place on Earth-33 -- Earth-Prime, according to the
Multiversity Guidebook.
PAGE 2-3
Ultra Comics breaks the fourth wall by addressing the reader, asking our help by not turning the
page and not skipping to the end. Other oblique comments refer to events in the issue, especially the
ending, as if Ultra Comics has come back in time to the beginning of the book to warn us, which he
has.
PAGE 4
An authoritative man in a suit at a desk also addresses the reader, pointing out that although he is a
fictional character and a pen-and-ink representation, he’s “real enough for YOU to hear MY voice
right inside your head.” Fair enough.
PAGE 6
The authoritative figure is now wearing a lab coat, and explains that Ultra Comics is all of us. This
is an almost literal description of readers identifying with the heroes in the comics they read.
Captions say “Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary story!” This phrase was used in the
1960s and 1970s on occasion to hook readers on bizarre covers, because readers by then had
become jaded to such conventions. Morrison tacks on “Not an Elseworlds,” which is a post-Bronze
Age concept that essentially did the same thing as “imaginary stories” in the past.
PAGE 8-9
Ultra Comics is created, using the same things that create comics books, albeit using the chemical
names for paper, ink and staples: cellulose pulp, salt water, carbon, titanium dioxide, wax emulsion,
formaldehyde, water glycol, iron blue, azo pigments. We see tubes attached to him, colored black,
cyan, magenta and yellow, representing the four-color process.
Ultra Comics explains that he has been created to help us readers fend off The Gentry, although he
doesn’t explicitly name them. He says that by reading this comic book, we will install “Ultra
Comics™ Psychic Shield Technology.”
The captions explain that Ultra Comics has all the behavior patterns of superheroes from the Golden
Age to the modern age, inclusive.
PAGE 10-11
Four panels depict Ultra Comics in four different eras, acting appropriately for those eras.
Panel 1 is the Golden Age, with Ultra Comics stopping a mugging of a man, woman and child in an
alley (obliquely referencing Batman’s origin). His dialogue “Take that, Buster!”, would be pretty
typical of the two-fisted Golden Age.
Panel 2 is sort-of Silver Age-y, with Ultra Comics saving a raven-haired woman (oblique reference
to Lois Lane) and others from a bizarre supernatural, alien or interdimensional possession. That
would fit in a Silver Age Superman comic fairly well, including Ultra Comics’ dialogue, “I’ll save
you!”
Panel 3 is more representative of the Bronze Age/Image era, or at least post-Crisis, with a suffering,
grim-n-gritty hero standing over a dead sidekick shouting “Why???”
Panel 4 represents the more brutal, anti-hero-ish, post-Wolverine Modern Age, with Ultra Comics
brutally beating a criminal and aggressively challenging to the reader/observer with “What are YOU
looking at?”
PAGE 12
Ultra Comics realizes thought balloons makes him “look dated,” so he switches to first-person
narrative captions, as comics themselves did sometime in the ‘90s.
He explains that he is being created on Earth-Prime – a term traditionally reserved for indicating our
planet, the real Earth – where superheroes aren’t (yet) possible. Heroes on Earth-Prime are made of
paper (comics) or celluloid (movies/TV), as is Ultra Comics.
Ultra Comics is powered by readers’ belief/support from reading the comic book; that power is
accumulated and focused by an “ultragem” on his forehead, reminiscent of the Soul Gem possessed
by Adam Warlock.
PAGE 13
Ultra Comics says he was created to stop an attack on Earth-Prime by a “hit,” later described as a
hostile alien. I’m not sure what this means, unless it’s just that people hitting each other sometimes
substitutes for plot in bad comics?
The captions describe Ultra Comics as “an idea so powerful it believes it’s alive.” That is
presumably a commentary on the superhero genre.
The Authoritative Man references Ultra’s “latest existential dilemma,” again referencing typical
plotlines/characterization in comics.
The Captions refer to Ultra’s first adventures as “nakedly allegorical,” just like Ultra Comics and
this entire issue so far.
PAGE 15
Ultra Comics finds himself in a ruined New York City. He refers to it as “a generic post-apocalyptic
wasteland,” which of course we see all the time in comics, as well as Earth-7 in Multiversity #1.
The title of his adventure is “Out of His Box,” which is a pun referencing both longboxes (Ultra
Comics is out of his!), and a transmatter cube that plays a pivotal role later.
PAGE 16
Ultra Comics wonders why he is where he is. “They always have a reason. Don’t they?” This is
presumably a commentary on comics creators, and something we fans often ask when something
we don’t care for is published.
The Authoritative Man tells us it’s a trap for Ultra Comics, and therefore a trap for us.
PAGE 17
Ultra Comics says of his readers, “it’s amazing we agree on so much.” A commentary, probably, on
how the industry has shaped itself to fit what fanboys want.
PAGE18
Three captions with a Microsoft Word icon complain that Ultra’s current mission is the “same old,
same old, pretentious symbolism. Yet another comic-about-comics treatise retreading the same tired
themes. How about a simple adventure story for once.” We will see later that this caption device
represents one of the readers, or a generic reader, or maybe even a reader collective. The complaint
is a common one among many fans, such as our own Figserello, and Grant Morrison himself.
PAGE 19
A kid in red (implying she is a leading character of some kind, and as it turns out, leader of a kid
gang) stands off against insectoid versions of Justice League members (clockwise from left),
Cyborg, Wonder Woman, Batman, an unknown giant, Superman, Green Lantern and Flash, with Ice
in the center. Three of the bugs – representing DC’s “trinity” – say what they want to eat, and each
case it’s referencing what they derive their power from or what they represent. Superman: sun,
Batman: darkness, Wonder Woman: life. Bug Lantern gibbers and then says the cliché, “This ends
now.”
The sidekick refers to the bugs as “crawlies” and complains they “say the same thing over and over!
They say the same things!” Another commentary on clichés/herd-think in comics.
PAGE 22
It turns out the kid’s name is Red Riding Hood, and she leads the “kids of tomorrow” called the
Neighborhood Guard. One of Superman’s nicknames is “Man of Tomorrow,” so one might infer
that this kid gang – with kid gangs themselves a Golden Age creation, like Superman – is
collectively the Superman analog of this planet.
OTOH, the name “Red Hood” has often been important in the Batman mythos, as a possible origin
for The Joker, as the Red Hood Gang in both comics and on the Gotham TV show and as the current
nom de guerre of resurrected ex-Robin Jason Todd. It’s possible she is the Batman analog of this
world, which would coincide with fellow Guardsman Boy Blue being the Superman analog
(Superman has been referred to as “Big Blue” or “the Blue Boy Scout” at times).
On yet another hand, there was a Red Hood in both Kingdom Come and Justice League:
Generation Lost that would be age-appropriate for this character. And one of the Guard’s members
looks a lot like Brooklyn of the Newsboy Legion. I guess this kid gang could be populated by
various kids from various eras or parallel worlds.
Red Riding Hood describes the year as “whatever-and-5.” Not only is that true in story, but it’s also
a possible reference to The New 52 having been established as having existed for only five years on
a sliding scale. But there was a “Five Years Later” run in Legion of Super-Heroes, so are these kids
analogs of the LSH? They are the “kids of tomorrow” – tomorrow as in the 31st century? That
would make Red Riding Hood Saturn Girl, and Boy Blue Lightning Lad, and uh … well, maybe
that doesn’t work.
PAGE 25
Ultra Comics meets “the Elders,” and they are three characters who also have been named “Ultra”
or some variant. The first is Gary Concord Jr., the second of two characters (the other was his
father) called Ultra-Man in All-American Comics #8-19 (1939-40). Another is Ultra the Multi-
Alien, who starred in Mystery in Space #103-110 (1965-66), and combines the powers of four alien
races. He has been re-introduced in The New 52 Justice League United as a genetically engineered
baby. The third is Ultraa, the first superhero of the original, pre-Crisis Earth-Prime and its
Superman analog (Justice League of America #153, 1978), who post-Crisis was Maxima’s fiancé on
Almerac (Justice League Quarterly #13, 1993). Ultra the Multi-Alien addresses Ultra Comics in
what appears to be gibberish: “Mo zobba-zo ulla laroo laroo! Trago Raaga!” That’s actually a
reference to the four alien planets that were the source of Ultra’s powers and name: Ulla, Laroo,
Trago and Raagan. Take the first letters of each and that of the character’s original Earth name, Ace
Arn, and lo, you have U-L-T-R-A.
(Yeah, it’s stupid.)
There’s a fourth character, a black man with dreadlocks in overalls, but if he’s an Ultra I don’t know
him.
Ultra-Man refers to a war between two characters, Tor and Epoch, Lord of Time. The former is a
caveman from one million years ago, created by Joe Kubert at St. John Publications in 1940, but
later reprinted by DC Comics in its own title and in collections. Epoch was a Kang-like villain from
3786 A.D. who first appeared in Justice League of America #10 (1962). If memory serves, he was
just called “the Lord of Time” for quite a while, not being given the name Epoch until maybe the
Bronze Age.
Ultra-Man says “this is a broken world – part today, part tomorrow. Neither one nor the other,
always just now.” A commentary on comics in general?
In the final panel, comics are again mentioned as being a communications device between worlds.
PAGE 26
The black Ultra (?) says the comics are part of an S.O.S., collect ‘em all.
PAGE 27
Ultra the Multi-Alien subdues Ultra Comics with powers from his blue, hairless quadrant, which in
the Silver Age was magnetism. Not sure how that works.
PAGE 30
The character referred to up till now as “Ultra-King” and “our Space-Chief” appears, and he’s the
post-Crisis Ultraa. He says he was born on a distant, doomed planet, echoing the Superman origin,
but also mentions his life on Almerac, defining which Ultraa he is.
PAGE 34
Ultraa gives himself another name, Ultra-King.
PAGE 35
The black mechanic gives Ultraa another name, Rex Ultraa. (Rex is “king” in Latin.)
He says “Rex Ultraa was all we had to protect us from the thing in the box!” Just as in several other
Multiversity comics, The Gentry try to subvert and destroy the most powerful super-characters on
each Earth, whether they were “bad” guys or “good” guys. Here Rex Ultraa was the biggest
obstacle, and they used Ultra Comics as a Trojan horse to destroy him.
Ultra Comics says “hit” means a hostile alien. I still don’t understand the reference.
PAGE 36
Intellectron of The Gentry appears. He was masquerading as the Authoritative Man behind the desk.
Page 37
Ultra Comics refers to Intellectron as “the hit entity.”
PAGE 39
Red Riding Hood says “we demand a happy ending!” Commentary on fanboys, no doubt.
PAGE 40
Morrison continues the meta-commentary/adventure, with Intellectron reduced to text in “digestive
system of a comic book,” rendering him vulnerable, because “text is vulnerable to criticism.”
The reader POV captions return, continuing almost generic criticism. “This guy’s raped my wallet
way too many times!”
PAGE 41
Intellectron’s dialogue can be read as a commentary on how fanboys waste their lives reading comic
books. “The Oblivion Machine eats yur precious mortal hours. Grows fat on yur wasted lives.
Absorbed in its picture shows, yu grow old.” (Yeah, tell me about it.)
PAGE 43
As Ultra Comics dies, he references DC’s many crises. Naturally, we see universes dying out, as
they did in Crisis in Infinite Earths, only it’s really just Ultra’s brain shutting down. Or is it both?
The book ends with a caption saying we have been infected by virtue of having read the comic.
MULTIVERSITY #2

The cover is a group shot of various characters from various

earths, most of whom were shown assembling at the Hall of Heroes in issue #1, which came out
three million years ago. (OK, it was about a year ago, but it seems longer.) They consist of (from
left) Aquawoman of Earth-11, Red Racer (Flash) of Earth-36, Machinehead (Iron Man) of Earth-8,
The Thunderer (Thor) of Earth-7 and Atomic Knight Batman (Batman) of Earth-17.
The legend at left, which usually tells us on what Earth the interior story is set, shows all Earths
equally.
PAGE 1
“But just when you thought it was all over! The story continues goes on, with or without you.”
I think we’ve established that Multiversity is commenting on comics while being a comic, and this
appears to be a commentary on how comic-book characters continue indefinitely, coming back from
the dead over and over, repeating the same themes and stories over and over, and outliving their
creators and readers. I don’t know whose voice this is. If it’s the traditional omniscient narrator,
then we can ascribe it to Morrison himself.
A second voice appears. It is the Harbinger computer system’s A.I. It is trying to get someone to
listen to her, probably the collected characters at the Hall of Heroes. But it could be the first
speaker, or the reader.
A third voice appears. It is also a narrator, but one with a florid touch.
A fourth voice appears. It turns out to be Jason Blood on the next page, muttering rhyme.
PAGE 2
We see the “Justice League” of Earth-13, the magic world, in green, light-colored fetters. (They are
not Green Lantern constructs, although they look much the same.) Blood (who is wearing a priest’s
collar) continues muttering in verse. The captors are vampires.
PAGES 3-4
Jason Blood Transforms into Superdemon (Etrigan is the Superman analog of Earth-13). He strikes
down his captors, freeing his fellow captives, the Shadow League, which include a Cockney-
speaking John Constantine (in superhero gear, which is pretty funny), Annataz ("Zatanna"
backwards), Witchboy, Swamp-Man (Swamp Thing), Fate (Jared Stevens), Ragman (who looks like
a mummy), Deadman and Enchantress.
PAGE 6
The team determines that the vampires came out of what we know to be a transmatter cube, but
which Annataz refers to as a “magician’s cabinet.” That usually refers to the cabinet in which a
magician saws a girl in half, but can also refer to the cabinet where a magician makes a person (or
parts of a person) disappear. It could also be a reference to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a silent
horror film famous both as a highlight of German expressionism and as a political metaphor for the
need of 1920s Germans for an authority figure (and we know how that turned out). It’s an
appropriate reference for the venue.
Superdemon’s rhymes are a bit hard to follow, but one thing is clear: He’s figured out that there is a
multiverse, that the vampires came from a parallel Earth, and that the “magician’s cabinet” can take
them there. (And in they go.)
PAGE 8
We discover that the bad guys are from Earth-43, the “Red Rain” universe where everybody (or at
least the people we know) are vampires. The vampire Sivana reveals that they had intended to
invade Earth-13 because its constant darkness would be a perfect operating arena for vampires, and
it was full of non-vampires to eat. We also see that he has hypnotized the Earth-43 Justice League.
Now that it hasn’t worked out, he’s making other plans.
The Hannibal Lecter Sivana makes another reference to wanting to get his hands on Mary Marvel.
A reference is made about the imminent arrival of the Marvel Family. They have been pursuing the
Sivana League since “Thunderworld.”
PAGE 9
The vengeful Shadow League of Earth-13 arrives, and makes short work of most resistance (Fate
kills Sivana-43 outright). Annataz finishes the job by casting a spell where the vampires crave
coffee instead of blood. (Yes, I laughed out loud at that.)
PAGE 10
Hannibal Lecter Sivana and Snake Sivana leave in a transmatter cube as the Marvels arrive and
begin tearing apart the Mechano-Rock of Eternity from the top down.
Snake Sivana (from Captain Carrot’s world, maybe?) makes a reference with his terrible speech
impediment to Earth-43 Sivana’s vampire speech impediment. This is evidently meant to be a joke.
PAGE 11
Hannibal Sivana and Snake Sivana arrive on Earth-18, the Wild West Earth.
Snake Sivana had eaten a character from Earth-42 several issues back, and now he throws it up.
Since he ate the character, we’ve learned that all the Li’l Gotham characters from Earth-42 were
actually robots working for The Empty Hand. Accordingly, Snake Sivana throws up what he’s
eaten, because it’s a robot, not a person.
Lecter Sivana makes mention that The Gentry had promised him Mary Marvel, which explains why
he kept mentioning it. (But he says that just as he is shot in the head, so it’s kind of a let-down.)
We see the Justice Riders (Justice League) of Earth-18, which consists of (from left) the Trigger
Twins (Flash), Super-Chief (Saganowana, the Superman analog), Tomahawkman (Hawkman),
Firehair, El Diablo (Batman), Madame .44 (Wonder Woman), Cinammon, Strongbow (Green
Arrow?), Pow-Wow Smith and Johnny Thunder.
The third voice from page one resumes monologing.
PAGES 12-13
Various earths in crisis. We see:
Earth-17: Captain Adam Strange (fifth from left) leads his Atomic Knights (from left, analogs of
Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Cyborg).
Earth-51 (Kirby world): From left, Ben Boxer, Prince Tuftan, Kamandi.
Earth-20: (From left) Lady Blackhawk and the Blackhawks, Doc Fate, Immortal Man, Mighty
Atom.
Earth-36: (From left) War-Woman, Cyberion, bad guy (zombie Omniman?), Iron Knight.
Earth-26: (From left) Fastbak, The Crash, Wonder Wabbit, Pig Iron, Super-Squirrel, Bat-Mouse,
American Eagle, Yankee Poodle, Rubber Duck, Elong-Gator, Alley-Kat-Abra.
Earth-48: Hard to say, since everyone has super-powers. I’m going to say that the girl in red is
Liana, one of the few heroes from this world whose name I know, and the one dog we see is Danger
Dog.
The third voice from Page One continues monologing, referencing Crisis, Doomsday (Death of
Superman), Judgment Day and other comic book events.
The second voice (Harbinger) also chimes in, announcing arrivals (to the Hall of Heroes) from
Earths 29, 23 and 36.
PAGES 14-15
A group of heroes, as Harbinger keeps announcing arrivals. We see (from left) a Red Tornado
analog (Earth unknown), Bloodwynd (Earth-16), a Flash analog (Earth unknown), a Wonder
Woman/Maxima (Earth-32?), a Green Lantern analog (Earth unknown), two other guys, Abin Sur
(Earth-20), near his legs a Flash analog (Earth unknown) and Atomic Knight Batman (Earth-17),
Saturn Girl (Earth unknown), Bizarro Adam Strange (presumably Earth-29), Black Arrow and
Thunderhawk (Earth-32), Lady Quark and Lord Volt (Earth-48), above them Mary Marvel (Earth-5)
and Plastic Man (Earth-10), Dinocop (Earth-41), Flashlight and a Cyborg analog (Earth-36), two
unknowns, Uncle Sam (Earth-10), Iron Knight (Earth-36), above them what looks like members of
the Justice Titans from Earth-32, and above that Green Lantern from the Tangent Universe (Earth-
9), Sunshine Superman (Earth-47), a big red guy (Earth unknown), a Wonder Woman (Earth
unknown) and Li'l Gotham Wonder Woman (Earth-42, that we know is a robot under the control of
The Empty Hand), above them Cosmic Boy (Earth unknown), a Nightwing (Earth unknown) and
several unknowns.
PAGE 16
The Hall of Heroes is under attack by Hellmachine, whose shock troops look like giant mechanical
fleas (a visual reference to issue #1).
PAGES 18-19
Panel 1: All are characters we’ve mentioned already, except for Adam Strange and Batwoman
(Earth-0?).
Panel 4: Lady Quark mentions the “Batman archetrope.” Evidently, Angor is more knowledgeable
about the Multiverse than others. And it seems Morrison just coined a new word, too!
Panel 5: A black-haired Aquaman (Earth unknown).
Panel 7: Robot Hawkman (Earth-44).
PAGE 17
Panel 1: A Vibe analog (if mixed with Flash, Earth-32) appears, as what is possibly the Cyborg of
Earth-18.
Panel 4: The phrase “Empty is his hand” is uttered again, by Steel (robot) of Earth-42.
Panel 5: Ultra Boy and Lightning Lad appear, alongside the previously seen Saturn Girl. There is no
Legion of Super-Heroes Earth in Morrison’s Multiverse map, so they must be from one of the
unknown worlds.
Also seen are are two new, unknown characters. At a guess, I’d say the woman in purple and orange
is the Duo Damsel of Earth-18, and the glowing green mystical-looking guy could be Witchboy or
Deadman of Earth-13 (whom I've never seen clearly), or an unknown Green Lantern analog.
PAGE 18
Superjudge (Nix Uotan) has arrived on Earth-8 (the 616 Marvel Universe analog), and is met by the
heroes of that world, seen in the first issue, and the rescue team sent from the Hall of Heroes. In this
frame we see Captain Carrot of Earth-26, Behemoth (Hulk), Red Racer (Flash of Earth-36),
Crusader (Captain America), Machinehead (Iron Man) and Superman of Earth-23.
Superjudge is holding the Cosmic Cube analog that came from the "Cosmic Egg" in issue #1, which
is a Rubik’s Cube.
PAGE 19
Panel 3: The burning man is probably the Human Torch analog, from Earth-8's Future Family
(Fantastic Four). The blonde woman is the Captain Marvel analog, name unknown.
Panels 5-6: Analogs of Vision, Giant-Man, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, Falcon, Quicksilver and
Hawkeye. I only know the name of the Spider-Man analog, “Bug,” who is female.
PAGE 21
Panel 1: Machinehead makes reference to the Blue Boarder, obviously a Silver Surfer analog.
Panel 3: The dead are rising, but it's the superhero dead of other worlds, as one of them appears to
be the Captain America analog of Earth-7. (“Universes smashed together” says Nix Uotan in panel
2.)
PAGE 22
Nix Uotan references using the “red sun radiation of a hundred stories” to stop Superman. Not
“hundred planets,” but “hundred stories.” Evidently the Last of the Monitors derives his power from
stories.
Panel 6: Captain Carrot is decapitated, but as we know, he operates on cartoon physics, so that’s not
necessarily fatal.
PAGE 24
Panel 1: The Black Widow analog makes her first appearance this issue.
Panel 3: Stubbs says “doors open both ways,” which echoes a line from the president in the Pax
Americana issue.
Panel 2: The Rubik’s Cube slightly resembles Titans Tower, but I don’t think it’s intentional.
Panel 5: Thunderer reveals he is “Lightning Brother of the Mowanjum people.” The Mowanjum are
an aboriginal tribe in Western Australia.
PAGE 25
Aquawoman says “On ‘Earth-11’ the strongest native life form – is ME!” That might be true of
Aquaman as well, if “native life form” means a non-enhanced, natural born creature native to Earth,
which would eliminate characters such as Superman, Martian Manhunter, Hawkman, Flash,
Cyborg, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. Although, as far as I know, our Aquaman can’t shoot
lightning out of his trident, as Aquawoman can.
PAGE 27
Panel 2: Aquawoman’s “—can change your tune” may be considered literal, given that Morrison
has established the universe as operating on vibrations, read “music.” Change the tune, change the
person (or the world).
Panel 4: We see two elastic figures fighting in the background. I think we can assume they are the
Mr. Fantastic analogs of Earth-7 and Earth-8, one alive and one dead.
PAGE 28
The florid narrator begins narrating again. If we're supposed to know who this is, I am failing.
PAGE 29
The opportunistic, vermin-like life of The Bleed, seen in issue #1, is allowed access to Hellmachine
by the Marvels using the Mechano-Rock of Eternity as a weapon. It eats Hellmachine.
PAGE 30
Panel 5: Captain Carrot says “Who dares get in our way? What power triumphs over sheer
absurdity?” Likely another meta-commentary on comics, but it also The Empty Hand's only
weakness.
PAGE 31
Red Racer, the Flash analog of Earth-36, was revealed in issue #1 to be a comics fan, just like Barry
Allen in his various manifestations. When Captain Carrot gives him the entire Multiversity series to
read, he demurs, saying “I’m not that much of a nerd!” But, like any of us, he reads them anyway.
Because he is, like all of us, that much of a nerd.
PAGE 32
Panel 1: Flash realizes the “master word” to control the transmatter cubes is “S.O.S.,” a
word/phrase that has been used liberally since the first issue.
Panel 2: Red Racer knows that Flashes always make the ultimate sacrifice in Crises, because they
have in DC Comics, which exist on his world (and, being a nerd, he has read them). The Hank he
refers to is Flashlight (Green Lantern), whom he appeared to have a romantic attachment to in issue
#1.
Panel 3: Nix Uotan is depicted with some of the dead heroes of various worlds. The only one I
recognize is Amazon, the Wonder Woman/Storm combo from Amalgam Comics. Since that world
isn’t listed on the Multiverse Map, it must be one of the unknown worlds.
Panel 4: Frank Future of the Future Family (Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four) and the Thing
analog appear, along with some G-Men (X-Men), including the Storm and Cyclops analogs.
Panel 5: A narrative panel is labeled “Flash Fact,” which used to appear in Silver Age Flash comics.
The hand leading/pointing out of the caption box was another Silver Age Flash convention.
PAGE 34
Panel 1: Red Racer has recruited an army of Flash analogs from across the Multiverse.
Recognizable in the panel are XS (from Legion of Super-Heroes), the Trigger Twins of Earth-18,
Kid Flash of pre-Crisis Earth One (Wally West), Flash III of post-Crisis Earth (Wally West) and
Flash of the current Earth-2 (Jay Garrick).
Panel 2: The Flash Fact given – “approaching the speed of light, time slows to a shop” – is part of
Einstein’s theory of relativity.
PAGE 35
Red Racer again refers to DC Comics: “a whole bunch of crises … from my favorite JLA book.”
PAGE 36
Uotan makes reference to “the throne of The Empty Hand.”
PAGE 37
Panel 1: Uotan confesses to having set in motion all the crises of the previous issues, by freeing
Darkseid from Earth-51, letting loose the League of Sivanas and opening transmatter cubes all over
the Multiverse
Panel 7: A scene in the Hall of Heroes, and we’ve seen (and I’ve identified) most of them already. A
new one is a masked giant, perhaps an Atom-Smasher analog.
PAGE 38
Flashlight (Earth-36), Abin Sur (Earth-20), Bloodwynd (Earth-16) and Lady Quark (Earth-48)
charge, but in the background is a new character, a Human Bomb analog, likely from Earth-10.
Panel 2: A host of Flashes, one of them the robot Flash (Mercury?) from Earth-44. The one in the
forefront, mostly in yellow, is the same one we saw prominently on Page 14, which leads me to
believe I should know what Earth he’s from, but I don’t.
PAGE 40
An army of superheroes arrive, most of whom we’ve seen before. At top we see our first Firestorm
of the issue, and what appears to be a Martian Manhunter/Chemo amalgam – possibly from Earth-
44.
PAGE 41
Panel 1: We see the Green Lantern of Earth-12. Also, Red Racer and Flashlight embrace,
confirming their relationship.
Panel 4: The heroes go through the front door of Lord Broken. Because, as established, doors open
both ways.
PAGE 42-43
Earth-7 is the world destroyed in the first issue, an analog of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe (which is
currently being destroyed in Secret Wars).
Panel 2: Thunderer says “all the songs are out of tune.” Pretty much the worst thing that can happen
to a planet in Grant Morrison’s vibration/music-based Multiverse.
Panel 3: Superman once again says “Great Vathlo,” a reference to the pre-Crisis all-black island on
Krypton.
PAGE 44-45
We finally meet the Big Bad, and he is a giant, shadowy figure with antlers and/or horns, sitting on
his oft-mentioned throne. He looks vaguely like Trigon and other devil-esque characters. He means
write “the final chapter of your never-ending story,” making him a meta-villain, wanting to end all
the endless stories.
The Empty Hand reveals that the entire series has been a feint; he is just assessing the strength of
"our" multiverse's defenders before invading.
The Gentry are revealed as representatives of various races; there are clusters of Intellectrons flying
around, clumps of Lord Brokens, various Hellmachines.
The Empty Hand reveals the source of their power: Multiverse-2. This confirms what we already
knew, that our Multiverse (often referred to as “the local Multiverse”) is part of a larger Multiverse,
which is part of an even larger Multiverse, and so on.
PAGE 46
Superman of Earth-23 calls a meeting at a circular table, reminiscent of a jillion Justice League
scenes (and many from the Avengers as well). We have seen most of these characters before,
although I don’t have names for them all. One standout is a sort of Doomsday-Blue Devil combo,
probably from Earth-32.
PAGE 47
Superman identifies Earth-33, “Earth-Prime,” as the source of all trouble. We already know from
the Multiverse Map that Earth-33, despite having no superheroes, somehow influences the events
on all other Earths.
PAGES 48-49
Superman announces Operation Justice Incarnate, which appears to be a proper team, including
(from left) Mary Marvel from Earth-5, Captain Carrot from Earth-26, Batman from Earth-17,
Machinehead from Earth-8, Aquawoman from Earth-11, Superman of Earth-23, Thunderer from
Earth-7, Abin Sur from Earth-20 and Red Racer from Earth-36. If you squint, you can see the
Justice League, with Iron Man and Thor tossed in.
Pages 50-51
Panel 1: A gathering of heroes reminiscent of a similar scene in Crisis on Infinite Earths. We’ve
seen most of these characters before, but there are a few new ones, including a Phantom Lady
(presumably from Earth-10), Wonder Man (from Earth-11), Super-Martian (Earth-32) and the
Wonder Woman-Platinum mash-up from Earth-44.
Panel 2: Harbinger notes that the heroes present represent 50 worlds. The two missing worlds (of
the local Multiverse) are, presumably, Earth-33, which has no superheroes, and Earth-15, where
Superboy-Prime killed everyone.
Panel 5: Nix Uotan asks a favor of Dino-Cop.
PAGE 52
Appropriately, the final issue is 52 pages long, as “52” is the number of universes in the local
Multiverse.
We return to the first pages of issue #1 on Earth-0 (the New 52 world), where the earthly version of
Nix Uotan is awakening after falling asleep reading the same comics we just read.
We see the lice from the first issue, again reminding us that life takes hold wherever it can. I
expected them to be a Gentry allegory, but I guess they’re just an allegory for the Multiverse(s) as a
whole.
We see Uotan’s landlady knocking on his door again (which, we now know, can open both ways).
The narrative voice is in the same font as the one from page one, and seems to be just an omniscient
narrator, not a character.
The florid narrative voice returns, and essentially promises that comic book stories will continue
into eternity.
We see a Mr. Stubbs doll and a Rubik’s Cube in Nix’s room. Has the entire series been a dream?
Answer: No, because Nix has the $800 rent he didn’t have in the first issue, because Superjudge
bummed it off Dino-Cop.