Morrison's Multiversity

[Mystirious]

Yep this sounds pretty fab

[Gabe99]

From Newsarama:
WONDERCON 2011 - DC Icons - LIVE!

Multiversity...this this still a Morrison project? If so, when is it currently slated for release?
Definitely Morrison. Sounds like 2012.

Next interior work from Quitely?
"I'm working on the extra pages for We3 just now," the artist answered, saying that he'll start Multiversity soon after that, which as far as he knows is a 38-page book.

WONDERCON 2011 - DC Icons - LIVE!

Frank Quitely talks Multiversity. "[Grant Morrison]'s told me so far that it's going to take forever to draw, that it's going to be the most complicated thing we've done together," Quitely said.

[Gabe99]

From MTV:
WonderCon 2011: DC Nation Panel Highlights

- Grant Morrison has told Quitely he'll dread drawing the new book. Didio says we should see it next year.

[Drz]

Sounds good!

[Watchman]

I can't wait for Morrison's and Quitely's Not Watchmen.

[Mystirious]

It does sound like it will be pretty neat

I like the sound of that one the best

[Gabe99]

CBR @ WC11::
Frank Quitely Spotlight

The next fan asked when to expect "Multiversity," the mammoth project being written by Morrison.

"I've not started on it yet," Quitely said. "I'm halfway through the ten extra "We3" pages, so I'm guessing -- I'm hoping -- by, like, from a month from now, I'll hopefully have some 'Multiversity' script. I really know very, very little about it. I know it's the Charlton characters, the book I'm doing. I don't know how many other books there are or what other groups of characters they've covering but Grant's told me that I'll have script by the time I finish the 'We3' stuff, so that is the next thing I'll be starting on, so it shouldn't be too long.

Ganem prompted Quitely to relate what Morrison had told him about the project. "He did also say it's going to take me forever to draw, because he's made it super complicated," Quitely answered to chuckles from the crowd.

[Mystirious]

So i guess Multiversity will be out by 2020

[Drz]

Originally Posted by Watchman

I can't wait for Morrison's and Quitely's Not Watchmen.

I still don't see why it's the most discussed one, the Thunderworld and Superdemon sound more intriquing if you ask me.

More Multiversity Info

- 9 issues long, 7 universes and 2-issue finale.
- Nazi issue begins with Adolf Hitler reading Action Comics #1 while being in the toilet.
- On the Watchmen issue: “taking all those Watchmen techniques and updating them and it’s not taking the story or anything but its the idea that no none in so many years has done a comic like Watchmen with that intense self relfective quality. So I kinda wanted to do that in a modern way with and try and develop new techniques to do it.”

[Tron Bonne]

Originally Posted by Drz

I still don't see why it's the most discussed one, the Thunderworld and Superdemon sound more intriquing if you ask me.

Because it's a play on one of the most acclaimed, respected, and well known comics of all time, along with being a collaboration between Morrison and Quietly? There's other installments I'm personally looking forward to more myself, but it's not difficult at all to see how the spotlight would be on that one the most.

[Watchman]

Originally Posted by Drz

I still don't see why it's the most discussed one, the Thunderworld and Superdemon sound more intriquing if you ask me.

Oh I can't wait for those. Morrison is actually one of the few who can write a great Captain Marvel and Halloween Town Earth is going to be fun, especially if this is one that Irving is doing.I'm definitely looking forward to those two but it's Morrison and Quitely and their collaborations are usually something really special.

[Drz]

I kinda would prefer if Doug Mahnke drew the Superdemon story, since i'm on the assumption it's more of a "what if Superman was a demon" story or?

[Watchman]

The Superdemon world is much more than Etrigan as Superman but an entire Halloween based world and that would be perfect for Irving's style. Besides Mahnke is still going to be on Green Lantern for a while while Xombi will be long dead.

[Gabe99]

Comic-Con: Multiversity Release Date?

Originally Posted by Joey Esposito

At Saturday's The New 52 Panel, discussion was led by a fan to discuss the New Gods. Grant Morrison told the fan that the New Gods were currently living on Earth 51, and that we'd see them in his long-awaited exploration of DC's multiverse, Multiversity.

Of course, we're still awaiting a solid release date. Morrison did have this to offer fans: "You'll see it next summer."

So there you have it, folks. Multiversity. Next summer. Prepare your brains.

[trustyside-kick]

This Morrison project has potential to be one of this that I enjoy--and perhaps the one I most enjoy--so long as he doesn't do anything weird to where it makes my head hurt trying to figure out what he's thinking.

[Drz]

Grant Morrison talks!

Multiversity:
- The Black President Superman has been confirmed as a major character for Multiversity.
- Nazi issue opens with Hitler reading Action Comics on the toilet and he's pissed!
- The multiversity heroes communicate with each other thru comic writers and artists, so yes they're reading each other adventures and this big crisis happens and they have to unite together.
- Nix Uotan is in the story, but the other Monitors are.
- Bunch of new villains created for this.
- A comic as a weapon! If you read it, you become haunted!

[Sakuraba]

Originally Posted by Watchman

Oh I can't wait for those. Morrison is actually one of the few who can write a great Captain Marvel and Halloween Town Earth is going to be fun, especially if this is one that Irving is doing.I'm definitely looking forward to those two but it's Morrison and Quitely and their collaborations are usually something really special.

When Morrison was talking about Hypercrisis with the first page being Cap'n Marvel's funeral and the opening line reading "Marvel's dead." I thought it was the best Captain Marvel idea since Twilight of the Superheroes. All it was was Captain Marvel being dead without any build up, and yet it was instantly more interesting than any idea that character's had in the postwar era. So yeah, give me some Earth S by Morrison.

[Watchman]

Originally Posted by Drz

Nazi issue opens with Hitler reading Action Comics on the toilet and he's pissed!

Greatest opening over?

- The multiversity heroes communicate with each other thru comic writers and artists, so yes they're reading each other adventures and this big crisis happens and they have to unite together.

- A comic as a weapon! If you read it, you become haunted!

I Grant Morrison.

Originally Posted by Sakuraba

When Morrison was talking about Hypercrisis with the first page being Cap'n Marvel's funeral and the opening line reading "Marvel's dead." I thought it was the best Captain Marvel idea since Twilight of the Superheroes. All it was was Captain Marvel being dead without any build up, and yet it was instantly more interesting than any idea that character's had in the postwar era. So yeah, give me some Earth S by Morrison.

Yeah, after reading his thoughts on the character in Supergods this will probably going to be the best Captain Marvel story in a long while. No more badazz Captain Thunder, skewering badguys on spears, or dragging the entire Marvel family through the wringer.

Can't writers just have fun with the Marvel family?

[Sakuraba]

Reading that Morrison interview up there, that was a little weird with him talking about his mother. Him saying that he'll write more mothers into his stories in a few years when his mother dies... was a bit blunt even if he didn't explicitly say that. Still it's kind of refreshing to hear people talk about death like that.

[Gabe99]

From Newsarama:
Morrison Writes a Social Justice Superman in ACTION COMICS

Originally Posted by Vaneta Rogers

Newsarama:
As long as I've got you on the phone Grant, can you just give us an update on Multiversity and your Batman work?

Grant Morrison:
Batman Incorporated, I know Chris is about halfway through the last issue, issue #10. So although that's late, it will be out soon. And then the Leviathan book will be scheduled to come out, I think, at the start of the year. Again, we want to keep that one monthly. So the idea is to get a little bit ahead and not have the problems we had on Batman Incorporated.

But yeah, that's all going. And Multiversity is going great. Frank Quitely is working on his pages right now. Nobody else has started, because we got Frank started first. But he's already going with his stuff. So all that stuff's going well.

Mutliversity is a lot more along the lines of the feel of Seven Soldiers, I think. I'm very pleased with it. I took a lot of time with it. And I think it's the best thing I've ever, ever done. If I stop after Multiversity, that will be good enough.

[Watchman]

An update!

I hope they don't have to change one word of the Thunderworld story.

[Gabe99]

Comics Legend Grant Morrison Unveils DC's Multiversity Story

Originally Posted by Borys Kit

The story, set for release in 2013, is an eight-issue series comprised of six one-shots and a two-part story.

Grant Morrison is ready to unleash his Lord of the Rings.

Or Use Your Illusion or Citizen Kane, depending on the analogy the iconic comics author is using.

Morrison — in the midst of curating this weekend's MorrisonCon, perhaps the first comics-plus convention to revolve around one personality — and DC Entertainment are finally unveiling the long-rumored and long-in-the-works Multiversity comic book story.

The story is an eight-issue series comprised of six one-shots and a two-part story, featuring different titles but working under the rubrick of Multiversity. Each issue features a 38-page lead story and an eight-page back-up. They are set for release in late 2013.

Additionally, each issue will be drawn by a different artist, and while DC is keeping most names under wraps, it is confirming Frank Quitely as the artist for the fourth book, Pax Americana. Morrison worked with Quitely on landmark runs of All-Star Superman, Uncanny X-Men and We3, among others and Heat Vision presents an exclusive first-look from the book here.

Multiversity presents alternate realities and parallel worlds, something that DC was on the forefront comics-wise when, in 1961, it had the original Flash from the 1940s meet his more modern counterpart.

The success of that story, which appeared in Flash #123, allowed DC to re-introduce its heroes from comics’ golden age and have them fight side-by-side with the characters that had been relaunched after superheroes’ near demise in the 1950s.

An Earth where the Justice League are bad guys and Lex Luthor is the only hero? Check. A planet where World War II never ended? Yup.

“There’s something always appealing about a Russian Superman and a vampire Batman," Morrison tells Heat Vision. “It’s a different way of looking at the archetypes that we’re familiar with. And I wanted to a really massive story that would be my Lord of the Rings and it would be the best thing I’ve ever done. Whether it is, I don’t know. But I’ve certainly spent a long time on it."

Morrison has been working on the comic for the past six years and he says he has never approached writing a comic the way he is writing Multiversity. Nor has he ever spent so much time on a project.

“Most comics are done in a improvisational way," he explains. “Deadlines make it so you don’t have a lot of time to really work it and do a lot of revisions, so most of what you see is first draft. But for this one, I wanted to do a proper book about superheroes. So I’ve been writing this more like a screenplay, where you write drafts and then redraft and redraft again. And basically polish things down to as much as a sheen as I can possibly manage."

Each issue will feature comics about the adventures of the previous story’s heroes, an idea introduced in that historic issue of Flash.

“If you’re having a war across multiple parallel realities, one way they can contact each other is to publish comic books that others can read and know what’s going on," says Morrison. "So in each parallel reality you’ll see one of them is reading the comic that you just read the month before and finding out what happend to the good guys, giving them a chance to defeat the bad guys in the next one. They are kind of passing on, in a chain, their own adventures."

Pax Americana, being unveiled at MorrisonCon, features heroes such as the Blue Beetle, The Question and Captain Atom, part of the group of characters known as the Charlton heroes, named after the company bought by DC in 1983. The heroes were supposed to be used by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in the mid-1980s, but after the company saw Moore’s controversial plans, it balked and made him create new heroes, which led to the groundbreaking Watchmen.

The Pax story revolves around the assassination of a president and how the Charleston characters failed him. “We’re taking the characters and applying it back to Watchmen and seeing what we could get. Nobody has really used those Alan Moore tricks in 25 years so it seemed right to take that very tight, controlled, self-reflecting storytelling and seeing if we can do something new with it."

He adds, “It’s not trying to be Watchmen, it’s more of an echo of a storytelling technique of Watchmen. >Despite some reports, Multiversity is not Morrison’s swan song to superheroes. He is leaving the monthly comic grind after his Batman Incorporated run ends with issue 12 and Action Comics with issue 17 (not the previously reported 16), and says he will focus on “finite projects."

“All I ever said is I’m not doing the monthly comics once I finish up Batman and Superman. I’ll never leave superhero stuff because I really enjoy doing it."

[Gabe99]

From BC:
The Question Joins Pax Americana And More At MorrisonCon

[Gabe99]

From CA:
'Multiversity': Grant Morrison Interview And Frank Quitely Art From MorrisonCon

Speaking at the "Future of the Third Millennium" panel at the convention he curated and gave his name, writer Grant Morrison confirmed for the MorrisonCon audience in Las Vegas that work is finally underway on his long awaited Multiversity project. The book will be serialized as eight 38-page issues (with 8-page backup stories) featuring two bookend chapters, six middle installments that each take place on a different Earth of the DC Comics multiverse, and a ninth book featuring a 20-page story and supplemental material. Each of the six middle chapters will be drawn by a different artist and feature trade dress appropriate to the relevant aesthetic, i.e. pulp comics, Captain Marvel/Shazam-style comics, '90s comics and so forth, and be identified as a #1 issue.

Morrison explained that he's been actively writing and rewriting the series since Final Crisis concluded several years ago, marking a break with his traditional process of what he likened to improvisation. The panel also included a first look at pages from the only confirmed artist on Multiversity, Frank Quitely, who is working on the "Pax Americana" issue which stars heroes like the Question and Blue Beetle in a story inspired by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen, which was itself partly inspired by the same characters.

ComicsAlliance was on hand at MorrisonCon to speak briefly with Morrison about some of the different worlds of Multiversity and why it's "the biggest" project he's ever done.

We weren't able to get to the specific threat that the heroes of Multiversity combat, but Morrison told us the narrative would be informed heavily by DC's original parallel world story, "The Flash of Two Worlds," in which the Flash of the 1960s, Barry Allen, met the Flash of the 1940s, Jay Garrick, whose adventures he'd read in comic books and inspired him to take the same name.

"One of the things I loved was that Barry Allen got his name from a comic book because he used to read about Jay Garrick in the Golden Age," Morrison explained. "So the idea that each of these worlds read comic books featuring characters from the other world seemed really interesting to play with. So each of the worlds sort of communicate with the other worlds by comic books. In the second one, you see guys reading the comic book you just read the month before. They see the bad guy moving closer to their reality, through comic books."

Earth 22 - The Pulp World

This issue will re-imagine some of DC's pulp characters including Doctor Fate, Immortal Man, Lady Blackhawk and the Atom.

"It's a version of the Earth where there's two billion people, even though it's 2012," Morrison said. "There's just been a war kind of like World War II, and there's a group of heroes called the Society of Superheroes -- S.O.S. -- led by Doc Fate who's an amalgam of Doc Fate and a kind of Doc Savage type. He appeared in Superman Beyond. There's a bunch of primitive pulp characters that we brought back and recreated. They're dealing with the first incursion of the bad guys across the multiverse."

Earth Prime - Our World

This issue will be Morrison's attempt to depict a superhero-style threat in a realistic setting.

"We've created this thing that I think has never been done before... technology that explains what a superhero would actually be like in this world."

The Just - Legacy Heroes

This issue spotlights the children or grown-up sidekicks of the Justice League in a world that their parents and mentors have made completely safe, leaving them inexperienced and aimless.

"What happens when your mom and dad fix everything? Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have kind of fixed everything so the kids have nothing to do," Morrison said. "Connor Hawke and all those guys, Kyle Rayner, all those guys are hanging around and doing battle reenactments. 'It's my turn to defeat Starro the Conquerer!' The whole idea of superheroes has been taken to this exhausted end point so no one's got anything to do. They're all just trying to deal with it. Damian Wayne is the Batman and Chris Kent is the Superman of that world. These kids, they dress up but they've never fought anything. So they have to deal with [the threat] on that level.

"We designed it to be like The Hills, where we introduce these characters with their names underneath and these banal conversations. It's taking all those '90s characters and doing it as The Hills."

Thunderworld - Captain Marvel

Based on the classic Fawcett comics starring Captain Marvel, known today as Shazam!

"It's a Pixar version of the complete story of Captain Marvel, who's drawn into the conflict," Morrison said.

The Nazi World - The Mastermen vs. the Freedom Fighters

Morrison likened this issue to Superman: Red Son, in which baby Kal-El was raised in the Soviet Union. Here, Superman landed in Nazi-controlled Europe in 1938 (the year Action Comics #1 was published), and the story details how the Nazis used the Man of Steel to bring about Hitler's vision for the world, which of course necessitated killing a lot of people. Seventy years hence, the planet is without war but Superman questions whether the ends justify the means as a new group of heroes rises to reclaim the world.

"The first page is Hitler on the toilet reading Action Comics and suddenly he gets [a superman] of his own," Morrison said. "Suddenly it cuts to the '50s and we see this Nazi Superman walking in Washington and the place in flames. We have Uncle Sam, who's the kind of trampish Alex Ross version, is watching them burn American comic books and records. It's based on the idea of what if the Nazis had won. What happens is Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters come back and they're all representatives of the people who were killed by Hitler. Dollman is Jewish, The Ray is homosexual, there are Jehovah's Witnesses, that kind of thing. They're the huddled masses and Uncle Sam has brought them together in this terrorist cell. It' this big Shakespearean-style story of this Superman dealing with his own guilt and wondering if his world should be destroyed.

Pax Americana - Charlton World

The cover of this issue plays on the iconic Watchmen motif of the bloody smiley face badge by depicting a peace sign in flames. In the story, the Peacemaker (re-imagined as the Comedian in Watchmen) assassinates the American President from a weather balloon in space. The Question and Blue Beetle also star, although the two are estranged. While Steve Ditko's The Question and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Rorschach were preoccupied with Ayn Rand's objectivism, the Question of Pax Americana is concerned with spiral dynamics, which considers the world in terms of distinct modes of behavior or thinking that are represented by different colors.

Pax Americana references Watchmen's famous nine-panel grid by adhering largely to an eight-panel grid, which Morrison explained was inspired by music, specifically octaves. He'd previously written stories about the multiverse vibrating on a musical frequency, and the eight-panel grid (or the multiples-of-eight grid, as the case may be), is a continuation of that theme.

"It's like the Rutles version of Watchmen," Morrison joked.

Multiversity's ninth book will be what Morrison descried as a guidebook featuring a 20-page story and 20 pages of maps and concordances detailing the cosmic hierarchies and other details of the entire DC Comics multiverse.

Morrison told the Vegas crowd that Multiversity is the "biggest" comic project he'd ever done. Obviously he's written much longer works, but the writer told us that his method for Multiversity has raised the stakes. "It's big in the sense that I've spent all this time working on it," he said. "I'm not doing it in the improv way, which is the way I usually prefer to work. It's more about rewrites and rewrites and rewrites, making everything as perfect as I possibly can. Especially because it's the multiverse and all these DC characters, I really wanted a big hefty thing where people could feel the weight and the grinding hours i put into it [laughs]. I wanted to do it that way because I've been working in movies and that's the way they make you work, perfecting stuff."

Multiversity is expected to debut some time in 2013.

[Gabe99]

From BC:
Grant Morrison Under the Microscope

From comicbookGRRRLl:
New Statesman: Interview with Grant Morrison

My latest interview with Grant Morrison is up on the New Statesman today.
We chatted about Wonder Woman, finishing Action Comics and Batman Inc, stepping away from DC monthlies, his MBE, Happy, Multiversity, Before Watchmen, MorrisonCon and more. Enjoy!

From New Statesman
Grant Morrison: Why I'm stepping away from superheroes

Also due next year is Multiversity, a series of interlocking titles that span the DC multiverse, a construct that allows multiple Earths to exist without destabilising the core continuity of the DC universe (for many comic fans, continuity is as necessary as oxygen). One of the titles most talked about is Pax Americana, partly because it reunites Morrison with fellow Glaswegian artist Frank Quitely, and partly because it focuses on the world harbouring the Charlton characters, the same characters that in turn inspired the cast of Alan Moore's Watchmen.

Originally scheduled for 2012, it appears we must now ride out the Mayan Apocalypse first.

“Yeah, we waited till the end of the universe to publish this one – that's how long it takes for Frank Quitely to finish a book!”

The gentle ribbing is nothing compared to the bizarre vitriol some fans hold for artists who work more slowly, but having seen some of the pages myself, it is definitely worth the wait.

“It's my Citizen Kane, this comic, I’m so proud of it.” Morrison smiles. “We've really worked hard to make it worthy of not only its source but to do all that in 38 pages and in a new way. So yeah it's a big deal, but there's other great ones. The Captain Marvel one's great, the Ultra comic, which is the Earth Prime comic is the one that's gonna really freak people out because I’ve come up with a way... it's a haunted comic. The comic will do things to people that they will never forget. And it's like technology, I’ve discovered a kind of technology that I don't wanna tell because someone else will nick it and they'll ruin it! But that one'll freak people, it's things comics have never ever done before.”

Comparisons to Watchmen will be hard to escape, particularly in light of the current Before Watchmen comics that DC are publishing, much to the distaste of Alan Moore.

“It's so not like Watchmen,” Morrison states. “In the places where it is like Watchmen people will laugh because it's really quite... it's really faithful and respectful but at the same time satiric. I don't think people will be upset by it, in the way that they've been upset by Before Watchmen which even though it's good does ultimately seem redundant. You know, it's actually good – I mean, Amanda Conner's stuff is brilliant, I’m really enjoying it, and Darwyn Cooke's Minutemen is great, the rest of them [I'm] not so hot on but they're really nicely written comics, really quite adult but kind of redundant.

“This one is its own thing but it deliberately quotes the kind of narrative techniques used in Watchmen and does something new with them.”