Jonah Chuang recommends The Multiversity: Pax Americana #1
Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely are a pretty great team. If you’ve ever read any of these comics, you know exactly what I’m talking about and you know you should pick up Multiversity: Pax Americana right away.
Continuing his metafictional journey through the DC universe in this Multiversity event, Grant Morrison brings us a critical examination of a critical examination. He takes Alan Moore’s Watchmen characters (who were based on newly acquired DC characters at the time) and puts his own spin on them to tell a thematically similar story with just as much darkness.
Just as in Watchmen, the conspiracy investigation kicks off with a high-profile murder that just doesn’t make sense. The President is killed by one of the world’s greatest heroes and nobody knows why. As our broken heroes slowly reveal the story through a complex series of time jumps, we’re treated to dark secrets and high concept ideas involving the fourth dimension, non-linear perceptions of time, and shadow politics using dangerous algorithms to change the future.
This is definitely a cerebral tale, but if that’s not your cup of tea, there are still tons to enjoy about this book. For one, this book brings back Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle and Vic Sage’s ‘The Question’. One of my favorite parts of this book is an exchange between these two characters. After The Question implies that the aging Blue Beetle is suffering from erectile dysfunction, the Beetle says, “And you’re so deep in the closet, you pay rent in Narnia.” Zing!
This could’ve easily been a silly looking book with way-too-lofty writing and a confusing plot, but Frank Quitely’s art is a really great fit for the kind of stern and severe voice that Grant Morrison uses in this story. There are high-intensity, high-energy captured in still frames. The sense of ever-present danger really drives the story forward and delivers some great moments with a rewarding reveal.
[Read The Multiversity: Pax Americana #1 ]
Jonah Chuang is a Production Coordinator Assistant at comiXology. He recently adopted a third rescue dog named Bear and is afraid that his life is starting to share too many similarities with Will Graham’s.