The Best Comic I Read Today Is . . . The Multiversity: Pax Americana #1

The Multiversity: Pax Americana #1 is not only the best comic I read today, it’s also the best comic I have read all year!  In the interest of full disclosure, Grant Morrison is the reason I got back into reading comic books in 2011 and writing comic books in 2012.  Specifically, it was All-Star Superman, which was illustrated by the same man whose line work makes Pax Americana one of the best looking books on the spinner rack, Frank Quitely, so I am extremely biased.  That being said, this book was extraordinary.



There’s no need to worry about spoilers in this write-up, because this book is so densely packed with nuance and subtext that it would be impossible to spoil.  From the outset, it is an homage of sorts to Watchmen, using the classic Charlton Action Heroes that were originally to be featured in that seminal work.  Morrison even employs the same opening effect, having the cover image be the starting point of a long zoom through the first page, only in Morrison’s hands this becomes not only a zoom through physical space, but a zoom through time.

The classic grid layout concept from Watchmen is also used, breaking-up the physical plane to create windows through which we, the third dimensional voyeur, can peek at this two-dimensional world.



Nowhere is this done better than in the double-page spread of Pages 12 and 13, where Quitely uses an 8 x 4 panel layout to show the composition of a room, a murder scene, then highlight key moments that transpire in that particular part of the room before, during, and after the murder.  There is no way I am doing this justice through my words.  You just have to read it.

Then read it again.

Of course there’s Blue Beetle and The Question, reprising the roles of Nite Owl and Rorschach.  The Question even alludes to some “issues” Blue Beetle may be having, similar to what Nite Owl suffered from in Watchmen, taking this meta-experiment to an even higher level.



At its core, The Multiversity: Pax Americana is a murder mystery, and the book never loses site of this.  It has a beginning, middle and a satisfying ending that demands a second, third and probably fourth reading.  For a writer in any medium, this book gives a clinic in pacing, plot, and experimentation all serving the characters and the story.

To borrow from the quote on the cover:

“Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn.” – Delmore Schwartz

- Aloha -