An
adventure so great it takes place between the heartbeats of Clark Kent’s true
love. A group of Supermen travel through time and space to save existence. 52
universes, limbo, and only something impossible can save the day…
What
do you do with a super hero that can do anything?
You
let him!
Superman Beyond.
Behind
the cover…
“We‘ll be traveling through Bleed space
between the universes, but you‘ll need to upgrade to 4-D vision to truly
comprehend what you experience. Prepare yourself by wearing these Overvoid
Viewers forged from Superman‘s own Cosmic Armor. Your ability to see 4-D
perspective will develop spontaneously when you need it. It is crucial you cut
your Overvoid Viewers out of the placard holder as indicated by the dotted
lines, or they won‘t function properly. When properly formulated, your Overvoid
Viewers should have the green part over your right eye and the red over the
left with the rusted armor facing out toward the page.”
A
pair of 3-D glasses await you (red and blue). Is this a gimmick is a proper
response…and in anyone else’s hands…maybe. But not Morrison’s, these glasses
are tied to the story, tied to the reader, tied to the creator. Morrison wants
you to interact with the text. He’s offering you a way in, the images
leap from the page to interact with
you.
You’re
about to break the fourth wall (a theme explored in his run on Animal man) and enter a new dimensional space. Page 12 in
issue 2 is the perfect example—"From a direction that has no name comes a
sound like breathing... as if cradled"—you’re holding the book,
right—Superman can almost hear you! And I wish I had more time to talk about
the meta-textual aspects of this story but what we are interested now in
something else entirely—
We
open with a classic set up, Good vs Evil, Superman and an unknown foe locked in
combat, the villain asks, “what shall we engrave upon your tombstone?" and
opening with two splashes right away tells you Doug Mahnke’s style fits right
in with what Morrison is trying to do, he presents classic DC archetypes mixed
with a slightly over-lined and horror-ish embellishment on facial features and
backgrounds are perfect for a reality spanning 3-D epic. Bottom line he draws
BIG.
Previously
in Final Crisis (this being a “tie-in” and all) Lois Lane had been mortally
injured, Superman because only his heat vision can keep her alive has been out
of the fight.
This
is until a female monitor, Zillo Valla, appears, declaring she knows Clark Kent’s
secret identity. The multiverse is in danger, she tells him, and only Superman
can save it!
In
return she promises him the life of his true love and with time frozen between
Lois’ last heartbeat Superman kisses her good bye and boards the Ultima Thule,
a monitor ship that can travel through the bleed between the 52 universes,
joining an army of Superman analogues from other worlds.
What’s
great about Beyond, and really Final Crisis overall is that almost all of
Morrison’s work at DC is showcased, we get Limbo from Animal man and the return
of the Seven Soldiers of Victory. In many ways I see Final Crisis as the
culmination of Morrisonian themes and concepts, many stemming even from the Invisibles, within
the DC universe; and Beyond is a perfect example. This is Superman, the first
idea, the idea that’s greater than them all as allegorical a story as you’ll
find from a mainstream comic. Superman fights a war in fictional space to save
fiction with an idea.
The
monitors who feed on the bleed, in my mind, have to be representative of the writers at DC who are forced to leech every last drop from their creations in service of the faceless corporate entity that controls them. Sucking them dry until there isn’t
anything left and they are abandoned to limbo (the place where all characters go
when they fall out of use or more accurately aren't making money).
In
limbo there is a library where no one goes, within the library there is one
book, a book that holds everything every written. A book with no duality, it is
both good and evil, destroyer and savior. At the close of the first book the evil
anti-matter Superman, Ultraman, attempts to wield the books power and discovers the existence of Mandrakk the dark god and possibly(?) original monitor from COIE, he attacks
the people of limbo as reality crumbles, imploring Superman to “kneel before
Mandrakk and die!”
And
in a comic filled with superhero responses that make you want to jump out of
your seat in quick succession you get my favorite two. First when Superman says
in response to Ultraman, “Sounds like a challenge to me,” and shortly after that
as the people of limbo fight back, Merryman asks, Superman to “Promise you’ll
remember us, even if no one else does?” to which he replies, “I will. And they
will (could he mean us??). I guess you can be a hero anywhere, Merryman.” Morrison kills it with these lines, really if
the meta-aspects of the story aren’t enough or you just don’t care for them,
the simple superhero splendor is enough to leave any comic fan awestruck.
But
the greatest piece of writing in this comic is at the end, as evil Superman and
our Superman are combined by a very Watchmen-esque Captain Atom (he even says
there are only symmetries) into one being beyond the 2D comic space.
Only
Superman can save us now.
Mandrakk
offers him the challenge; he holds a bottle of bleed, the only thing that can
save Lois Lane. “All you have to do Superman is take it from me!” Take life and
the idea back from the corporate entities that brand and buy images and wear
them down, with reinvention after reinvention until they’ve crushed the very
soul of the thought in the end.
But
come on Superman can do the impossible.
Nothing
could hold the bleed, They said. They were wrong.
Superman
can. And with a kiss…(well, you know…Happy Endings and all)
And
oh, in case we've forgotten, as for the words Superman would have carved on his tombstone? Well,
considering all comics begin with--
Previously
in…
It
would only be right that Superman would write
No comments:
Post a Comment