It took decades but together with partners in crime Keith Giffen, Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, and editor Steve Wacker, we were able to use the conclusion of the weekly series 52, on which we all worked, to restore a limited multiverse of 52 worlds, regurgitated by Mister Mind in his ‘Cosmic Butterfly’ form and left in vague readiness at the end of 52!Īt a celebratory dinner in Las Vegas, the team talked about a follow-up project where we’d explore the new multiverse, each doing a book or two set on a different alternative earth, all done in different styles. To celebrate this week’s release of THE MULTIVERSITY ABSOLUTE EDITION with extensive notes on his brilliant Multiversity Map by Rian Hughes, it seemed somehow appropriate to venture a club-footed waddle down memory lane with a few annotations and recollections. You can read the full series on Morrison's Substack page, Xanaduum. The following is the first chapter in Morrison's series of The Multiversity annotations.

Play Grant Morrison's Multiversity Annotations

Multiversity's overall importance to the DC mythos may be diminished in the wake of DC Rebirth, Dark Nights Metal and the return of a more expansive DC multiverse, but it's still a fascinating (and very meta) examination of modern superhero comics and the power of imagination. The goal of the series was to redefine the shape and nature of the multiverse in the New 52 era, with Morrison conjuring up reimagined versions of Earth-4's Charlton Comics characters, Earth-5's classic Shazam family, Earth-16's offspring of the Justice League and more. The series is bookended by issues focused on Nix and a team called Justice Incarnate, but the remainder are largely standalone stories set in different worlds of the DC multiverse. The Multiversity is more an anthology series than a singular story. In The Multiversity, Nix is called back into action as a new evil called The Gentry (beings who exist as the living embodiment of terrible ideas) threaten the entire multiverse. Once a Monitor tasked with observing one of the 52 worlds that make up the DC multiverse, Nix was reborn at the end of Final Crisis as an ordinary mortal who channels his dreams of gods and costumed heroes into his artwork.

The Multiversity is a followup of sorts to Morrison's 2008 crossover Final Crisis, with the character Nix Uotan serving as the main connective tissue.

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