Enough With the Multiverse Shit Already

Have you been watching that new Superman cartoon? It's called My Adventures with Superman, and six episodes into the ten episode first season, I was quite enjoying it. You got some villains showing up, something to do with Kryptonian technology, and put the relationship between Clark and Lois at the forefront. Then they went and made episode seven. I'll get into it later, but the gist is they introduce a multiverse. Complete with universe numbers and a group made up of alternates of one person. Looking at the shit I watch, you might assume this is right up my alley. I certainly love the Spider-Verse movies, so why not? I'll tell you why. Enough is enough.

Comic properties are no strangers to multiverse shenanigans. Since DC had The Flash interacting with his previous iteration, each line has had a smattering of storylines that take place across different universes, such as DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths or Marvel's Captain Britain comics. That's all well and good, but the thing with comics is that there are a lot of them. There are a ton going on at any given time, and there was always a series going on that had nothing to do with the multiverse crossovers if you had no interest in them. Hell, the original Crisis was meant to dissolve the multiverse entirely, assumedly because writers didn't want to deal with it anymore. However, there's something that happens with adaptations that you don't have to deal with in the source material. Comics can have small stories that don't tie into anything big, what might be seen as filler to our current day, but necessary to build characters and a world for any comic. When adaptations come along, these sort of things are left by the wayside more often than not in favor of the big memorable stories, your Knightfalls and Kraven's Last Hunts. This has the effect of multiverse stories being more suited for adaptation, because they tend to have a bigger impact.

The long and short of that is: When The Council of Reeds showed up I could ignore they existed and read my Spider-Man. Now I can't escape it. Because the first one did so well, there's always a Spider-Verse or a Spider-Geddon occurring, and they keep having crossovers with comics I was enjoying just fine before. And because they keep making more comics, they keep making more adaptations.

I don't know if most of you can imagine a world before Rick and Morty. It was a naive age, where the concept of a deranged universe-traveling old man and his traumatized grandson having sci-fi parody adventures was a novel concept. It came out and it was funny and nobody was yet losing their shit about a McDonalds dipping sauce. Then the writers decided to do a parody of the Council of Reeds. The Citadel of Ricks had an episode, and for some reason things were never the same again. Later that year the Spider-Verse event in comics began, leading to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and now it's everywhere.

Before we move on I should clarify some terms, namely Alternate Universe story, Multiverse story, and Multiverse Team stories. Alternate Universe stories involve one or more characters crossing over to a single different universe. These have existed forever, like the Justice Lords saga in Justice League, or that first story where Barry Allen met Jay Garrick. Certain time travel stories are a subset of these, like Back to the Future 2, or even It's A Wonderful Life. A Multiverse story is like an Alternate Universe story, but add more universes. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is an example, where a bunch of universes crossed into Miles' universe, or Crisis on Infinite Earths, where a bunch of heroes from different universes team up to fight the Anti-Monitor. Then we have the newest craze, the Multiverse Team story, which is similar to the Multiverse story, but specifically involves a team of people that are all alternates of the same individual. This is, of course, like the Citadel of Ricks, the Council of Reeds, and Beyond the Spider-Verse as well as its comic counterpart.

I have no problem with Alternate Universe plots. I still like them, they've been a standard trait of fiction before people called them Alternate Universes. There's a lot of room there, for something as simple as the Mr. Bevis episode of the Twilight Zone or complex as Star Trek's Yesterday's Enterprise. Sure, the format isn't fool proof, but it's versatile enough that it can make well-thought, interesting stories. However, one just isn't enough anymore.

Without the focus on just one universe, Multiverse stories are more apt to be scattershot, requiring a lot more restraint. A writer can just kind of put anything in there, the sky's the limit. If you haven't established multiple universes before the story it's almost too simple to chuck in a bunch of fanservice or solve conflicts by plucking an answer from another reality. Not to say it can't be done well, as Futurama's The Farnsworth Parabox starts with one alternate universe and turns into a chase through a bunch of them, made mainly as jokes. Into the Spider-Verse is probably the shining example of this kind of story, but as the exception, not the rule. Otherwise you get something like The Flash (2023), a hodge-podge of past characters in uncanny CGI and references to abandoned projects that never saw the light of day, all in the name of spectacle.

Finally we come to the most contentious one of all, the Multiverse Team. These are far more prone to the deleterious aspects of the Multiverse plot, as the choice to have a bunch of different versions of the same character lends itself to excess. Once again, Beyond the Spider-Verse is our paragon. Even it has flaws, which can hopefully be mitigated by its sequel, but nails the premise a lot of others couldn't. It may surprise you, but the comic Spider-Verse, the one that lends its name to these movies? It's bad. The villains are pretty stupid, turning Force of Nature Morlun into just one of a family of Spider-Man eating vampires. The story is a string of attempts to enrage you by showing a Spider-Man you loved, like the title character of 1981 cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, getting murdered by a tired cliche. Spider-Girl's dad? Dead. Spider-Man Unlimited? Dead. Repeat ad nauseam. It's danging candy in front of a baby's face before stomping it into the ground. Rick and Morty got about two good episodes out of the premise before becoming the current "I'm smarter than you" sludge, and I ain't watching more to make sure. Then there's Spider-Man No Way Home, which had its own set of problems that I don't need to reiterate here.

You may have noticed an abundance of Spider-Man in these examples. Sure, it could be due to my obsession with Spider-Man, but I offer a different explanation. Once you let it out, you can't get the Multiverse cat back in the bag. Ever since Spider-Verse, the whole property is inundated with Multiverse stories, from the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, to the new movies, and periodical new Spider-Verse comics. There's one going on right now! You can't do anything with Spider-Man anymore unless you at least acknowledge the Multiverse.

So we come back to My Adventures With Superman. In the episode we're introduced to a team of Multiverse Lois Lanes (and one alternate Olsen) and a new Mr. Mxyzptlk. Through this we're shown a ton of cameos from past Superman cartoons, like Superman the Animated Series, or the Lois from Fleisher's rotoscoped cartoons. These characters don't interact with anyone or do anything, they're only on screen so you can point and say "I remember that!" I don't need to be reminded of another Superman cartoon! Now, to be fair, I would probably just be annoyed if all this amounted to was a couple of cameos, but that's not it. They introduce both kryptonite and the concept of an Evil Superman in this episode, the latter ostensibly being the reason the League of Lois Lanes even exists. It feels like they skipped some stuff! They didn't have to go the Smallville route of kryptonite being under every corner, but I thought it would at least get a proper introduction. Evil Superman, as a concept, has a lot of pitfalls, this more so due to this Superman being easily the softest cinnamon roll tumblr ever conceived, but they get to sidestep any establishment by just throwing in a scene of some Injustice knockoff or whatever. That's probably going to underpin the rest of the show! So out of nowhere this conflict arises, and there's no way the League of Lois Lanes won't be involved in the resolution. That scares me.

I don't want Superman to be all about the Multiverse. The brushes with Alternate Supermans hadn't thus far transformed the franchise into that, but each time something like this happens I become wary. My Adventures With Superman was a nice simple show. For the first time in a long time we have a Superman I actually like, and I want to see where it goes. That simplicity is tarnished if a bunch of Alternate Universes get crammed into the first season of this show. Just let me have my cute Superman show, and stop chasing the Multiverse dragon. It's the least you could do after Man of Steel.

Amalgam Comics: Spider-Boy

In 1996, after a couple crossovers, DC and Marvel decided to do something fun together instead of fighting all the time. What they did was something nobody actually likes. It's called Amalgam comics. Sure, people liked it when they combined Batman and Wolverine, but does anyone care about Magneto and his Magnetic Men?! ...Okay, well, in Amalgam, they just combined two of their characters to make one that was either incredibly popular or whom everyone tried to flush from their mind as fast as possible. Try and guess which one this was.

Comic Review: Spider-Boy

In case you couldn't tell, like me, the two characters combined here are Spider-Man and the 90's Superboy, who is the greatest example of 90's Cool I've ever seen.

Well it's got 90's Superboy half in it! Sheesh, why is everyone always talking about Dark Claw, this shit sounds goddamn amazing, it's--

Son of a bitch.

Okay, so I think now we know what we're dealing with. So... ahem, Bizarnage wants to absorb Spider-Boy. Or be Spider-Boy. Or something. After some cunning tricks, Spider-Boy locks Bizarnage in a magical science cage. It's revealed this is in the Cadmus facility, which I would tell you more about, but I have no idea if this is just like the regular DC Cadmus but with the Fantastic 4 working there. Oh, the Fantastic 4 work there. Let's see how Mr. Fantastic is in this thing!

What.

WHAT.

Don't worry, we don't have time to get into that, thank god, because there's more trouble afoot! "King Lizard" (Whom I found out is Marvel's The Lizard and DC's King Shark amalgamated) got out of containment, which is no good. As long as we never have to see Bizarnage again he can fight whoever the hell he wants. Wait, what's the deal on King Lizard?

NEVERMIND LET'S GO BACK TO BIZARNAGE

MALL-CRAWLING WALL-CRAWLER?? WHY WOULD ANYONE SAY THAT?!

Wait, stop. I can do this. I got a handle on it. Spider-Boy makes more references to things that never happened so we can all pretend this isn't the dumbest thing anyone's ever made. Then he goes to some section of the lab where there's... Doc Ock... and, oh no.

WHY DOES HE HAVE A CAR.

IT FLIES?!?

OKAY. SO HE HAS A FLYING CAR. NO BIG DEAL.

Now we got some exposition, which you think might make a tiny bit of sense, but no. It doesn't. So our hero was part of an attempt to create a super soldier serum, so they decided to clone a person with gravity altering powers. Then the lead scientist died in a horrible explosion. Who was that lead scientist? Albert Einstein.

I'm kidding it was PETER PARKER.

So he died without ever showing his face, cool, great. Since the accident somehow released Spider-Boy from his cloning chamber, General "Thunderbolt" Ross becomes his father figure. You know, the guy who tried to kill the Hulk for 50 years. So that's all well and good, but then.

Welp. I guess you can't be anybody's goddamn uncle.

Back to the story, since King Lizard is loose, rather than try to maybe follow his path of destruction and woe, Spider-Boy decides to go to his part time job. He ends up at, where else, the Daily Bugle. Where, for all of 2 pages we get his nebbish alter ego, Pete Ross. Don't worry, that doesn't even matter, because as soon as he walks in the door, a reporter comes in with King Lizard's whereabouts. That was definitely the way that had to happen.

ANYWAY HERE'S KING LIZARD

So there's Lizard punching. The "Special Crimes Unit" which just looks like SHIELD shows up and shoots Lizzy, but predictably it doesn't work. Also, wait. Why is he getting bigger?

So apparently he's growing because he got exposed to Pym particles, which apparently also exist in this world. So Spider-Boy goes back to the lab, grabs a glowy thing, and throws it into King Lizard's mouth. And then he aaaaAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

Well good, now I have the irrational fear of shrinking to an infinitesimally small size. At least that wraps everything up. Villain is left to a horrible fate, and everybody is happy. No loose ends, no weird open conclusions, just a nice, simple ending. Yep, sure am glad there's no final image after a cut off senten--

GOT ME AGAIN, SPIDER-BOY!

Man of Steel Review

So guess what I just saw. It's that movie about the guy who flies around, wears a blue suit and punches stuff. Not saving people, but I'll mention that later. It's time for:

Movie Review: Man of Steel

Okay. So. I'm not even quite sure where to begin. So the first part of this movie was an incredibly long opening sequence on Aiur Krypton where it takes far too long for Jor-El to send Kal-El off to Earth, and a bunch of other stuff to happen. That's one big problem with this movie, everything just takes way too friggin' long. I should not be dreading a fight scene in a superhero movie, but by the time I got to the final fight, I was so sick of them. A large portion of the movie is pointless fight scenes that just go on and on. At one point, I asked myself why Superman Kent was fighting two Kryptonians in Smallville. I couldn't come up with a good reason. At one point Kent fights a giant robot that makes scary arms come out of it, and I didn't know why he was taking so long with that either.

The biggest problem with this movie, however, was Superman. Well, the dude they decided to call Superman right at the end but never really earned the name. He saved, maybe, 10 people in this movie. Eight, really, if you count the two people he pretty much killed. Metropolis was leveled and probably thousands of people died. How is that a Superman movie?! At one point, Kent and Lois make out for a bit in the Metropolis ruins, when there are definitely dozens of people trapped in the surrounding rubble, but don't worry that can wait until Kent and Zod fly around and punch each other for the next hour.

The whole tone of the movie wasn't what a Superman movie should ever be. On the surface it was pretty much any other action movie. For a minute I thought they switched the last act with a Transformers movie. Jonathan "Never Save Anybody" Kent was the worst Super-father ever. So in a flashback, Clark saves a busful of children after it falls into a river, and the mother of a kid in it starts asking the Kents questions. Ol' Pa talks to Clark about it, telling him he shouldn't have done that. Clark says, "Should I have just let them die?!" And his dear old Dad, the foundation for Superman's unflinching morals, says, "Maybe..."

Let me say that again, Superman's dad suggested that he let a busful of children die! Then he dies saving a dog in a tornado for no reason. The whole movie makes a point of expressing that saving people's lives is less important than hiding the fact that you're an alien from everyone forever.

Lemme talk about some other characters real quick. The villains were evil-bland. They had suits that looked like a gothy high school student's doodles, with the face masks almost exactly resembling skulls. Zod tried really hard to kill Earth just because, and expected Kal-El to help him because he must be Raditz or something.

Lois Lane was just sort of there, without much of a personality either way. She did some stuff, but it doesn't matter that she did it, it could have been anyone else in her position and it would have come out the same.

There was a bunch of techno-science mumbo-jumbo about Kryptonian DNA and it's in Clark's cells, but that part was just a reason for Zod to want to kill Clark, and I don't really care about it.

I was aghast when Kal-El killed Zod. Not "Oh my god what an unexpected move!" aghast, I mean, this was "This is a mortal sin" aghast. Superman is essentially Find A Better Way-man. Superman is supposed to be that moral guide, who doesn't take the easy way out, who always does what's right. But in this he just kills a dude, feels super bad about it for a bit, but then he's over it.

Is this the Superman we have? One whose movie has a six or seven figure body count? The one who, when it seems like he's faced with no choice but to kill, kills anyway? One who is told, specifically, not to save people by his father, who then revokes ever being his father? So many things in this movie did not make it a good movie, and so many more things made it a terrible Superman movie.

The fight scenes were too long, many characters were one-sided, the body count was huge, and it was just way too damn pessimistic for a Superman movie. It didn't even do pessimism well,
it was sad and pointless for no reason. This was a bad start to a Superman franchise, since, you know, they already greenlit it, and a bad start to the planned Justice League franchise. This movie was bad, and I feel bad.

Superman Batman: Public Enemies

In my second installment of DC Animated Movie reviews, we have:

Movie Review: Superman Batman: Public Enemies

This movie, rather than showing an origin like First Flight, it just transcribes a storyline in the ongoing series, Superman/Batman. Well, it's not so much a title, as it is just a picture.

Anyway, the movie starts by talking about how screwed the economy is, and that Lex Luthor is running for president in these troubled times. He then wins the election, and decides to devote his presidency to taking down superheroes. I don't see why anyone would be surprised by that, because they voted for freaking Lex Luthor. He also has, in his employ, Captain Atom, Power Boo- I mean Power Girl, and some other people I don't know the names of.

We first see Superman stopping a fleeing crook by using his signature ability, lifting. He's encountered by Luthor's superheroes, who try to convince Superman to join them. Obviously Superman is a bit distrustful, because, as he said, "Luthor's always up to something."

Luthor hears about a giant chunk of kryptonite heading towards Earth, but refuses to get superhero help, deciding he'll use missiles instead, because he did his own calculations. After his Secretary of State or something Amanda Waller urges him to ask Superman for help. Luthor agrees, and calls a press conference. Once Superman meets with Luthor, it's clear there was a double cross, as Superman collapses. It's revealed one of the secret service guys behind Luthor is Metallo, a Superman villain powered by kryptonite. A big battle ensues, that Batman quickly joins in.

Rather than try and beat the crap out of him, which never works, Metallo opts to shoot Superman with a chunk of kryptonite. Superman and Batman manage to escape to the Batcave, only to find that Luthor has framed Superman for killing Metallo, offering a billion dollar bounty on his head.

While Batman and Superman form a plan, Power Boobs meets with Luthor. She's reluctant to believe Superman capable of murder, but Luthor uses the argument that since he's changed so much, Superman could do the same.

Batman and Superman break in to the high security morgue, seeing Metallo's death was caused by radiation. After the guards come in, Superman and Batman fly away, only to be attacked by a cadre of villains. This is the start of about 3 waves of the guys, which encompass a giant fight scene between Batman, Superman and a whole bunch of random villains.

When things start to look bleak, Luthor's heroes show up, ready to take Superman in. This begins another fight scene, but Power Girl is uncharacteristically meek and unsure of herself. Superman and Batman escape with Power Girl using one of the Flash's usual moves, flying around them really fast so a whirlwind throws them into the air.

After their escape from Luthor, Super and Bats have a talk with Power Boobs on top of the Daily Planet building, where she reveals that she's unsure whether to trust Superman or Luthor. Before much can be said, Luthor's heroes show up again, for yet another fight scene. During a lull in the fighting, Batman accuses the Major Force (The red radiation guy) of killing Metallo, calling him stupid for trusting Luthor. He gets angry and attacks Batman, causing Power Girl to rush him, and punch him really really hard. Which, apparently, is his weakness.

A rupture appears in his suit and he starts leaking radiation. They attempt to contain it, but Captain Atom says that he can absorb the energy, so he does.

Back with Luthor, he tries launching some missiles, which don't work because the radiation of the meteor explodes them before they strike it. Then we see Luthor look at a glowy vile of green stuff in his desk drawer. Ooooh, foreshadowing.

Outside the missile base, Batman and Superman send Power Girl to some unknown location, then try to enter, but are attacked, starting, like, the tenth fight scene in this movie. It's Hawkman and Captain Marvel, trying to take our heroes down for their country. The fight between Superman and Captain Marvel isn't bad, but doesn't quite match up to their fight in Justice League Unlimited, wherein they destroy a whole city. Batman shoots a missile at Marvel, turning him back into Billy Baston. After a well timed Shazam, Marvel's back in the fight.

At that, we cut to Luthor's address, saying the missiles were just a research mission, and that phase two will make everything better. It's obvious most people don't believe this, as they loot shops and run around all panicked like. Waller goes to talk to Luthor, only to see him injecting himself with some Krypto-steroids. He rants that the meteor will kill tons of people, leaving only him and the rest of the elite alive. Then, in a move which shows he's truly lost it, he makes out with Waller.

He's called away by a message saying Captain Marvel and Hawkman have returned. He meets with them, only to discover it's really Superman and Batman, just dressed up differently. Superman is weakened by Luthor, but Batman demands the data on the meteor. Luthor goes to the computer and deletes all the files. Luckily, Waller is there with a backup, and gladly gives it to Supes and Bats. They fly away, and Luthor runs away to avoid being arrested. After another jolt of his steroid cocktail, he jumps into his usual backup, the purple and green powersuit, and flies away.

In Japan, we join Batman and Superman, where they meet Batman's contact, a rich kid engineer, calling himself the Toyman. He's built a machine that looks like a gaint Half-Superman Half-Batman Mecha to destroy the meteor. At first I thought this was incredibly impractical, but then again, he's Japanese.

Lex Luthor breaks in, and starts beating the shit out of Superman. His dialogue is here is really crazy, but awesome crazy. Luthor punches Toyman's computer before he can input the necessary data. Batman decides he'll fly the giant robot into the meteor, supposedly sacrificing himself in the process. Superman stalls Luthor as it takes off, and they continue to fight as it goes towards the meteor. Superman finally defeats Luthor as Batman explodes into the meteor. Everyone is happy, but Superman is sad.

After receiving a message from Toyman that there's still a chance, Superman flies up to the remains of the robot. Batman is, as you can predict, still alive, and Superman brings him back down to Earth. The movie ends as Lois comes from a helicopter and hugs Superman.

So how was the movie? I loved it. It had all the voice actors from Justice League, and they knocked it out of the park. Some of the characterizations were off, like with Power Girl, who's usually much more confident and brash. The animation style is quite a bit different, but they tried to match the artist who made the original Public Enemies. Frankly, I think the super-bulging muscles weren't too spectacular, but it translated pretty well into animation. I think they did a good job of putting Batman against people with superpowers and make him have a fighting chance. It may be less realistic than a normal Batman, but I prefer that. At any rate, if you like Batman and/or Superman, I'd suggest picking it up.