The Multiversity #2 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Grant Morrison
Art By: Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Eber Ferreira, Jaime Mendoza, Dan Brown, Jason Wright, Blond
Cover Price: $5.99
Release Date: April 29, 2015

Out There

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's finally here, the gigantic conclusion to that mind warping, meta, fourth wall breaking story from the twisted and should be seeking help for mind of Grant Morrison.  It's strange to me that we've gone through all these #1 issues dealing with different stories and worlds only to end up back to where we started with an issue #2....... but I guess it makes sense if your thinking like Morrison.  This is usually where I like to catch people up on what's been going down in the previous issues......... but I refuse to do it here because it would take forever and I'd even have to go back myself to remember all the ins and outs of this strange strange series.  All you need to know is, shit is off the wall, the last monitor is controlled by The Gentry and a whole mess of heroes from throughout the Multiverse have gathered to put an end to this evil.  Okay, let's say farewell and jump into this issue.

Explain It!:

Our story begins by reminding us about the League of Sivanas that have their faux Rock of Eternity and are running amok through the Multiverse.  It's also here where we see the House of Heroes, containing all the heroes called into action throughout the Multiverse being engulfed by a gigantic Gentry monster........... Yeah, things are bad all over.  After the stage is set, we jump down to Earth-8 and we continue the battle we saw at the end of the first issue.  The Gentry possessed Nix Uotan, who also happens to be the last monitor, is apparently counting down to destruction for the entire Multiverse by how many moves it takes him to open the doors to each world for the Gentry........... and he does this with his key that happens to be a rubik's cube.......... Yeah, shit is already weird.  Oh?  What's that?  You want weirder, okay.  So during the fight, Captain Carrot gets his head shot off and while it's bouncing around, his body continues fighting.  Nix's sidekick........ You know the talking pirate chimpanzee, named Mr. Stubbs, explains to Captain Carrot's head about the comic books being a map to the Multiverse.............. You know what?  I'm not sure if these are real sentences anymore...... Seriously this could just be a string of words put together by a crazy person.  Alright, so Captain Carrot relays the information to Red Racer, who using his speed force powers accesses the Multiverse and recruits an army of speedsters to help him take Nix Uotan down.  Which they do, but not before he completes the rubik's cube key and unlocks all the gateways for The Gentry.  I truly hope you're following still.

The gateways are unlocked, but luckily the speedsters did the trick and Nix Uotan is knocked out of his possessed state and we find out that even though he's done a bunch of terrible shit throughout this series, like unleash Darkseid, set up the League of Sivanas, etc, etc, he's still considered a hero among the gathered good guys fighting off The Gentry because he called out to them to join the fight........ and that is totally a heroic thing because this group of heroes actually do defeat the Gentry invading Earth-8, after the Marvel Family from Thunder World catch up to the League of Sivanas and use their techno Rock of Eternity to stab the gigantic Gentry monster that was strangling the House of Heroes......... Which then gets pulled away by monsters of The Bleed.  So with that problem off their back and the computer: Harbinger getting downloaded with the Multiversity Guidebook, a ton of heroes were able to jump to Earth-8 and take down the crazy Gentry monsters........ Again, this just sounds like a string of random words.

In the end, our heroes go back to where Nix Uotan started his quest on Earth-7 and they find the leader of the Gentry: The Empty Hand sitting atop a gigantic throne and after looking at them a bit and spouting some cryptic nonsense, he tells them that they aren't shit and casts them back to Earth-8, but not before we find out some gigantic news.  It turns out that there is more than one Multiverse and if that's not huge in and of itself, The Empty Hand has come to this one because he's already destroyed what he called Multiverse 2.  Even though there is still a gigantic big bad out there, it looks like Harbinger has contained the worlds of the Multiverse and locked them up tight and as our issues closes, Superman of Earth-23 makes a rousing speech about heroes coming together if they ever need to tackle a threat this big again............ and Nix Uotan goes back to his alter ego as a regular guy........ but not before he bums $800 off the rest of the heroes so that he can pay his rent.......... That or this entire story was just in an autistic kid's head, St. Elsewhere style.

That's it for The Multiverse,............ and even though I enjoyed the majority of this series, I'm happy to see it end.  It's just too out there for me.  It's hard enough trying to understand everything in one over sized issue but when it needs you to remember stuff from previous issues, it gets a little out of hand.  While this is a fun issue and only kinda sorta of a mind fuck, it didn't really come off as that good of a final issue.  We've been dealing with The Gentry and The Empty Hand for this long and the only thing that felt like it was really resolved in the end was Nix being able to pay his rent.  That's no kind of ending and you might say that the series will continue and sort some of this stuff out but at this point I don't know that and I have to take this issue at face value and at this time it just comes off as another chapter of a story that's weird for the sake of being weird.  It's a bit disappointing but I didn't really have any expectations about what this issue could be going in, so it doesn't really affect me either way........ because it's just too damned weird.  You can take solace in knowing that the art was really cool throughout and besides for a few strange panel choices that might have been meant to play off the rubik's cube, this issue looked great all the way through.  So that's the end, hopefully now I can stop having headaches.

Bits and Pieces:

While it may not be the ending that you wanted, this issue does tell a fun "out there" story that is accompanied with great art.  It's an odd thing though, because this series was so strange it was really hard for me to have any expectations at all going in and I think it's because of that aspect that I don't feel too let down when so many questions went unanswered in this ending.  It is what it is and it makes no excuses for it.  

7/10