Every Monster Has a Story, or 5555 Words for Awesome: Superman Beyond #2

In Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #2, Grant Morrison brings together just about everything that people either love or despise about his writing: abstract concepts, meta-textual commentary, obscure references, and speed of light pacing.

First though, a brief summary: the story picks up where #1 ended, with Ultraman possessing the Infinite Book and swearing allegiance to Mandrakk, the Dark Monitor. The forgotten heroes of Limbo begin fighting the forces of Mandrakk which are composed of machines the size of cities as well as the shadow creatures from Crisis on Infinite Earths. Meanwhile inside Zillo Valla’s ship The Ultima Thule, Billy Batson talks the Nazi Superman out of killing Valla, who, recognizing the strength and purity within Billy gives him back his magic word. Captain Adam, after setting his mind completely free splits into (presumably) infinite copies of himself and gains insight into the fundamental laws that govern the multiverse: “No Dualities, only symmetries.” He brings together Superman and Ultraman, between whom the slightest contact would bring about the destruction of either one’s universe, but in Limbo, a place where “there is no material thing to be destroyed,” the combination produces only vast energy. Captain Adam sends this energy to the receiver on the Monitor home-world; the ultimate weapon against Mandrakk—the Superman statue from issue #1—the remnant of the first contact between the Monitors and the Multiverse which is “a thought robot activated by tremendous energies unleashed during collisions of fundamental opposing qualities.” The combined consciousness of Superman and Ultraman awakens inside the monolith and prepares to battle the “ultimate enemy,” Mandrakk. In Final Crisis: Secret Files, we learn that Mandrakk is actually Dax Novu, the first son of the original Monitor and the being who first mapped the Multiverse. Novu’s contact with the Multiverse infected him and twisted him into “the ultimate threat,” Mandrakk. The monolith Superman sees on the Monitor world the Orrery of the fifty-two worlds in the Multiverse which is under attack by dark Monitors; minions of Mandrakk led by Ogama, the Monitor responsible for Nix Uotan’s exile to Earth (Final Crisis #1). Mandrakk himself emerges from his prison, holding a vial of the Bleed, the substance Kal-el needs to save Lois’s life. Their battle begins and at last we see completely what we only caught glimpses of in the first issue; the final, desperate fight between Superman and Mandrakk for the destiny of all creation. Superman overcomes Mandrakk with the aid of Ultraman's pragmatic advice: while Kal-el has sworn to protect all life, Mandrakk is the opposite of life and so Superman casts him into the Overvoid. The Superman consciousness leaves the decaying monolith and returns to Limbo where Kal-el joins with the other Supermen and destroys the invading armies of Mandrakk. Meanwhile Ultraman who was abandoned on the Monitor world is approached by Ogama and given part of Mandrakk's energies to become a “Vampire Superman,” the ultimate fate of whom we do not yet know. After the battle in Limbo is over, Kal-el is returned to the moment in time when he first left. During the last battle in Limbo he did not speak to the others because he was holding the drop of The Bleed inside of himself and once he arrived at the hospital he passed it on to Lois with a kiss. She immediately wakes up and appears completely healed. Lois tells Clark that she saw what he engraved on his “grave” on the Monitor world and knew everything would be ok. As for what she saw? To be continued.

Wow, hard to know where to begin with this one. In my summary I focused on the conflicts as they are presented. From this point I’m going to look at the things below the surface and maybe offer an interpretation or two. The Borges influence that informed the first issue gives way somewhat to the ideas and writings of the late great Robert Anton Wilson, whose ideas, particularly in the books Prometheus Rising and Quantum Psychology blended theories of quantum physics and the supernatural with the human psyche into something Wilson termed “Maybe Logic.” Once Captain Adam frees his mind and awakens to his true potential he splits into an infinite number of copies of himself and sees for the first time, the mechanics of his reality, that things aren’t broken up into dualities—good, evil, matter, antimatter--and that each thing is part of the whole unbroken world. Everything both is and isn’t.

The world and the existence of the Monitors has been both created and destroyed by stories. Stories made the Monitors who they are and stories destroy them as well. Morrison says of The Monitors that they “were once faceless until exposure to the struggles of human life changed their nature. Until narratives formed around them like crystals in solution.” Dax Novu, first son of the first Monitor mapped the Multiverse in full and saw it for what it was: a collection of stories, and this knowledge corrupted him and turned him into Mandrakk, yet it was his initial contact with the Multiverse that created the weapon which would one day be used to destroy Mandrakk—the Superman monolith. The conflict between the Dark Monitor and the monolith is described by Superman as a self-assembling hyper-story, or as I see it: a story created by itself and for itself with the outcome already decided. Superman goes on to say “I’ve never known such perfect certainty. This is my reason to be.” To me it seems as though Superman is not only battling at the edge of the fictional universe but also within the universe of creativity or imagination and even within the collective consciousness of receivers (readers). The battle scenes rendered in 3D are especially effective in conveying the latter, with the fight breaking through not only the panels on the page, but the page itself. During the fight, Zillo Valla tells Mandrakk that his existence is based on the beliefs of the other Monitors. Valla then tells Mandrakk that another, stronger story exists, “the story of a child rocketed to Earth from a doomed planet.” This story, Valla says was “created to be unstoppable, indestructible,” which of course brings us to the entire purpose of this story.

Not only is Final Crisis: Superman Beyond the story of Kal-el and his desperate attempt to save not only his wife but the whole of creation, it is also about the role of the Superman archetype in the (DC) multiverse. After all, it’s the story of Superman from which everything else in the DC universe has come. The myth of Superman is the foundation not only of the DC universe but the whole of superhero fiction as well. The various interpretations of the Superman archetype gathered together in Superman Beyond differ in the ways great power is applied to the outside world, whether totalitarian order, for immense greed, for deep understanding of the mechanics of the universe, on behalf of faith in things beyond the concrete world, and last but certainly not least, for truth and justice. Larger than life concepts to be sure, and throughout both issues of Superman Beyond, the text is littered with a lot of prefixes and descriptors like “over," “ultimate," “hyper," etc... as a means to conveying just how grand a story it is.

From the first issue of Final Crisis to now and even into the next few months, it has been an amazing and often very controversial ride. I have to applaud DC for taking a chance on such an unusual and at times complex story. I almost don’t want it to end. Almost.

Beyond Superman Beyond

Ever since the first issue of Final Crisis came out a few months ago, a lot of people have been wondering where are the great cosmic struggles that were in the center of the two previous Crisis stories. The answer is right inside the pages of Superman Beyond #1. For this, the first issue of a two-part story, Grant Morrison completely explodes with a visual and mental feast unlike anything I've seen before. This of course is helped by Doug Mahnke's art as well as the fact that a large chunk of the book is in 3D. This is the comic book equivalent of the Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite section of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The story opens in the midst of a heated battle between Superman and an unknown foe. We're then taken back to the scene in Final Crisis #3 where Superman is confronted by the Monitor Zillo Valla and is told by her that she can help Lois if Superman will help her. It's here that we get an explanation as to what the Bleed, or the Ultramenstruum is: a substance that doesn't just exist between universes, but binds the multiverse together. It’s also a substance of both immense healing and destructive power.

As they are walking to the Monitor's ship the Ultima Thule, which is essentially the Yellow Submarine, we're also introduced to other powerful beings that Zillo Valla has gathered, Captain Marvel from earth 5, Overman from earth 10, Ultraman from the Anti-Matter Earth, and a very Dr. Manhattan looking Captain Atom from Earth 4. We know and Superman knows that the ship is under attack, but we can't see from what.

Once Superman adapts 4D vision (and we put on our 3D glasses) he sees the universe as it really is. He also sees what is attacking the Monitor's ship and it's here we get our first glimpse of the (possible) mastermind of the Final Crisis, beyond even Darkseid; The Echo of Midnight. Superman and Ultraman are able to divert Echo of Midnight to the Earth 51 universe, where all life on earth was destroyed in the battle between Superman Prime and Monarch in Countdown.

After a more detailed introduction of the main players, The Ultima Thule, powered by Zillo Valla's weakening heart gets stranded beyond the Multiverse into limbo--a land where there are no heroes and nothing ever happens, and it's here in Limbo where Morrison really unleashes his love for metafiction--a topic he has explored previously in Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Flex Mentallo, the latter part of The Invisibles, and The Filth. Limbo is populated by long forgotten characters of the DCU (I only recognize Ace the Bat-hound). Conversing with Merry Man, a jester-type character and one-time member of The Inferior Five (had to look him up in the Comic Book db), Superman notices the Library of Limbo. At this point in the story, Morrison is going back to is love for the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, first seen in the "Crawling from the Wreckage" arc in Doom Patrol where, like the Borges story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", a fictional universe is slowly consuming the real (or actually another fictional) universe. Inside the Library of Limbo, like Borges' story "The Library of Babel" resides every book that ever was or ever will be written in the form of one book inside a glowing sphere. Superman and Captain Marvel attempt to take the book back to the ship in the hopes that its infinite memory will be able study the book and find a way to repair itself. In attempting to remove the book from the library Superman and Captain Marvel inadvertently catch a glimpse of the history of the Monitors.

In the beginning, there was only one Monitor, an abstract infinite intelligence, a conscious living void, and through his probing of the multiverse he discovers something he had never before encountered: stories. Life, death, heroes, villains, love... and never having encountered the concept of stories, the Monitor had no defense against them and they began to enter his world, again not unlike Borges' "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". He is finally able to seal the breach until all that remains is a giant Superman, covered in divine metals like a great monolith on the Monitor's homeworld. But still, stories spread like a virus and as the one Monitor becomes many, stories soon spread about the purpose of this great, rusting monolith. Soon we learn that the stories of the monolith arise from a great fear that the Monitors all share, a fear of "the Beast in Darkness", "holocaust": Mandrakk the Prime Eater of Life. Gazing upon the sepulchre of Mandrakk, Superman and Captain Marvel are suddenly and violently jolted back to their present, with Captain Marvel turned back into Billy Batson who can't remember his magic word, and says prophetically, "the thing most despised will save the thing most beloved...ultimate good is ultimate evil..."

Superman, taking Billy Batson back to the ship encounters Captain Atom whose senses, once dampened by drugs that kept him focused, are now opening beyond the infinite. Superman then goes to confront Zillo Valla about the nature of Mandrakk and he finds her draining the blood from Overman, who originally joined her in the hopes of finding her cousin (currently on Earth 1). She says that Overman's sacrifice will save everyone. Captain Atom calls out for Superman, saying "The sky...the sky just shattered". The last image we see is Ultraman holding the book from the library, and behind him the vast (to us, but in actuality is Monitor nanotechnology ) eyes of Mandrakk.

In Superman Beyond, Grant Morrison seems to be providing us with a summary of not only his superhero work, but of his entire created output to date. The concepts we see in this issue: world ending terror, metafiction, influences both cinematic and literary, are being brought together in an overall story arc that almost feels like the last word on superheroes. Which of course, it really isn't, and once the dust has settled and Final Crisis has come and gone, there will always be something new on the horizon. But more and more I get the feeling that whatever new thing comes along will always be filtered through our understanding and experience of Final Crisis.

The 3D sections do a great job of creating a dazzling, but very disorienting world, and while it is difficult to focus on the story while being confronted with this amazing artwork, in the context of the story it makes a lot of sense. Like the heroes and villains gathered together, we are also being confronted with a world we can barely understand.

The theme that seems to resonate the strongest in this issue is that of metafiction, and of fictional universes taking hold in reality. The debt that Morrison owes to Jorge Luis Borges is huge with concepts like the Library of Limbo and the book inside (very much like the Aleph; a point in space from which you can see everything in the universe, from the story of the same name) as well as the idea of a fictional universe infecting the real world like a virus, lifted wholesale from his stories.

In the space of just one issue, Superman Beyond has brought an amazing amount of depth to the larger Final Crisis story, and as for where the story goes from this point, like the heroes and villains in it, we can only wait and make (largely incorrect) guesses.

Seven Souls and Seven Soldiers

The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls.

Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren the Secret name. This corresponds to my Director. He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in.
Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power, Light. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons.

Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she or it is third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense - but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel. The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the land of the dead.

Number four is Ba, the Heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.

Number five is Ka, the double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the Western Lands.

Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives.

Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains.

-William Burroughs, The Western Lands.


The above lengthy quote was taken from the last novel by William S. Burroughs, The Western Lands. It was published in 1987 and is the third part of a trilogy that essentially summarizes Burroughs' life, his philosophy, and his literary and cultural influences. From reading Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, The Invisibles, and various interviews over the years, I found that Burroughs was a significant influence on his work. It was pure happenstance that I was reading both The Western Lands as well as Seven Soldiers around the same time. I was also listening to a lot of Material, an avant-garde funk band whose 1989 album Seven Souls features William Burroughs reading sections from the novel. But now that I think about it, was it happenstance or was it something else? This is Morrison and Burroughs we’re talking about so it’s hard to dismiss magical calling outright. The texts and music could very well have acted as a kind of sigil charged with meaning and connections.
So I set out first to connect the seven souls of man with the Seven Soldiers of the story:

Ren--Zatanna
Sekem--Frankenstein
Khu--Shining Knight
Ba--Klarion
Ka--Bulleteer
Khaibit--Guardian
Sekhu--Mr. Miracle

Ren--"Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren the Secret name. This corresponds to my Director. He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in. This more or less corresponds to Zatanna, at least with regards to the director aspect. It's Zatanna who ultimately unites the seven soldiers into a single purpose, though they themselves don't know it.
Sekem--"Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power, Light. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons. I put this with Frankenstein. He was brought into existence with energy.
Khu--"Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she or it is third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense - but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel. The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the land of the dead. The flight aspect is analogous to Shining Knight, simply because of the horse. She also sustained the odd injury or two and her appearance (with the bound breasts) is of someone wounded.
Ba--"Number four is Ba, the Heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba. The treacherousness of Ba follows with Klarion, who takes control of Frankenstein and becomes the leader of the Sheeda, also, the animal/witch-folk connection with the familiars as well as the Horigal beast that is a combination of the two.
Ka--"Number five is Ka, the double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the Western Lands. Alix Harrower, before she became the Bulleteer, was a teacher. Specifically, she was a teacher for autistic children. Very much a guide for children lost within themselves. This in addition to her looking after an infected Helen Helligan (if that's not a Silver Age name I don't know what is) and helping her to stop her sister's marriage as well as taking care of Sally Sonic by driving her to the hospital, make the Bulleteer/Ka connection seem a little more logical (well, as logical as something like this ever can be).
Khaibit--"Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives". Guardian is, if nothing else a man haunted by his past. However, he overcomes his doubt to become a true hero.
Sekhu--"Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains.” Mr. Miracle. Dead, buried, but risen again.
Ok, so what does all of this mean? Well, I think, just as the seven souls are part of man, the seven souls represented by the seven soldiers are combined, the soul of the DC universe. Of course the question has to be asked: why not the big three, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman? They, more than any of the other characters, are the heart and soul of the DC universe as we've been told so many times.
Well, for me the true soul of the DC universe lay with its secondary and tertiary characters. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are icons, known all over the world and known independently from their comic origins. The DC universe is populated with so many diverse types of characters, from the silly to the horrifying. What DC is all about as a created universe can be seen in these seven little-known characters.
Zatanna/Ren/The Director: The voice of direction and continuity. Sometimes this voice can get lost or the director loses sight of the goals or objectives. But in the end, the course is set and all doubts are cast aside.
Frankenstein/Sekem/Energy, Power: Strength, Determination, Will. Physical and mental characteristics required of all heroes. Frankenstein does not stop in his quest to destroy the Sheeda. He pursues them to Mars and one billion years into the future. Also, it doesn't hurt that Frankenstein is a resurrected character, both from the dead and from obscurity. But more on that in a bit.
Shining Knight/Khu/Guardian: A knight is symbolic of a quest, and like the characteristics mentioned above, a hero without a quest to fulfill isn't much of a hero. Also confounds our expectations and adds a crucial element to the superhero mythos by having a concealed identity.
Klarion/Ba/Heart and animal instincts: Klarion is guided by instinct and a whimsical, care-free attitude. Like the others of his race, he has a close relationship with his animal familiar, a totem from which he can draw great power. Like so many other heroes in the DC universe, this connection to an animal is important both for the strength it gives as well as its power as a symbol.
Bulleteer/Ka/Guidance: The Bulleteer is unabashedly feminine and embodies all of the characteristics of the classic hero: strength, compassion, beauty, and wisdom. She is the embodiment of the feminine superhero archetype, though she fights against it at first. After all, it was the fetishization of that archetype that led to the death of her husband. But like all heroes, she accepts her calling in the end.
Guardian/Khaibit/Memory, Legacy: Jake Jordan inherits the mantle of the Guardian, a trait unique to the DC universe, where heroes can retire and pass on their legacy to a younger generation. Jake Jordan is also a haunted man, haunted by mistakes he made in the past and tirelessly works for redemption
Mr. Miracle/Sekhu/The Remains, Death, Sacrifice, and Resurrection: Sacrifice is expected of all heroes. So often the ultimate sacrifice, death, is called upon for a story. But true heroes hardly ever stay dead. Occasionally a hero will die and pass their legacy on to another, but more often than not, the hero simply rises from the dead and continues fighting. Shilo Norman inherited the name of Mr. Miracle, and in his story he makes the ultimate sacrifice for the good of humanity, only to rise again.
In conclusion I just want to thank you for reading this far. Seven Soldiers had a profound impact on me as I'm sure you can tell. In it, Grant Morrison has crafted a near-perfect statement on the possibilities of superhero comics as well as its rich history, and has done so using characters that, while largely unknown or forgotten, embody all of the archetypes of heroic fiction--the soul of the DC universe.

Obligatory intro

Greetings everyone! I'm David Faust and welcome to 4-D Vision, my own little corner of the internets. By day, I'm a teacher working in a Korean university where I teach English conversation as well as grammar and writing. I'm also in the process of completing my M.A. Degree in Humanities. My thesis will be an exploration of Grant Morrison's Final Crisis and Seven Soldiers of Victory. This blog is, in a way, a tool to help me get into the habit of writing a little more critically about subjects for which a feel very strongly. I will attempt to explore the DC-Universe works of my all-time favorite writer, Grant Morrison. I'll be focusing exclusively on the stories set within the DC Universe and not any of the Vertigo titles. After all, better minds than mine have been tackling stories like The Invisibles and The Filth for a while now, and I doubt that there is much I can add to that conversation. The entries won't follow any sort of pattern, they'll just be about the books I'm reading and enjoying. I will try to post about current titles as much as is possible, but work, studies, and domestic responsibilities will ensure that I don't spend too much time reading and writing about comics. From time to time, I might throw together an non-Morrison entry or two if the mood strikes. At any rate, if anyone reads this, let me know what you think. My e-mail is faustdpatgmaildotcom. You can also find me on the Comic Forums, The Eleven O'Clock forums and a few other places here and there. Oh, one more thing. Most of these entries are somewhat dated since I wrote them as the books were coming out. I'm just re-posting them here to have them all in one place. Eventually, I'll add more current posts.