It's been nearly two years so I'm sure it's been circlejerked to death, but let's talk about Ultra Comics again

It's been nearly two years so I'm sure it's been circlejerked to death, but let's talk about Ultra Comics again.
In fact, let's never stop.

>You must NOT read this comic!
>I read it anyway

Yeah, I want to talk about something.
Do you think this story is well executed?

I recognize the ideas and concepts Morrison tried to get across here (and in Multiversity in general), but do you think it was handled and executed deftly and efficiently?

I've read this multiple times and i really like it but i can't help but feel Morrison didn't tell the story the best way it could've been told.

I haven't read this, and I won't. Y'all should be ashamed of yourselves.

u madman

It's only a hypersigil that kills off a person's interest in comics if they don't properly go through the comic and leave it closed afterwards.

I mean, c'mon.

Considering the alternate title could be "Grant Morrison's Big Book of Memes to Avoid", I'd say he did it right.

Every single aspect of the narration and the "core adventure" is reinforcing trite, unimaginitive garbage. The -isms of Stan Lee and his imitators are all over the book. Fuck, the cover and BOOK ITSELF are based on Stan's very first meme (don't read this book, or the Black Marvel will get you!). The ideas introduced are stock, the plot device is as uninteresting as possible, iconic imagery is emulated and people won't stop using proper nouns and introducing new characters and plot threads.

It's the perfect encapsulation of a worthless book.

Holy shit it's been two years. Where did the time go

Thanks, that's pretty interesting.

this meta bullshit is the most retarded thing ever, actually.

I am continuously perplexed as to how you 'tards can continue to worship this garbage.

You seem really fucking awesome and really cool, you probably get a shit ton of pussy. What are some of your favorite comics?

RIGHT?
I clearly remember collecting multiversity 1 in my lcs and seeing the artists being announced slowly through the months and the hype and slight delays of pax americana

jesus man

A great Adam Warlock story.

If only Morrison wrote Guardians.

The Benign Nightmare by Romans Trignor

SO FUCKING COOL!

Now it's your turn. What do you like outside of Morrison?

You're hilariously mad.

Screencapped.

It's too critical of exploitative narration to be a Warlock story, and UC's design is intentionally boring and derivative instead of swag like Adam's.

Otherwise on point, though.

Adam's costume was very basic for the time.

I know, but he makes it work. Adam is sincere while Ultra is self-deprecating and making a point. Adam is cool, Ultra is a meme.

I noticed something... Does Ultra Comic's hair look like Lucifer's to anyone else? With the hair horns?

I love the part where its implied that certain overused characters have gobbled up certain symbols and ideals to the point that it ruins both them and stories that try to use them.

I don't think it was well executed. For starters I still don't have any idea what the reading order was supposed to be. It feels incomplete.

And in a way, it's too aware of itself. It needed to calm down and just tell it's own story, instead of:

>I'm telling you a story right now, you're reading one, did you know this is a work of fiction? You're reading a work of fiction right now.

Okay. We get it. Are you going anywhere with this?

>No.

But I enjoyed the details and the different universe in the multiverse.

I'm gonna speculate here that Morrison was high as fuck the entire time he wrote this. The "mirror's miroring mirror's and everything is a symbol for everything else" is creative trap you fall into when trying to be creative while blazing the devil's lettuce.

>I-I-I like homestuck and steven universe and things you never heard of!

Yeah, i think i would agree with you. it focused too much on how the story should be interpreted rather than the story itself. which, don't get me wrong, is a worthwhile creative endeavor but I still feel like it wasn't pulled off as good as it could have.

But here, does bring up point worth considering.

i still feel morrisons animal man was my favorite implementation of his meta themes and shit

Not that user, but I'm keen on Sam Kieth, Hugo Pratt, PAD and a collection of various oneshots and single-graphic-novel stories I've collected over time like Town of Evening Calm, I Kill Giants, This One Summer, etc.

Not a terribly original list, I know.

I mean, I guess that could be a valid criticism for Multiversity at large, but that doesn't really apply to Ultra Comics. It's not meta for the sake of meta, it's being meta to drive home its point. It's acknowledging that all these old ideas that get recycled infinitely are a trap, but that books like Ultra are in themselves are a trap for bad ideas. By having them collected in a book, you're able to critically analyze them and decide to not waste your time on things that rely on these devices. Nearly every page has evidence supporting this idea and the writer himself more or less said this in outside interviews.

If you don't personally like what it did or think that making a story that means something rather than being inherently enjoyable is bad, but to suggest that this sort of thing is just "lol he was high" is insulting. It's shrugging off writing that aims to talk about fiction as superfluous, which is retarded.

>"lol he was high" is insulting.

Is it? I'm literally projecting because when I'm high, things get way too "meta" in my own writing. That's where that speculation came from.

When you knock it as only being "dude weed xd" when there's actual substance, yeah. I mean, if you think that's a factor, sure, but to say it's just the ramblings of a toked up brit is just silly.

Ironic shitcomicing is still shitcomicing.

Wouldn't that make all satire garbage by default regardless of quality?

Really, I think the story's meaning was excellent... but since I didn't get until this thread that it was an intentionally shitty, boring narrative, I was just left with the feeling of "well, that sucked".
I feel like the point would've been stronger if it was at least superficially entertaining.
Also the fact that in all previous discussion of UC I've seen on Sup Forums everyone was people creaming themselves over "WOAH SO META" didn't help. Hell, if the meta parts were part of the "shit meme" elements, you think that was self-criticism from Morrison on his own overreliance on metafiction and metacommentary?

>It feels incomplete.

Each Multiversity one shot was written as though it could be the first issue of a six issue mini-series.

They're all incomplete by design, which is a little bit frustrating. I want to know what happens next!

Isn't that the point of Ultra though? He is an idea, a meme. Or maybe I'm wrong

According to Morrison himself, the two bookend issues of Multiversity are actually his attempt at self-parody.

Maybe my interpretation is wrong, user.
As far as I can make of it though, with such heavy repetition of awful slogans from Marvel and DC's past and a dreadfully dull narrative that ends with the antagonist eating "imagination", I can't really see the "simple adventure" people demanded being anything but a collection of boring, safe story elements.

>Yeah, i think i would agree with you. it focused too much on how the story should be interpreted rather than the story itself.
I feel like this is the ultimate problem with Morrison both in Final Crisis and Multiversity. Making a meta-narrative commentary on bad stories still means you are, in essence, making a bad story. I can appreciate the ideas behind them, but just appreciating the ideas sort of defeats the purpose of storytelling in the first place.