Random Thoughts On... The Multiversity

I think I’m going to make this “Random Thoughts On…” section a thing now. It’ll give me a chance to talk about stuff that aren’t really reviews of different stuff. Heck, I may even go into another tangent like I did with the subject of a black James Bond. I probably won’t go too random with this new thing. I will say that today’s subject may slip into review territory though. 

Today’s subject is actually on The Multiversity by Grant Morrison. It was a limited series that was released around 2014 and 2015. It was basically Grant Morrison’s way to expand on DC’s Multiverse and basically tell a story within it. It’s kind of a sequel to Final Crisis in that he uses some characters and certain ideas in it. He apparently had this idea for years going back as far as 2010. I heard stuff here and there about it but I wasn’t really interested in it until it was officially announced. I also think the fact that I’m more of a fan of Morrison’s work these days helped too. I added it to my pull list and read it as it came out each month. I will admit that I was a little lazy with the last issue though. I’ve been going through my collection lately and I thought I’d re-read this on a whim.

Morrison wrote all nine issues. The art team varies with each issue since most of the series take place on different Earths in the Multiverse. We had guys like Ivan Reis, Frank Quitely, Chris Sprouse, Ben Oliver, Jim Lee, Cameron Stewart, and Doug Manhke handling the art in the miniseries. I’m not even going to mention the rest of the art team for the mini. There are too many names to mention. I heard that this series’ plot structure is similar to another series that Morrison worked on called Seven Soldiers. I haven’t read that yet but I’ve heard things about it.

Tales From the 50 Cent Bin! - Batman: Venom

I think it is time to get back to some of that Batman goodness if there is such a thing. Today’s story comes from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, a comic series that had stories that weren’t too connected to Batman’s current status. The series started around the release of the 1989 Batman movie.  It usually had stories that showed Batman in his early years or at least it started out like that. Last year, I looked at “Gothic,” one of the arcs from this series. Today’s five-parter is called “Venom” and it went through issues #16-20 of that series. Like “Gothic,” I found this series in the cheap bins one day.

The writer of the story is well-known Batman writer, Denny O’Neil. He revitalized the character in the 70’s. I also think he was an editor on the main Bat-books at this time too. The layouts were handled by Trevor von Eden. The pencils were done by Russell Braun. The inking was handled by well-known artist Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (praise be his name!). If you’re wondering why I’ll add “praise be his name” to Garcia-Lopez’s name, blame Charles Niemeyer. So, let’s see what happens to Batman when he enters an after school special about drugs.

Batman: Venom

Writer: Denny O’Neil

Layouts: Trevor von Eeden

Pencils: Russell Braun

Inks: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (praise be his name!)

Colors: Steve Oliff

Letters: Willie Schubert

Trek Novels - Star Trek - The Captain's Table Book One: War Dragons

Well, it’s another day and another Star Trek novel. This one is a little special though. Today’s post is the start at a look at an anthology series that was released throughout 1998 called “The Captain’s Table.” The basic premise is that there is a special bar called The Captain’s Table and captains of all sorts come and relax for a bit. Six books looked at  the different captains  at that time. There are even a couple of surprises in there if you don’t know who I’m talking about. Obviously, there isn’t one for Enterprise (this early series anyway), so just look to my The Good That Men Do review for that goodness. I’m going to try to look each book during the next few months.

Today’s book is called War Dragons and features Captain James T. Kirk and surprisingly, Captain Hikaru Sulu. The writers are Julia Ecklar and Karen Rose Cercone. They did the book under the pseudonym of L.A Graf. The two, as well as a third writer, came together to write different Trek books. Now, the book actually has two timelines for a bit.  The first is right after the TOS episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” while the other timeline takes place between the fifth and sixth movie.

Star Trek: The Captain’s Table – War Dragons

Author(s): L.A.Graf

BRIEF BLURB: Captains Kirk and Sulu visit a bar at the Utopia Planitia colony on Mars. There, they tell the patrons about their dealings with the Nykkus and Anjiri, a race of space pirates.

Favorites - My Random (though not perfect) Star Trek Crew

Since this is Star Trek’s 50 anniversary, it’s finally time to make this post. I have other posts planned for the next few months and this is one of them.

Over six shows, 13 movies (I’m counting Star Trek Beyond too), and a crapton of novels, we’ve been shown a lot of officers. We’ve had some good ones and a couple of okay ones. I doubt we’ve had any bad crew members unless you count Harry Kim. Personally, he’s alright but he’s definitely not on this list. Some have braved the vastness of space and have done some cool things. Others just did their job and they were good at that. I can say one thing about the many crews: they were at least good at their jobs. You can’t always say that in real life.

So, here is my ultimate Trek crew. I know that folk online have done this, so I’ll try to do my own spin on this. By the way, some of these may not be my favorite characters from the show. They may not even be the best at their certain job. I also wondered what team-ups or pairings would be interesting. I’m also not going to crowd it with just one crew. I could do that easily, but that wouldn’t be fair to the other shows. I do think each show has at least one character that would be on a list like this. So, if I was Admiral Williams of Starfleet (played by Tony Todd or Michael Dorn for cool reasons), who would I want to head a crew that’s heading into that final frontier we call space?