The Multiversity: Mastermen #1

This was a great first issue. Easy 10/10. Pick it up DC fans. Read Full Review

Mastermen is a masterwork.  A perfect 10. The greatest issue yet in this stunningly good series. Bravo, Mr. Morrision! Bravo! Read Full Review

I was a tad shocked when I learned that Jim Lee was going to be the artist for this issue. With that being said this was Jim Lee's best pencils in quite some time. Naturally the first thing you'll notice is how super detailed each page and subsequentialy each panel is brimmed with detail. Perfect example being the double page splash of Overman with the members of the Justice League. Something Lee doesn't enough credit for is his ability to tell a story with his art, as each individual character comes to life with vivid expressions and even more expressive body language. Also Lee simply know how to put on a show in the medium of comics with his well done double page splash pages that perfectly capture the majesty or horror of the given moment. Read Full Review

The Multiversity: Mastermen #1 is the story of the world where the Nazis won with Overman as their secret weapon and the guilt that builds within him over the years. An outstanding issue. Read Full Review

Speaking of rushed, I cant help but feel this issue ends a little too quickly. Like most of the other issues, this is a series I definitely would read a mini-series of and Im disappointed how quick the book ends given how good it is. It feels that when everything starts coming to an end and even more interesting ideas are raised that the book just abruptly ends. I suppose if it had been any longer it may have started to re-tread familiar ground covered in other books like the aforementioned Red Son but I still feel like theres more Morrison couldve squeezed out of this book. Read Full Review

While this didn't quite pack the punch that Pax Americana did for me, its a close second. It was a damn good issue that will leave you wanting more! Read Full Review

Those put off by the far-reaching and dimension-hopping occurrences of previous installments will find "The Multiversity: Mastermen" #1 a far more localized and accessible comic that can be enjoyed just fine as a standalone, independent of the rest of the series. This is a superbly paced and constructed issue, balancing darkness with humor, despair with hope and human drama with high-stakes conflict. Anyone who thought they hated "Multiversity" will want to have a look at this one. Read Full Review

From the opening page depicting Hitler on the toilet reading a Superman comic to the utter insanity that follows, Mastermen is a wild comic with some of Jim Lee's best art in years. It's sick and demented, but also kind of brilliant. Read Full Review

While Mastermen does a damn fine job in keeping The Multiversity interesting and exciting, I can't help but feel that we're only seeing half a story.  Great characters and great premise wrapped up in great art sounds like the perfect home run for DC, but it feels like we're missing some real development in the way this story is told and from where it finishes.  I guess my biggest complaint is that I just wanted more and if that's all I can complain about, well then this has got to be something to read. Read Full Review

One of the reasons I love Morrison comics is because I get to say sentences like this: At the heart of stories about Superman as Nazi or Communist is the question of nature versus nurture, which secretly is a question of whether moral absolutism exists. Is Superman good because that is who he is or because that is the way the Kents raised him to be? And if Superman was raised to believe such things as genocide are the correct course of action, would he ever recognize them as wrong? And if he doesn't, are right and wrong thus social creations, not inherent values? Read Full Review

It's not the best of the Multiversity comics - it's covering some grim territory, and starts with a truly disgusting image on the first page - but as always, it's a powerful story. Read Full Review

Grant Morrison and Jim Lee. Thats all I needed to know to pick up this issue. Morrisons exploration of Earth-10 is fascinating. Unfortunately there is way too much of this world to cover in a single one-shot. This causes the story to feel cramped with some missed opportunities. Lees art with Alex Sinclair and Jeromy Coxs colors is great, even if there are some disturbing elements to the characters. I would have liked to see more of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters but we do get an interesting look at how different this world is from the one were used to reading about. Read Full Review

Like the rest of Multiversity, Mastermen is a thoughtful, engaging comic. It challenges the reader and really questions the nature of Superman and explores his self-image and psyche. It belongs on the shelf next to Morrisons best Superman work, All-Star Superman. Read Full Review

The story itself manages to perfectly and succinctly unveil this alternate world, its characters, and Overman's issue without relying on a full miniseries. The shame here is Jim Lee's pencils. Read Full Review

Multiversity continues to be an amazing ride of a series, and it is the most anticipated book on my pull list. Even this issue, while not exactly groundbreaking, was still a real delight to read. Grant Morrison has always been hailed as a writer with great ideas, but here he shows he's also a master of world-building. If you're not following this series, you're missing the most creative work coming from the Big Two. Read Full Review

While the characters are great and the story is awesome, the art isn't bad, but its' not Jim Lee's best work. This book is great for both long time fans of DC's convoluted history and new fans who jumped on at the New 52 reboot. It works as a stand alone glimpse into the wonderful world of Earth-10 and the next installment in “Multiversity.” For $4.99 it's a little on the pricey side, but it is a bit longer compared to the rest of DC's books. Also, the cover is great and has a bit of foreshadowing for the events to come. Read Full Review

Multiversity is showing a lot of strange stories, and this is up there as one of the stranger ones. Read Full Review

Readers will come away from this reading feeling ambivalent about the majority of the issue, but will hopefully come away thinking about the potential characters like Superman and Overman have to be complex and nuanced characters. Hopefully the next issue of Multiversity will pick up its momentum, barrel towards Convergence, and continue to give us a reason to stay invested in the story Morrison's trying to tell. Read Full Review

Story wise, Mastermen delivers a complete story that presents an interesting and exciting Earth-10. At the same time I was left wanting to see more as Morrison takes us through over seventy-five years of its history in about thirty pages leaving me feeling as though I didn't get enough. Regrettably, much like the story the art felt rushed as well. I hope we get to revisit this world post DC's convergence as there's so much story left to be told, I just hope that the next time the creators get more time to tell it. Read Full Review

While Earth-10 seems like an exciting place (though I wouldn't want to live there), the way Morrison has told his story seems a little much. There is almost too much information packed into one a one-shot issue. This makes it seem a little cramped, like riding on the Delhi Metro during rush-hours. Read Full Review

Would that Mastermen #1 was a deeper dive into the prospects of a world where Adolf Hitler won the war and the implications of using Superman to do it but ultimately, this issue of Multiversity felt shallow in comparison to those that came before. There have been so many complex thoughts coursing through the veins of this series, that to get an issue where that stream seems to have run dry is a bit of a disappointment. Onwards to Earth-33 with better hopes. Read Full Review

Ultimately, it's difficult to become invested in the Nazi "heroes", a fulfilment of Frank Miller's fascist visions of Superman and Batman but without the filter of 1980s pop culture. Morrison has woven a complex web of worlds in his grand plan, although one can't help but feel that the Multiverse would have done just fine without too much attention paid to Earth-X. Read Full Review

Although past installments of "The Multiversity" has introduced us to other characters for seemingly fleeting moments, Morrison has always been adept at leaving us craving more adventures with them while also feeling thoroughly satisfied with what we were given in just one issue. "The Multiversity: Mastermen" #1 doesn't feel complete, yet moments of skill, such as the narration and occasional humor, still make this a book worth reading despite its flaws. Read Full Review

Mastermen isn't the best book it could be. That's a shame because with a few more pages I think Morrison could have really done something with it and given us a more nuanced ending. The one he writes is big and bombastic but I don't think it help him achieve his goal. This issue also doesn't do a whole lot to open up the larger narrative of Multiversity and while I'm all for insular storytelling, this doesn't seem like the right place for it. I also think Morrison would've been better served with a more consistent art team. Obviously, we don't know the circumstances surrounding this book, but the army of names that follow Jim Lee's on every book he does are starting to become a regular occurrence. Read Full Review

This is the first of Grant Morrison's Multiversity comics that disappointed me, and that makes it unique in a line of rather unique and unusual comics. Like Morrison's other works, Mastermen is full of great and mad ideas, and there's a powerful commentary to be found in its pages. Unfortunately, it's marred by a couple of major flaws, the most obvious of which is Jim Lee's art. It just isn't up to the task of conveying something beyond traditional super-hero fare, and I think we can all agree Morrison's approach to the genre is far from traditional. The other issue is an occasionally casual, even silly approach in the portrayal of the horrors of Nazism. The depth and dire nature of the history with which the writer tinkers here seems ill-served somehow by some of the choices Morrison makes in his script. Read Full Review

It's a story with such an intriguing premise that its execution was probably always meant to fail. It's a story beneath Morrison's skill. Read Full Review

mrDovydas

Mar 04, 2015

Best comic book of the week.

Supes' soups

Feb 19, 2015

It's inevitable this will be compared to Red Son which so far by consensus is better than Mastermen but there is still some good stuff explored in this issue. Unfortunately being a one-shot, the story abruptly concludes while we wish for further developments and honestly the briefness of this story is its ultimate downfall. Overman is hinted at being troubled by his past and is spending considerable energy trying to escape his past while still maintaining his power over the New Reichsman which is pretty much a Nazi Justice League. An Uncle Sam hero and his freedom fighters show up for only a few panels before bombing the hell out of a few places which makes you wonder if Americans are now the primary members of terrorist movements. Overall, there's a bunch of interesting what-if's that never gets fleshed out which is disappointing. But I'm afraid even if it does get fleshed out, it'll just bear a lot of similarities to Red Son so Morrison really needed to get creative in order to separate his story from Mark Millar's which didn't happen. Also, while not everyone loves Jim Lee's art, to me it's always a treat to see interior work from his pencils. I wish they made this issue longer, I would've gladly paid $7.99 for a jumbo issue like the Multiversity Guidebook if it meant for space for story-telling. more

TomSQUAREy

Mar 23, 2015

Kind of neat idea but not all that exiting of a story

StarKnight

Oct 18, 2022

Solid, but a bit too much packed into one issue.

Ryan

May 14, 2020

Morrison gives his own spin of the classic Superman: Red Son, but Superman is a Nazi instead of a Communist. The art is good, but Mastermen isn’t much different than Red Son, and in a straight comparison, Red Son is far, far superior to this issue. Biggest letdown of Multiversity so far

Gizmo

Feb 22, 2015

If you mistake this or Uber as pro Nazi, you are an idiot. You know who you are. The Nazis are still bad guys here, it's just a what-if scenario. Obviously Nazis will think their version of the world is better than anyone else's; real villains consider themselves heroes of their own story. If you are not comfortable entertaining alternate history, don't read it. All that aside, Mastermen is a cool idea, a more modern version of Red Son but with nazis, and commentary on modern America as well. Unfortunately, it is too broad and without enough pages to flush itself out; it's basically the first issue of a series with the last few pages of a series tacked on the tail end. Jim Lee's art elevates the issue of course, it's certainly a sight to be hold visually. But, like much of the Multiversity one-shots thus far, it's a fairly forgettable comic. more

Valiant Son

Jun 09, 2019

The story is very much limited by being a one shot. Morrison sets up some interesting ideas, like Overman's remorse and questioning of the regime, but can't really go anywhere with it because he's run out of pages.

GreyMouser

Feb 19, 2015

Difficult to review, this book has some good and interesting bits and some gross bullshit as well. Even if you dismiss the pro-nazi sentiment of the world being 'better place' due to nazi victory, some aspects are just broken and kind of sloppy writing. The end is the weakest portion IMO, even if there are some interesting moments with overman/superman. I think this would be the worst issue, even if it didn't involve nazis, and frankly this idea was explored better in "Red Son". Somewhat thought provoking, but mainly shock value, the world could have done without this and something better could have been done for the Multiversity series. i still plan to finish out the series, but DC made a mistake with this that may find me refusing their p roducts in the future.... ADDED: fuck you "gizmo"! more

+ Like • Comments (2)

Valiant Son - Jun 9, 2019

It isn't pro-Nazi. The people living in a society where the Nazis won the Second World War, and indoctrinated to believe in Nazism from birth, are very likely to believe that Nazism was a good thing. Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Goering, Lammers et al did not sit around twirling their moustaches and laughing about how evil they were: they believed that they were doing the right thing. Anyone who thinks that most evil is done by those who want to be evil has fails to understand humanity and histo

StarKnight - Oct 18, 2022

The book has zero nazi sentiment. Maybe try reading it?