The Multiverse of Fiction II

Well hello again. I've recently been thinking over my post, The Multiverse of Fiction. I think I have a really skill for rambling on about my insane thoughts on strange things that no-one cares about, without making thing exceptionally clear. In my original post, which is linked above, I think I mentioned narrative crossovers and the clashing of themes and characters from across multiple fictional universes (I can't be bothered to check). If not, I know that its somewhere. Soz. The point is that I related my little narrative theory to some very odd scenarios when I have neglected some awesome examples that quite recently have become much more popular and are easier to explain.

The Marvel Universe.

Marvel is a brilliant model for looking at fictional crossovers. It is not exactly a representation of 'Multiverse Narrative', where multiple narrative universes cross into each other, each with its own limits, concept of reality and forms of life. I think Marvel is more of a 'Horizontally Multi-stranded Narrative' where many characters exist within near-enough the same physical locations but are isolated from each other except for when special stories bring them together. In essence, the parts which resemble my concept are the character's creative, unique characteristics and abilities. Nonetheless the concepts are still similar and the crossover elements are what I'm getting at.

If we consider the recent Avengers film, which I highly recommend :), this image alone shows the potential for how epic such an unusual combination of characters can be. The thing that made this film so epic and brilliant for watching, despite the lack of Marvel knowledge, is that the previous films, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Iron Man 1&2 set up the essential knowledge of the character's lives and their behaviours, emotion, values and powers within their own narrative events which do not actively have any effect on the other characters. You can watch each of the seperate films and feel that they are perfectly established narratives to function as standalone films, which they do. With that set up, the Avengers film doesnt need to waste time telling us about more information we don't need and instead punches straight through to the visuals and the epic scenes which really appeal to fans and non-fans alike.

If we made The Hulk an alien from his own universe, Thor a resident of Asgard which has no link to any other planet or civilisation, Iron-Man a machine from a mechanical reality and Captain America the human soldier in our reality as he already is then we can see how a Multiverse Narrative would work.

I may get round to making an image to represent Multiverse Narratives in a similar way to the Avengers wallpaper, but while googling I did find this cool little thang which does a pretty good job of it :) For the record, combining Superman and Goku together would be a nice combination. Hopefully this is a better way of explaining my madness. Hopefully if my writing does get more imaginative and I find the time to write much more than I can at the moment, I will be able to explore Multiverse fiction with my own characters eventually!

Hoping You Are Well

Keep On Trucking

L.H