Mastermen No. 1 Page 37 (The Multiversity) by Jim Lee
Artists: Jim Lee (Penciller) , Sandra Hope (Inker) , Grant Morrison (Writer)
15 Comments - 2,420 Views - 3 Likes
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Overman vs Uncle Sam
Cover
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DescriptionI have wanted to add a page by Jim Lee, certainly one of the top artists of his era, to my collection for a while. The problem was that the pages I was interested in were too expensive and the pages that fit my budget weren't all that interesting to me. However, if CAF has taught me nothing else, it is that "patience is a virue." (sic)The first time I noticed his art was back in the late 1980s, just before I left America to teach English in Japan (for "a year or two"). Back then, I knew Jim Lee primarily as the artist on Punisher: War Journal. I was headed for my mid-twenties and was dropping most of the mainstream superhero comics I used to read, but, attracted by a cover, I picked up an issue of the spin-off. Inside, I saw a young artist who was trying to combine elements of Neal Adams, Frank Miller, and Katsuhiro Otomo into his own thing and I thought it was interesting. Soon afterward, however, I was living in Japan, and it was too difficult and expensive to try and keep up with my American comic book reading habit. During those early years, I mostly bought trade collections when I came across them (usually on trips back to the States). On occasion, I'd find and pick up "Amekomi" collections, American comics that had been translated into Japanese, at a local bookstore. It was via those Amekomi books that I first "read" some of Jim Lee's run on X-Men. Anyway, a few years later in the early 2000s, long after my "temporary" Japan gig had turned into something permanent, I was looking through the import section of one of the bigger Japanese book stores I had access to and it had a couple of American comic books on a shelf. One was the first issue of Jim Lee's "Hush". So, while I mostly collected affordable panel pages from the 70s and 80s back then, after reading "Hush", I began thinking, if the right page at the right price were to come along, I should add a more modern Jim Lee page to my collection. However, I had a limited and rather finite budget for OA that I was rarely willing to exceed and Jim's pages, even then, rarely fit my budget constraints, so, it took longer than I would have thought to find an affordable page that was also a good fit for my collection. (And, yeah, between then and now, I probably passed on a few pages that, in hindsight, I shouldn't have, but that's the way things go). Recently, though, I read the collected version of Grant Morrison's "Multiversity," his re-imaging of DC's multiverse, and, within that story, I found both a collaboration he did with Mr. Lee and the page that was meant for my collection. The story was called "Mastermen," and it took an idea from one of my favorite Bronze Age JLA stories, Len Wein and Dick Dillin's "Earth X" Saga (a story that took place in an alternate universe where the Nazis won WWII, reminiscent of "The Man in the High Castle", but where a small group of superheroes, the Freedom Fighters, whose members were originally found in the pages of the Golden Age publisher, Quality Comics, continued to fight on) and added a Nazi version of Earth 3's Crime Syndicate, the JLAxis, to the mix. As cool as that concept sounds, however, Morrison, couldn't keep his story that simple. Instead of being pure evil, Overman, the Nazi-raised Superman, is haunted by his past, whereas Nazi society, now a near utopia for white privileged Germans, has simply moved on from the war years. For the vast majority of Germany's populace, little thought is given to the country's history other than through the erection of statues honoring past historical figures and the maintaining of certain cultural celebrations such as Wagnerian music festivals. The Freedom Fighters, on the other hand, composed of peoples persecuted by the Nazis during the war, deal with their sense of powerlessness by committing various acts of terrorism against the populace of Overman's postwar Germany (one man's terrorist is another's...). When I found this particular page from that story was available on Albert Moy's sight, I thought it had the characters, the dynamic poses and the attention to detail I had been looking for, and, with my budget for OA having been slightly adjusted for inflation, the price was in a range that I thought I could consider. It shows the story's climax, as a projection of Uncle Sam (notice the Star of David on Uncle Sam's lapel – which, for some inexplicable reason, was altered in the published version), announces to an audience watching a Wagnerian opera, that his group is about to bring horrible retribution upon the innocent (?) audience for the sins of their forefathers. Overman, breaking the pane of the second panel so that the top two panels almost seem like a half-splash, takes off to try and stop the coming catstrophe. Will he? Can he? Does he even want to? Social/Sharing |
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Comments on this Artwork
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Bill Lait
Member Since 2009
Posted on 2/6/2016
Congratulations on getting your Jim Lee. Great page from a great book!
Shelton Bryant
Member Since 2005
Posted on 2/6/2016
Powerful and Imposing!!!!Luv the Uncle Sam Guy!!!!
Alex Johnson 
Member Since 2006
Forum Moderator
Posted on 2/6/2016
An excellent example of Lee's work and I too like those characters. Congratulations.
Alex Johnson
Member Since 2006
Forum Moderator
Posted on 2/6/2016
And a darned fine Description - context of the story and why it appeals to you. The CAF needs more pages and descriptions like this!
Dave Kopecki
Member Since 2008
Posted on 2/7/2016
What a nice page! Good Jim Lee art is getting hard to find and hard to afford! Glad you finally got one after so many years, and great story in the description. I've been known to get a little wordy in my descriptions too. :) Congrats, buddy!
Adam Ianbarry
Member Since 2010
Posted on 2/13/2016
Nice one Tim! It's a knockout page from a standout Multiversity issue (but heck ALL the issues of Multiversity were standout! ;-) )
Doctor Fantastic
Member Since 2007
Posted on 2/24/2016
Awesome page, great story! Love Supes breaking the panel border in panel 2, and Sandra Hope's inking is superb!
Dimitrios Z
Member Since 2011
Posted on 5/28/2016
His art is fantastic and this page really shows it.
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