... but there do be a crack

[learnedax]

I just read the last issue of 1602. It's excellent.

I was slightly surprised that there wasn't more of a Surprise Twist at the end, and that the mysterious phenomenon was not fully explained. What the series excels at instead is bringing out the characters' inner turmoil and bringing all of them to exactly the right conclusion. Everything is wrapped up very, very nicely. I still think the best revelation is the last panel of issue seven.

I am curious about a couple of dangling threads. Neil and Marvel said this story is canon. Alright, so it's a canon alternate timeline... the origin timeline described in issue eight doesn't look like the Marvel canon one either, so is it entirely isolated from our usual world, or is there some potential effect?

And if there is the possibility of interaction, the state of the world is such that more titles could play around in Neil's new pocket universe. Are they going to let anyone do that?

Comments

[jducoeur]

It's excellent.

I dunno -- it left me a tad flat. Not bad, but not as good as I was hoping for. The whole thing left a little too much like an origin story, rather than a complete tale unto itself.

the origin timeline described in issue eight doesn't look like the Marvel canon one either, so is it entirely isolated from our usual world, or is there some potential effect?

My guess is potential. Marvel has never been shy about the possibility of alternate futures, and this seems to be one of them. (I suppose it's possible that this is the well-established world of Days of Future Past, although with a very different focus -- I don't recall if Cap is still alive in that future...)

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Finally picked this up yesterday.

The whole thing left a little too much like an origin story, rather than a complete tale unto itself.

Yeah. I did love the characterizations of Sir Reed, and both "halves" of Thor.

And, canon or not, this effectively *was* an Elseworlds. Connecting to some potential alternate-future Marvel just does not count, sorry. Grump.

Neil mentioned on his blog that the President-for-Life was not meant to be the Shrub, but a well-established Marvel character, who he thought was obvious. Now I'm all curious who he intended it to be...

[jducoeur]

Now I'm all curious who he intended it to be...

Hmm. Well, "the obvious" is usually whatisname Kelly, who is sort of the default Evil Politician in the Marvel Universe. Nothing in the story really screamed that out at me, though; there might be some subtle details either validating or disproving that...

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I've since read some speculation on Usenet, and concensus seems to be that it's The Purple Man (which fits with the principle of using just Stan Lee-era characters).

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Confirmed, in a Neil Gaiman interview