Issue Four:  We Are All UFOs

p1. Crisis on Infinite Earths. The end of reality, destroyed by "The Absolute." Morrison’s fascination with microscopy, the "micro-infinite," the "quantasphere".

p.4 "It’s not death. Prepare to become fictional."

p.5 Harry represents normalcy... Title: We Are All UFO’s

p7 Faculty X sets the milieu

p8 "abducted by superheroes"  8.3-4 notice that the ""sick"--the imaginary he'd repressed?--has become an emblem, a superhero emblem, on his chest.

p10 "They live in...a factory where ideas are made... They escaped from ‘The Absolute’ but the plan went wrong. Reality was flawed from the beginning. I mean, haven’t you ever felt like there’s something missing?" 10.2 "stripey trousers"

p.11 "It’s their world that’s real, not this one. Our entire universe is a bubble inside this...being called ‘the Absolute’...They bypassed the death of their reality by becoming fictional in ours...we made the comics because we knew. Somehow we knew something was missing and we tried to fill the gap with stories about gods and superheroes...Comics are just...crude attempts to remember the truth about reality..."

p13 the Villain represents human cynicism? "Your world isn’t real. It’s just a cheap replica, an imaginary story, barely fit to amuse children and illiterates. I’m here to bring some realism into your life."

p14 navigation: "I went in through the castle in the goldfish bowl...right into my head, into everybody’s head. And they told me the secret origin of everything."

15 Nanoman and Minimiss make up everything, but exist in a quantum coma..."They weren’t alive and they weren’t dead and neither was the universe...until we decided one way or another. They want us to believe the universe into life." "Before it was a bomb, the bomb was an idea."

16.6 BLAM! is a stylized comic book icon.   Anti-realism, anti-novel.

17.1 "That's right!  BLAM!"onomatopoeia as symbol of genre

p17 "Only a bitter little adolescent boy could confuse realism with pessimism."

p18. "Look at you! A half-naked muscleman in trunks. What’s that supposed to signify? What are you? Do you know what you are?" "Sure. I’m a superhero. Being clever’s a fine thing, but sometimes a boy just needs to get out of the house and meet some girls." Flex absorbs and overcomes critique. 18.2 Flex exceeds the panel.

p19 "Do you believe in superheroes? Imagine it real."

23.3: and #3.22.4, #2 pg. 12, #1 pg 1-2...

"Welcome. You have been inhabiting the first ultra-post-futurist comic: characters are allowed full synchrointeraction with readers at this level. The key is the man in the moon. We are now retrieving the global activating code from your DNA cell structure. S, H, A... The nanomanminimiss quantum weave is responding to code activation."

Morrison’s continuing interrogation of readership, his desire to make it active and transformative... "Shaman" "Brace yourselves for total reality!"

This annotation copyright © 1999-2000 Jason Craft.  Flex Mentallo and all images are copyright © 1996 DC Comics/Vertigo.