Alex Ross Wants to ‘Salt the Earth’ with ‘Marvel Dimensions’

Halfway through Marvel Dimensions, the new graphic novel by comics legend Alex Ross for Abrams Marvel Arts, the whole book turns on its head. First, it happens literally: The sequence of splash-page retellings of Marvel superhero origin stories concludes with Jean Grey, a.k.a. Phoenix, whose story is told vertically instead of horizontally, and requires readers to literally turn the book to read.

But the format switch doesn’t stop there. After Phoenix rounds out the retold origin stories, readers are then introduced to the book’s previously unseen narrator, whose omniscience implied that he was Uatu the Watcher. But no, it’s actually the android Machine Man—an obscure Jack Kirby creation whom Ross previously used as the viewpoint character of his 1999 dystopian Marvel comic Earth X.

“Instead of the far less human personality of the Watcher, jumping into the Earth X characterization basically says, Wait a minute, where are we? And when are we?” Ross tells PW. “Technically in my way of thinking, it is concurrent to us now. That was the future back then, but it’s been 25 years since I did that comic series.”

One thing that’s happened in the decades since the publication of Earth X is the rapid development in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Those new technologies were definitely on Ross’s mind when he returned to Machine Man this time.

“I find it ironic in this day and age where we’re so afraid of machine intelligence because, in fact, you get to the point where it develops to being just another version of ourselves,” Ross says. “It’s a reflection of us, and that’s what [Machine Man] is. So he’s looking at all of this stuff with an analytical point of view that is extremely human.”

What could disturb such an intelligent android? In the second half of Marvel Dimensions, the comic-within-the-comic, Machine Man shows readers an alternate universe where all those heroic origin stories have been inverted. In this world, the Marvel characters we thought we knew so well are actually villains. Even their names are inverted: The Avengers are called the 1st Strike, demonstrating aggression rather than protection, and the misfit X-Men are reconfigured as the supremacist, mustache-twirling O-Men.

Having just immersed himself in the classic aesthetics and histories of Marvel characters, Ross knew exactly which levers to pull to turn them inside out—although he’s playing some elements close to the chest.

“It’s an easy doorway to go through, where you find that the material tells you exactly what it should be,” Ross says. “It can be a simple idea, like the bad version of Spider-Man is colored purple and green, just like every one of his villains. But there is a subtext that is occurring in this universe which makes them all the bad people you’re seeing. You can kind of get it through osmosis, but it is a hunt-and-find thing for the reader that I hope they will discover themselves.”

Marvel Dimensions is a rich text, full of both comics history and new interpretations of classic characters. Given the way Marvel comics work, it’s possible that other creators could build on Ross’s new inventions down the line. Ross has experienced that before, and wanted to prepare for it this time.

“The drive for me creatively winded up being, I want to do this before anybody else can get to it,” Ross says. “Other creators might come to it, put their own spin on it, and then you realize that gets added to the legacy of what you did as if it was part of it all along, which happened to me with the Earth X as well as Kingdom Come for DC. So I wanted to salt the earth so thoroughly that my stain can’t be removed easily.”

Art prints from Marvel Dimensions (including Ross’ splash page origins for Wolverine and Daredevil) will be available at the Alex Ross Art Booth, #3225, at New York Comic Con this weekend.