Things aren’t what they seem in Marvel Dimensions, the new book by Alex Ross. Though the book presents itself, in the beginning, as a sort of bog-standard celebration of classic Marvel origins, there’s something decidedly more conceptual going on. Even as the narrator – who appears, at first, to be the <a href="https://comicvibe.com/playstation-5-owners-can-now-watch-free-live-tv-heres-how/” title=”PlayStation 5 Owners Can Now Watch Free Live TV — Here's How”>Watcher – sets up the underpinnings of a narrative, the book insists on bombarding the reader with lush, two-page spreads that recap the beginnings of the Marvel Universe, character by character.
The first sign that things aren’t right is that the Watcher isn’t shown to be his noble, big-headed self but, instead, a grim face on a screen. Fans of the brilliant-but-niche Earth X trilogy, a dense and sprawling masterpiece about the end of the Marvel Universe, will recognize the design immediately. This isn’t a book set in our Marvel Universe; it’s a sort of companion to Earth X – but, in truth, it’s not even that.
Because this is a book about a third universe, a place called (and I’m not kidding here) the In-Verse. It’s a place that celebrates the comic booky cliché of “what if good but bad?” Here, every character is the direct ideological inverse of the character they are on Earth-616. The goodies are baddies and the baddies are goodies.
It isn’t just the concept that gets celebrated, it’s the form. During the origin splash pages and the parts of the story featuring Machine Man (the Watcher’s replacement in Earth X), the book luxuriates in the visual style Ross is best known for: lushly painted, organically laid out, and otherwise remarkable. But in the story that Machine Man is telling us – the story of the In-Verse – the book embraces the comic-booky conceit of Good is Bad by sort of dropping dimensionality; the full-scale painting goes away and the artwork more closely resembles a classic comic book – well, as classic a comic book as Alex Ross can illustrate; it’s still remarkable.
What this does for the narrative is enforce the differences between realities, but what it does to the book itself is to highlight how incredible Alex Ross is devoid even his most-exploited tool set. The pages where the painterly intuition goes out the window are just as incredible; they may be made more so by the comparison. Ross is an incredible artist working in any style, the book proves, and the reader begins to anticipate the pages in which the book embraces the comic book medium or, incredibly, pages which embrace both artistic traditions.
If the book can be said to suffer, it’s in the story, which reads less as a full narrative and more as a sort of conceptual aside to the Earth X narrative. The Machine Man has happened upon this universe through the Watcher’s “What If” monitoring abilities – his ability to look in upon alternate universes. He’s discussing this universe (and a brief window of its events) with someone unseen (we might even assume with us), and while that narrative is enticing and incredible, the book never quite sees it through to the end. We’re left with all climax and no conclusion, the book made more a thought experiment than a story.
That does not make Marvel Dimensions a failure by any means – the experiment is successful even if it is a bit truncated. It stands alone: you don’t need to read Earth X to understand what the Machine Man tells you. You need only to understand the multiverse (which, given the tendency of narrative in comics and movies these days, you must already understand).
It’s a beautiful book, it’s an intriguing book, and it’s a true treat to those of us who think, without hyperbole, that Earth X is one of the best stories Marvel Comics has ever published, period.
‘Marvel Dimensions’ is a truncated snapshot of an intriguing world
Marvel Dimensions
Though the narrative never quite reaches its end, Marvel Dimensions presents an interesting thought experiment in the form of an alternate universe, and provides a hidden treat for fans of another great alternate universe story.
Reader Rating5 Votes
5.7
Luxuriates in Alex Ross’s art in two modes.
Connects to Earth X.
Creates innumerable new takes on characters.
Narrative never reaches its conclusion.
9.5
Great
Buy Now
Amazon
Don’t Miss:
EXCLUSIVE Marvel Preview: MARVEL GOLD ’76 #1 (2026) #1
Comic Books
‘The Legion of Super-Heroes’ #1 is superhero sci-fi firing on all cylinders
Comic Books
X-Men Monday #351 – Steve Orlando Talks ‘Gambit: Gone’
Comic Books
DC Preview: The Doom Patrol #1
