Deamentia
pozzyfreak
Ray Hilario
tonyrak
rsg8101
paladinking
DS Arsenault
joelopez101
SoldierHawk
dfstell
jtmazz
Roman Colombo
By Grant Morrison (writer), JG Jones, Carlos Pacheco, Doug Mahnke, Marco Rudy, Chirstian Alamy, Jesus Merino (artists)
Honestly? I love Grant Morrison’s work. I admire his wild imagination and flair for telling chaotic stories that somehow always manage to make a strange kind of sense. I loved The Invisibles, JLA, We3 and New X-Men, and even picked up his entire run on Seven Soldiers of Victory, a thematic prequel to Final Crisis. I’m telling you this so you’ll know I’m not coming into this story cold. I picked up every issue so far and followed the plot. Sadly, I couldn’t care less for any of it.
And why should I, when DC has had a track record for over twenty years now of hitting the reset button with these massive storylines that promise to dazzle you with the illusion of change, only to be erased a few years later so that everything can be just the way it was before? While I like the idea of Darkseid and his pantheon of Dark Gods gaining dominion over Earth, allowing the villains to finally win, I know things won’t stay this way long enough to make a difference, and if I know that then why bother reading? Take this issue for example: do we really think the outcome of Batman’s battle with Darkseid is definitive? How long before they reverse what they’ve done?
Also, why is it that these DC epics aren’t more friendly to new readers? Why do they demand you to have a working knowledge of the last seventy years of DC continuity in order to understand them?! Not only has Final Crisis not been friendly to new readers, it actively works to discourage and drive them away; seeking instead to cater only to those faithful elitists that have been reading DC comics for a long, long time. The epic bullshit that Bendis writes for Marvel may be slightly shy of moronic, but at least his stories strive to be entertaining and accessible to new readers!
Ultimately, I can’t decide if Morrison is a victim of editorial slavery or an advocate of the bad storytelling DC has been pushing down our throats since Crisis on Infinite Earths. I can say with confidence though that this series was not meant for the casual reader. It does not like you. In fact, it wants you to go away.
Grade: D-
-Tony Rakittke
Filed under: DC Comics, Reviews | Tagged: Batman, Black Adam, Brainiac 5, Captain Marvel, Carlos Pacheco, Checkmate, Christian Alamy, Darkseid, Doug Mahnke, Final Crisis #6, Grant Morrison, Green Lantern Corps, J.G. Jones, Jesus Merino, Kalibak, Lex Luthor, Marco Rudy, Mary Marvel, Metron, Mr. Miracle, Mr. Terrific, Ray, Supergirl, Superman, Tawny, The Atom, The Flash, The Question, Wonder Woman
Again, another review based almost entirely on how “new reader friendly” a book is. There are other things to consider. Oh well, blog unsubscribed.
I have to disagree about this series not being welcoming to new readers. I’ve only been reading DC books for about 2 years now, and I haven’t really strayed too far from any of their major titles (Superman, Action Comics, Batman, Justice League, Justice Society). So I’d definitely consider myself a new reader of DC books, and I’m enjoying the crap out of Final Crisis. It’s actually my lack of knowledge about most of these characters that’s made the book so interesting and enjoyable for me. This story seems to be digging characters out of every corner of the DC universe and somehow managing to make each one of them seem important and interesting. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve jumped onto wikipedia to get info on the New Gods, or the Question, or the OMACs, or any of the other characters that I’m basically reading for the first time. I’m thoroughly enjoying the discovery process. And irregardless of that aspect of it, I’m finding this to just be a fun story in it’s own right. It’s full of big ideas laced together with fun character moments, and I love the fact that not everything is spelled out for me in detail. I have to read each issue multiple times, and each pass through I pick up on a little more detail that makes it more enjoyable. I guess I’m rambling now though, so I’ll end this. Loving Final Crisis.
Eno, what “other things” should I consider? If you’re that passionate about Final Crisis, why wouldn’t you stick around to talk about those other things instead of unsubscribe our blog? If you won’t at least defend your point of view, I’m not sorry to see you go. Hope you find a blog that thinks exactly the same way you do and caters to your opinions 100% of the time.
However, Unbrokenrabbit, I think your perspective is interesting. I don’t agree with it, but I respect the hell out of it, you know what I mean?
Given the titles you’ve been reading and the length of time, I don’t think you’re a new reader anymore, as you’ve technically been around for some of DC’s major event stories, but I digress.
I admire that you are enjoying the discovery process and learning more about the DCU as you dig deeper. Furthermore, I agree that this is a story of big ideas…it’s one of the reasons I’ve loved Morrison’s work as long as I have.
What you see as a discovery process though, I would argue is an inefficiency on Morrison’s part to convey critical information to the reader. I feel Event Stories like this (and this is totally my opinion on the matter, I understand) *should* be drunk on those big, mad ideas, but also that those ideas should be given to the reader in a manner that doesn’t require them to get a phD in DC continuity to enjoy them lol
In my opinion, and I’m sure I’m in the minority here, Seven Soldiers achieved that balance, and I think it did a better job of doing the things you mentioned above: it was incredibly entertaining, inventive, character driven, but didn’t hold your hand and walk you through the plot.
Morrison did that for me in Seven Soldiers, but he’s not quite hitting that stride here in Final Crisis. Ha! NOW who’s rambling? lol Thanks for your comments, I enjoyed the talk. Please respond if you want to keep the conversation going!
Tony, I’m glad you brought up Seven Soldiers, because it got me thinking about how it stacks up to Final Crisis. I picked up the full run of Seven Soldiers on eBay a few days ago, and have just gotten through the first couple of issues. So far I’m really enjoying it. And if the pacing stays somewhat consistent, I can definitely see your point about how Seven Soldiers does a much better job of exploring the details of the big ideas and concepts that it presents. And that gets me thinking about Morrison’s approach to Final Crisis. I have a feeling that if he had the opportunity to do so, Final Crisis would also have been written as a 30 issue series. The story that he’s trying to tell seems much bigger than what can normally fit into a 7 issue run, which could explain the choppy style that so many people are complaining about. Every time I read an issue of Final Crisis, I always get the same feeling that there’s so much more going on than what I’m actually seeing in the panels. I definitely understand how that can be annoying and frustrating, but for some reason I’m really digging it here. I think I’d still prefer that it be flushed out over a greater number of issues, but I’m really impressed with how entertained I am by this, given that there really is so little detail provided to move the plot along.
Hey, thanks for writing back!
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I feel Final Crisis is a victim of bad editorial direction more than bad storytelling.
After responding to your comments last night, I went back and re-read all my issues of Final Crisis and decided that, at its core, it really is an excellent idea, albeit one that I doubt will have any lasting relevance to DC continuity.
But still, I think you were dead on when you said it seems like he’s trying to tell a story that’s too big for 7 issues. To me, that suggests the editor either didn’t do a good enough job of streamlining Morrison’s script to fit the page limits, or didn’t work hard enough to get Morrison the extra pages he needed to fully develop the story.
So in a roundabout way, I think Final Crisis is a better idea than Seven Soldiers, but also that Seven Soldiers was a better executed story than Final Crisis.
All I know for certain is that I’m eagerly anticipating the “Blackest Night” storyline running through the Green Lantern books this summer. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I definitely recommend going back and picking up Green Lantern: Rebirth and Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War volumes 1 and 2. Sinestro Corps War is a great example of an event story that was epic, imaginative, and accessible, and I suspect “Blackest Night” will be just as good.
Thanks for the suggestion. So far I’ve heard nothing but good things about Geoff Johns’ run on Green Lantern, but I just haven’t given it a try yet. Maybe now’s the time.
If you do get around to reading Sinestro Corps War, please drop me a line here and let me know what you think!
Do you think Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis will still carry weight when FC #7 comes out? DC’s editorial staff is god-awful, because I know Morrison wouldn’t screw something like this up that bad. No other significant comic book pays detail to FC (unlike the above-mentioned Crises).
I ask this because I wanted to have a through knowledge of post-Crisis/modern age DC continuity by reading all major story arcs starting with COIE and working through 23 odd years of screwed up continuity. Marvel doesn’t seem to have as many continuity problems, even though their universe isn’t nearly as diverse as DC’s. I fear that by the time I’ve swam through hundreds of comics worth hundreds of dollars (I’m collecting a Crisis archive) that I’ll get to FC and hear they’ll have another Crisis to fix the problems that this one did not.
Hey Jeff,
It’s a good question, and easily one of those things I think we’ll all still be discussing long after Final Crisis is over. I think CoIE and, to a lesser extent, IC will always carry some weight simply because they were done and, at the time they were released, had a huge impact on the DCU, but over time I suspect they will become less relevant as DC continues to launch these epic event stories that hit the resest button on their universe and alter the status quo for a few years….did that make any sense? LOL
My chief complaint with DC is that, because its universe is so big and so diverse, they often paint themselves into a corner with their stories because they have so much continuity to adhere to, which is why they must do these “reset” stories that clean house, get rid of garbage continuity, and streamline their universe. But their efforts are temporary solutions at best, and in another couple years they must do it all over again just to make sense of it all. By contrast, Marvel seems to lack these continuity problems because I would argue continuity has never been as deep and brooding a problem for them as it has DC because they address continuity changes in individual titles and reserve their event stories for changing the status quo and setting up new directions and storylines.
If you do dare to wade through DC’s major story arcs, I’d love to get feedback from you to share on our website, would you be up for that? Please let me know what you like and hate, what worked for you, and what is still wrong.
Just finished CoIE. Started reading History of the DCU only to find out (via Wolfman’s foreword) that by the time the TPB came out, alot of the material had be retconned (probably by IC).
Which is funny, because I have post-IC History of the DCU (in 52). I wonder how long that will hold.
Then I found a timeline of the Crisis events.
CoIE – 1986
Zero Hour -1994
Identity – 2004
Infinite – 2006
Final – 2008
The trend among the last 3 is not cool. Of course, people ignore Identity Crisis for poor writing and art. But with Infinite Crisis and the time elapsed before Final Crisis, it seems DC jumped the gun too soon. It took 20 years between CoIE and Infinite, but only 2 between IC and the “so-called” Final (yearly?) Crisis. With that, DCU fans won’t complain about quality but the financial dive into their wallets.
I guess that one thing DC used to do well is make the most of crossovers (CoIE, Zero Hour, pre-CoIE Crises) with solid writing and limited tie-ins, unlike Marvel, but then again, Marvel situates everything in New York, so continuity isn’t an issue. Now, with a big money grab every summer, DC is turning into Marvel. There were big crossovers between the CoIE, Zero Hour and Inf. C (Legends, Final Night and Day of Vengeance) but the Crisis label was reserved for universe-altering work that was well done. Thhey could do one simple thing…:
1. Stop trying to fix continuity with big events. Just do your research
They need one guy who is hired to be a continuity editor, like they have at LucasArts for Star Wars canon. One person who knows EVERYTHING about the DCU so that DiDio can go to him before he greenlights controversial projects. Morrison’s FC should’ve worked but I’m hearing it does not due to cryptic writing and inconsistent art. I haven’t read it but will get to once I can get all 7 issues (the nice thing about this crossover is the covers are so damn iconic, even on tie-ins).
As for now, I will read History of the DCU, the Death of Superman trilogy (ugh) , Emerald Twilight then jump to Zero Hour. Will let you know how that works out.