Final Crisis wrapped up this week, of course. I really loved how it ended. I definitely have to go back and read it from the beginning again to get everything out of it, but overall, this was a fantastic event with really high quality writing and artwork. I don't want to give too much away for those who haven't read it yet, but I want to say a couple of general things.What I really love about Grant Morrison is his optimism. Final Crisis had a happy ending. Morrison had to pretty much literally take us to Hell and back to give us that happy ending, but in the end what we got was an incredibly beautiful ode to heroes and heroism. Morrison loves superheroes, and it shows on every page. He likes to torture them, but it's always so we can see them overcome and triumph in a way that always makes me want to cry because why can't Superman be real?! WHY?!
Things got as bad as they could possibly get, and not everyone made it out alive, but nothing happened that I would consider pessimistic. And there certainly wasn't anything snarky. This was not a series written by a disgruntled old scribe who was sick of superheroes and just wanted to make them all suffer for their own sick pleasure. We've seen enough of that in plenty of comics. This was a story of hope. And it was delightful.
Plus, y'know, there was a lot of cool-looking stuff.
27 comments:
Yeah, I'm doing my very best to not let the previous issue's revelations color my judgement of the main work. I should never read scans_daily and expect not to fly off the handle. Hopefully once I see everything in context it'll all gel a bit more cohesively.
I've been trade-waiting Final Crisis, since I prefer to read Morrison stories all at once instead of an issue at a time, and I wanted to ask: how important are the various one-shots and mini-series (Resist, Submit, Legion of Three Worlds, Superman Beyond, etc.) in terms of the overall storyline? Thanks.
I haven't read ish 7 yet but I'll second your overall favorable response to the series, Rachelle. I do have some mixed feelings about some things (JJ/MM's death read like a non-sequitur to me). Still there have been passages in the series that've honestly taken my breath away. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Morrison's unlocked the true story power of the New Gods (we've only seen glimpses until now). As you say, I'm gonna have to go back and read the whole thing, given the disjointed experience first time around.
I was hoping that between the end of All Star Superman and Superman Beyond, with all of the ruminations on the nature of fiction, that FC would end with a merger between the DCU and Earth-Prime, and we'd all wake up to find that Superman had ALWAYS been here to save us.
Stacy - yeah, I avoid scans_daily myself. It's definitely a good comic.
Dean - I think this is going to make an excellent trade. It will probably be easier to read for sure. As for the tie-ins, the only ones that are any good are Legion of Three Worlds, Rogue's Revenge, and Superman Beyond. I would say that Resist is pretty important, though, and it wasn't bad. Plus, it's only one issue. But those other three tie-in series are rad.
Jon - yeah, I agree with you on MM. I thought we'd see some sort of closure on that. But I am sure we'll see a mini-series or some such thing soon enough that brings him back somehow.
monstermike - if I had written Final Crisis, that's how it would have ended. And I would have been there. To marry Superman.
I like to utilize s_d to keep my oar in the water between wednesdays, but sometimes the concentrated snark can leave your sense of priorities seriously askew. That said, I've seen enough of #7 to be irked, but I want to give it a proper read-through before I come down on either the yea or nay side of things. I will do my ample best not to one of those kind of fans who beak off without all the facts.
I definitely agree, this was a story about hope.
It took the worst menaces ever to show how indomitable the DC universe is, and to highlight the very best that can be found in one of the very best DC characters. I swear Morrison is the only person able to make me care about Superman.
I too loved the ending of the series without really understanding how I got there in the first place. I know that somehow Superman powered some super wish machine and saved us all with a super wish (obviously another of his powers like super hypnotism and the like). For some reason Morrison always makes me feel stupid and I have read thousands upon thousands of comic in my time from all of the greats but none of them infuriate me and bring me back as much as he does. Like Donnie Darko I think I need to read the opinions of many others until I form my own analysis of the work. Definately something you need trades to fully appreciate - to read in order all in one shot. And the ending with the cave man batman drawing the bat on the wall? Why oh why did you leave me with that to ponder?
I had a huge problem with Final Crisis. I think the biggest fault was trying to measure to the original Crisis and also to Infinite Crisis. These two works were absolutely amazing. 52 added even more to this. I guess my true disappointment really lies in toiling through the endless cycle of Countdown issues to find that none of these counted. For the huge build up to this, it had a very weak sauce ending. There's too much Retcon in the whole thing. Stick to the story and tell it. Stop fixing it while telling it. It just felt like a rough draft.
And the ending...
"..wished for a happy ending.."? Come on. This whole series felt like a filler to Blackest Night more than anything. I liked the whole RIP line of Batman until it started to tie in to Final Crisis.
They might as well have just had the last panel of the book show Patrick Duffy in the shower and everything be a dream.
I'm not discounting Grant's work but this is definitely not one of his best.
I expected more from a "Final" crisis.
btw:
Rogues Revenge and Legion of three worlds are the best of the whole series!
sorry to bust your bubble Ltrain but
Final Crisis > COIE + Infinite Crisis
My wife has given up on Final Crisis. I read issues 6 and 7 simply to have the whole story. When I told her it didn't make any sense, she asked me to tell her what happened.
When I got to "and then Frankenstein's Monster showed up," we both started laughing. Go ahead, recount Final Crisis 7 aloud. It sounds like someone's really weird dream. Even more, it sounds like someone's really weird dream that they are trying to tell someone else about, and need to keep going back to fill in the bits they forgot about.
"And then, the Rubik's Cube guy shows up, and he's got a poodle, and a pig, and some other animal with him."
"And Ultraman's there, but he's a vampire." "Why?" "I don't know. I think he was going to eat Supergirl."
"And then Superman beats Darkseid by singing into a cargo cult Motherbox. Actually, I think he just sang near it, because a little later he finished the box and then turned it on."
Yeah. I don't read Scans Daily, but if it could make Final Crisis 7 less coherent, that's no mean feat. It had a couple of moments, but that's it.
I definitely didn't understand everything that happened, and I could benefit from a page-by-page breakdown with Grant Morrison over coffee (Grant? You free next week sometime?). But I felt the same way about CoIE and FC. And, y'know, life.
I have been reading the Fourth World Omnibuses and the Seven Soldiers of Victory trades alongside FC, and that has helped a lot.
Now, the complaints about Countdown I completely understand. Countdown is absolutely 100% unimportant and it was bad and dumb and expensive and long. So I can see why that is frustrating for a lot of readers. Overall, I would say that DC severely fumbled the whole multiverse thing. We were all so excited about it a year and a half ago when 52 ended, and then there was a year of random stuff, most of which was terrible, that was just killing time until Morrison could write the ultimate multiverse story. I think Booster Gold and JSA were pretty much the only comics to make half decent use of the multiverse up until FC (Geoff Johns x2).
I think that Blackest Night is going to give fans a nice, exciting, straightforward crossover event that will be enjoyed by all. It's nice to have complicated examinations of superheroes from time to time, and Morrison is a master of that, but it's also nice to have events like Sinestro Corps or World War Hulk to balance it out. I think Blackest Night is going to rule.
Countdown was a complete waste of time, with the exception of only a few issues, so when Grant Morrison said to ignore it, along with Death of the New Gods, I did so...happily.
I loved Final Crises. But I do admit that it reads better if you hunt down all of the bast issues and read it all together, because in the meantime, with the delays I had forgotten who some of the players were.
But that was a HECK of a finale!
Final Crisis ended well, and it was a great ride from issue 1 and on. I agree with your review of this issue completely.
P.S.
Hope you get ol' Supes to wake up and pop the question.
Hmmm.. I'm going to have to check out the Trade. I usually arrive at the party late.
I totally agree with what you said here. There was more hope packed into this issue than I could almost bear in a single comic and he really took the reader to the furthest extreme of darkness before bringing in that light. Pretty literally.
I've also never left a comment on your blog. Except for just now. You have a good one. haha
tuddercJust to add for Dean: Batman: Last Rites (Issues 682-683) is also a worthwhile tie-in. It shows what Batman was doing between being captured by Granny Goodness and confronting Darkseid. Morrison includes it in his "ideal" reading of FC books he penned: FC 1-3, Beyond 1-2, Submit, FC 4-5, Batman 682-683, FC 6-7. Legion of Three Worlds comes in right after Beyond. I don't know about Rogues.
I found this link, which clears up what actually happened in Final Crisis: a DC messageboard. The third post is Sherlock Holmes explaining to Watson Final Crisis, and it's humorous, but it's also accurate and neither insulting to readers nor the creators behind Final Crisis, unlike many, many, many, many, many other online discussions of Final Crisis.
Oh, sorry. For some reason I must've accidentally typed my captcha into my comment above.
"I found this link, which clears up what actually happened in Final Crisis: a DC messageboard."
That explanation is superb. I also appreciate that there were things that it's writer could not figure out, and he freely admits it.
Imagine you save up all month to eat at your favorite restaurant, and when you get there you order your absolute favorite dish. Instead of bringing out a big plate of juicy steak and lobster tail (let's say), the waiter brings a tray with a couple of golf balls, an apple core, an XBox 360, and a small Albanian child. Noting your utter confusion, the waiter gives a wry smile and says "Ah, but you also get a free, pie-sized Creme Brule'!"
This analogy describes my reaction to Final Crisis, and how its inclusion of Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew at the end made me forget how bewildered and let down I was by everything that came before it.
I'm glad there are some people enjoying the last issue and the complete series but I am not one of them. Except for the Rogues series and the Jonn tribute issue I thought the rest of the event was bad and a waste of my money.
FINAL CRISIS was a travesty. The "ending" you liked so much was a sick joke. You obviously know nothing about comics.
Is that you, Mom?
The job was in general all good, but some places left we a bit disappointed, but if we skip the little details this was a great work, and the art is one of the best I've seen
I've been reading this blog since the first entry and I think we can't ignore the way like you redact the information, specially the headline! i JUST ADORED what you wrote in the first paragraph, because it was the main point.
I think what finally all people want to get in these stories, I mean a happy ending, this perfect because it's the conclusion of something really well elaborated.
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