the rolling Final Crisis thread

It seems to me that, taken on its own, Final Crisis is much more intelligible than Crisis on Infinite Earths. Heck, it is more coherent than Secret Invasion, where all the plot is off in other series so there can be more punching. What happens to the Wasp in that wasn't explained at all in the series except on the recap page of the last issue. That is poor storytelling.

(And yeah Douglas - WOW. WOW (it deserved a double take).)

I think possibly it's not been mentioned that Darkseid killing Orion is filicide, but yeah the rest is all there.

Also holy shit.

Douglas: thanks for the offer, but I don't really have anything to point at. I get the gist and even the details, but at the same time, many of the events and interactions seem to play off one's awareness of DCU history & present outside FC itself. So what I lose isn't so much the core story, but its resonances and emotional relevance. I mean, cop & Question pit-stop: what was up with that? How did it contribute to the story? Is the Question really a girl these days, or was that just something Morrison threw in? And wasn't one or the other of those Flashes dead? And who are all those peripheral Green Lanterns? Were they invented just for this series, or are they part of some larger story? And what's a "psycho-merge"? And WHERE THE HELL IS ALL THIS GOING?!?

It's kind of a Morrison style thing -- I had the same objection to Seven Soldiers and the Batman stuff. He likes to pile weird details on top of one another, jump-cutting from one to the other and moving very quickly through space/time, forcing you to sort out on the fly what's happening and why it's relevant. And he seems to loathe exposition, so you have to make intuitive & logical leaps to get the whole picture. Not a bad approach, really puts you in the action, but diametrically opposed to the narrative hand-holding of traditional comix.

cop & Question pit-stop: what was up with that? How did it contribute to the story?

You mean the scene with Turpin and the Question on the bridge in the first issue? That's what gets the plot rolling--it points Turpin, who's looking for the missing kids, in the direction of the Dark Side Club, where the bad thing you'll see in subsequent issues happens to him, and it establishes Montoya/the Question as somebody who's got ties to both the police and the super-type community, which becomes important by #6.

Is the Question really a girl these days?

Addressed directly in that scene: "Didn't the Question used to be a guy?" "Lung cancer. From smoking."

(That's actually a scene that signifies different things depending on what you know of those characters. If you've never seen either of them before, it reads as "You're not the person I expected; where is he?" "Yeah, fuck you too." If you know the Question as a man, it explains the situation. (And if you know who Turpin and Montoya are, it fleshes out Turpin's character as an old-school type, and shows the attitude Renee picked up from her time with Charlie.)

And wasn't one or the other of those Flashes dead?

Yes. Addressed in the oh-my-God-Barry's-alive scene in #3.

And who are all those peripheral Green Lanterns?

It's established on panel that the Alpha Lanterns are the internal-affairs investigation team of an interstellar police force. That's the only important part. If you recognize some of them from other appearances, that's gravy.

And what's a "psycho-merge"?

Something nasty involving Batman's mind that Simyan and Mokkari are trying to do. Covered more thoroughly in Batman 682, which you read, and which has a Final Crisis logo on the cover: they're trying to "mass-produce... perfect copies, driven by a concentrated dose of his intense emotions, his fury, his pain, his drive."

And WHERE THE HELL IS ALL THIS GOING?

Well, that's why I read stories: to find out!

(WOW & BOOM!)

xpost.

(please let us know when we can start using spoilers!!)

sorry, that was a joke.

OKAY THEN!

a) I can't believe they did that.
b) That's definitely how you do that.
c) Dude, Darkseid bleeds pure Kirby dots!
d) I love love love that it will be impossible to get coverage of this.
"They just killed Batman!"
"Yeah, we know, we ran a story on it a few months ago"
"No, they really actually did it"
"Yeah, we know!" etc
e) Actually my favourite part of the whole thing is Superman on the two pages before.
f) I kind of hate myself for pointing this out, but Superman has just come from being handed the keys to the ultimate thing that can do anything...

"I am so rich I can do anything."

So, now there's not just a bat-trustfund, there's a Superbat-trustfund!

I think my favourite part is the Tawky Tawny / Kalibak fight, it's just a pairing so batshit yet it feels so right, and the way it plays out leads to something even more fantastic.

But it's an amazing issue and I just love the way it keeps getting FASTER AND FASTER.

Did Nix Uotan even show up this time?

Yeh, wow. Telegraphed well in advance, but still...

Re Dougles: See, I'd assumed/deduced all that. But you have to assume/deduce it, cuz characters are reduced to telling snippets of dialogue, events to beginnings and ends with the middle bits cut out. Often reads like a story with 2 out of every three sentences arbitrarily cut out. Really obvious example in #6 w/ Supes on the 1st 3 and last 3 pages of the issue. I'm not objecting to this at all, but it's an odd and destablizing approach. Maybe ideal, then, as instability seems to be the point. (And yeah, I got the lowdown on the "psycho-merge" from the Batman crossover issues, and had worked out what was probably going on prior to that anyway, but come on... The way it's presented in FC5 is almost comically cryptic.)

Agree also w Amadeo that the Kalibak/Tawky cat fight sequence was a high point. Love the more explicitly comic/absurdist stuff, like the romances brewing amongst Mr. Miracle's Japanese allies/fanclub/whatever. ("Oh, this is terrible. I can't seem to tell Sonic Lightning Flash how I feel about him. I'm still too shy!")

I feel like the drastic crosscutting across space and time is similar to some of Xaime's work, where a standard six panel layout can have six different places and dates.

an odd and destablizing approach

I read one GM interview where he said that's exactly the effect he's shooting for.

xpost: Good call, though Jamie's doing it to different effect.

Also, Andrew's point f) = OTM. Does kinda take the BIG DEAL-ness down a substantial notch.

nix uotan's rubik's-cube transformation appears to only really work on the same level as zatanna's spell at the end of seven soldiers, though less explicitly metafictional ...

also, i find myself feeling automatically disconnected whenever a story hinges on superheroes dying

i mean, this was still awesome, but still.

Oilyrags: yes, that's Nix Uotan taking it all in in the middle of pp. 30-31--this issue mostly happens in the span of a few minutes. Note that the panel arrangement around him is very much like the multiple-small-m-monitors-showing-panels setup we saw him with on the final page of #5.

Contenderizer: I'm seeing that "2 out of 3 sentences arbitrarily omitted" argument about Morrison's writing a lot--but I'd say that they're not arbitrarily omitted. Everything important is actually there if you're willing to dig for it a little. The question is whether you find that digging pleasurable (as I do) or irritating (which is a totally valid response). [And this next sentence is xposted with Oilyrags:] Similar, in a way, to some of the Hernandez Bros.' storytelling techniques--!

As for the "how did Superman get from point A to point B" thing--I assume we're going to find out in the course of #7 or Superman Beyond #2. I just liked seeing Superman's entrance in the last few pages...

I'm seeing that "2 out of 3 sentences arbitrarily omitted" argument about Morrison's writing a lot--but I'd say that they're not arbitrarily omitted. Everything important is actually there if you're willing to dig for it a little. The question is whether you find that digging pleasurable (as I do) or irritating (which is a totally valid response).

― Douglas

I've been a big GM fan for a long time, and this has always been present in his approach (though much moreso lately), so yeah: I do enjoy the digging. But in 7 Soldiers, I got the feeling that the chopped & channelled style was occasionally covering up some seriously rushed storytelling. The "Undying Don" subplot, for instance, just seemed incoherent, cool as it was. That isn't a problem here: FC seems pretty tightly constructed. But where a "hints & suggestions" style can make a fantasy world seem bigger than it is, allowing a reader's curiosity to fill in the details, here it leaves me feeling slightly unsatisfied. Like a meal where the plates are cleared as soon as they hit the table. I want to see a bit more of what's going on, to spend a bit more time with the characters and ideas before they're whisked off in favor of something else.

Again, this isn't really a criticism, cuz I understand what GM is going for and how the kaleidoscopic fragmentation and lightning pace contribute to the overall effect (which is awesome) -- I suppose it's just the voicing of my sense of having been effectively destabilized.

Ha, I better read it again without the Tiger Tea. It may confer the strength of ten, but it also confers the long term memory of a ten year old.

When do Captain America and Batman go out of copyright in Europe?

Just asking...

Notably absent in "Who Will Be Batman?" ads (and LOLAlfred in fatigues)

Most Excellent Superbat!

It seems like that Revelations 5 and Superman Beyond 2 and whatever is going down with the Legion book should have maybe shipped before FC 6, I feel like I have missed an issue. I still don't get the whole thing with Montoya/The Question and how these two stories kind of link up.

They are going to have to put all of the tie-ins that Morrison wrote, including the Batman Last Rites into the trade or at least they should.

I don't think anyone is really taking the dead body of Batman to mean anything, as everybody knows this is like halftime of whatever Morrison has cooked up, as 'it is a fate worse than death'. I've got a feeling the Morrison/Quitely story is going to end up being a mad series where Batman keeps having to fight through different versions of himself to escape the Omega Sanction.

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/011409batmandead.html

Like you said, the story becomes, "What happens next?" [DC's] doing a lot of stories following up on this, from Battle for the Cowl to Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?. But when are you coming back to Batman?
MORRISON: The plan is for me to come back sometime around the summer. We got big plans. The story is not by any means over.

This doesn't sound dead to me.

Yes, but no-one's suggesting that Batman's dead, just Bruce Wayne.

No-one's suggesting Bruce Wayne's dead, just Batman.

Batman 700 is just around the corner, if Bruce Wayne is not Batman in that issue, I'll be surprised.

I hate to ask this but do we know for a fact that the dead Batman in FC is Bruce Wayne and not whoever won Battle for the Cowl?

we don't know anything and everything we know is wrong!

Mordy: Pretty much. Batman 682/683 lead directly out of R.I.P. (i.e. the chronological sequence starts 20 minutes later) and directly into Final Crisis. See http://finalcrisisannotations.blogspot.com/2008/09/attempt-at-final-crisis-timeline.html ...

Im feeling the theory that both the flashes grab batman and drag him through time, having looked at the beams that hit batman and the way the beams from Darkseid are coloured.

I also think that if the Black Racer has his S==t together at all, he might have shown up in a room where both Darkseid and Batman die simultaneously.

So both of them are not dead. Which means the ending kind of loses its sting.

and Bruce Wayne actually dead just makes me hear the words "new coke" debacle.

After reading Superman Beyond #2, I'm seriously worried about the ending of Final Crisis. Superman Beyond #2 was so good it simply left no room for improvements; I can't see how Final Crisis #7 will manage to be better.

Holy shit, the amount of thrill power in Superman Beyond... Wow. Final Crisis would have been worth it for just this issue.

Yeah, no kidding. Got some notes up at http://finalcrisisannotations.blogspot.com/2009/01/final-crisis-superman-beyond-2.html .

I would like to note that nobody from DC has claimed that Bruce Wayne is actually dead for keeps.

Douglas, you missed on page 14, in the last panel. Those splotches are more Watchmen resonances, the blood splashes from that book. Making, of course, the panel dialogue that much more meaningful, "And I see now," especially since Superman Beyond is, essentially, a book about seeing (seeing a comic in 4D, seeing comics as readers, seeing comics from inside the comic book, and, here, seeing comics in dialogues with other comics).

Also, I wish you had spoken more about the relationship between Limbo here and Limbo in Animal Man. (Speaking of which, I didn't catch the Dr. Manhattan reference -- I thought he looked a bit like Morrison!)

Haha this is exactly the amount of detail revealed and withheld to make me excited like a kid, well done everyone!

I can't help matching the final page here with the one in All-Star Superman. Same purpose ("neverending battle"), though I think I the gravestone was an even better idea.

For about three seconds I wanted a tattoo of the gravestone and epitaph.

Awesome issue -- I could've done without some of the 4-D, if I wanted to nitpick -- but who wants to nitpick? I wish the main series had been a bit more like this, to be honest...

fc 7 almost can't help be anticlimactic - what's left to resolve?

you know, except for dead batman and all and the annihilation of almost everything and all...

I dunno, there's the Nix Uotan/Monitors/multiverse arc, the who-shot-Orion question, the how-did-Darkseid-fall question, the Flashes arc, the Checkmate endgame, the Miracle Machine/Metron sigil business, Luthor and Sivana's plan, the Green Arrow/Black Canary/Tattooed Man/Black Lightning fight, and what the hell is up with Kamandi anyway?

I know, there's plenty of things to wrap and I hope the Flashes will play a huge part in that ending, but this ending, "To be continued" and all that stuff, was an Optimus Prime made of thrillpower. It's so good it has to go down. Otherwise, we might die from the adrenaline rush.

yeah, i know, it's just that after S3D#2, it IS a question of wrapping things up -- the "what the hell is going ON?" factor has decreased considerably. for me, at least. not a bad thing, just an observation

Has it been explained yet what the relationship is between any of this Darkseid stuff and the monitor stuff? is libra going to have a secret identity after all, or does that not matter any more? also, were zillo vallo and mandrakk already existing characters or are these two issues their first appearance? I guess she is apparently the lover of mandrakk? why was she bringing all the supermen to fight him then? are all the monitors vampires? awesome art though! wish it had been a little less compressed (i.e. if mandrakk is the main bad guy, i wish he had something analogous to the long buildup that darkseid has had in final crisis, but I haven't read any of the other tie-ins so maybe I just missed it all!)

Libra's secret identity was disclosed in FC: Secret Files (answer: he's just some dude).

David Uzumeri, bless him, has a long meditation on Mandrakk at http://www.funnybookbabylon.com/2009/01/24/final-crisis-superman-beyond-annotations-epilogue-mandrakk-a-brief-history/ .

Zillo Valla first appeared midway through Countdown, which I have not read. I am considering following the end of FC proper by liveblogging a read-through of the entirety of Countdown. Because I love the Internet enough that I am willing to subject myself to Countdown for it.

Mandrakk appears to bear some conceptual relation to Starbreaker--see http://www.comics.org/graphics/covers/1449/400/1449_4_096.jpg --but I don't think his name had been mentioned before FC:SB3D #1. HIs name, though! "Man/Dracula" plus "Mandrake the Magician," the first superhero in some sense...

Doug, I am torn between being really excited to read your thoughts on Countdown, to "For God's sakes man, don't do it!"

And what about all those spin-offs? OY.

Put down the internet and step away from Countdown.

Sir, I have a tazer in my hand an am licensed by the country of ILC to use it.

I've been a big GM fan for a long time, and this has always been present in his approach (though much moreso lately), so yeah: I do enjoy the digging. But in 7 Soldiers, I got the feeling that the chopped & channelled style was occasionally covering up some seriously rushed storytelling.

I totally concur with this. I got way more out of reading Douglas's chapter about 7 Soldiers in his book than I did while actually reading the series itself. Liked the book a lot, BTW.

Hey, new blood!

Pleased to meet you, tbatc! Now, don't let this hood panic you, and before we get started, do you have any allergies we should know about?

Preview of the final issue is up: http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album.php?aid=25503 Um... wow.

Ha. Excellent. "I enjoy swearing when I feel the situation demands it."

Nice art, too -- faces are a little lantern-jawed, but more fun than Jones, perhaps?