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Final Crisis (Collected Editions)
Final Crisis
What happens when evil wins? That's the question Superman, Batman, the Justice League and every being in the DCU have to face when Darkseid and his otherworldly legion of narcissistic followers actually win the war between light and dark. Featuring the deaths and resurrections of major DC characters, FINAL CRISIS is more than your average multi-part event-it's a deconstruction of Super Hero comics and a challenging, thought-provoking take on the modern, four-color icons.
391 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 16, 2009
About the author
Grant Morrison
1,790 books4,309 followersGrant Morrison has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, after beginning their American comics career with acclaimed runs on ANIMAL MAN and DOOM PATROL. Since then they have written such best-selling series as JLA, BATMAN and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as THE INVISIBLES, SEAGUY, THE FILTH, WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, they have also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS.
In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.
In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 749 reviews
July 10, 2021
I feel like my giving this thing 3 stars is pretty generous. Then again, maybe I'm just not a big enough DC fan to understand everything that was going on.
Warning: Spoilers
I was pretty surprised when they killed off Batman. Well, not surprised that they killed him because that's one of the main reasons I read Final Crisis. No, I was surprised that his death didn't get any real time on the page. Honestly, I kinda thought that I missed it because it happened so fast.
How would I describe this story?
Imagine you're in a car going about 180 mph. Your drunk cousin, Grant, is behind the wheel. You can hear the sirens in the distance and you begin to realize what a HUGE mistake it was to ride to the store for a pack of cigarettes with him. As you're flying down the interstate in the middle of the chaos, you notice something out of the corner of your eye on the side of the road.
Hey! Was that a llama in a prom dress?!
Welcome to Final Crisis.
It was (for me) a tad disappointing.
Anyway, the rest of Final Crisis is too out there to even complain about. If you're a fan of Morrison's trademark wackiness then you'll probably love this one, but for the rest of us, it's just required reading.
Warning: Spoilers
I was pretty surprised when they killed off Batman. Well, not surprised that they killed him because that's one of the main reasons I read Final Crisis. No, I was surprised that his death didn't get any real time on the page. Honestly, I kinda thought that I missed it because it happened so fast.
How would I describe this story?
Imagine you're in a car going about 180 mph. Your drunk cousin, Grant, is behind the wheel. You can hear the sirens in the distance and you begin to realize what a HUGE mistake it was to ride to the store for a pack of cigarettes with him. As you're flying down the interstate in the middle of the chaos, you notice something out of the corner of your eye on the side of the road.
Hey! Was that a llama in a prom dress?!
Welcome to Final Crisis.
It was (for me) a tad disappointing.
Anyway, the rest of Final Crisis is too out there to even complain about. If you're a fan of Morrison's trademark wackiness then you'll probably love this one, but for the rest of us, it's just required reading.
July 28, 2023
The final part of DC's expansive trilogy of Crisis set at the heart of the DC Comics universe, sees Darkseid finally victorious with his ultimate aim, the raising of Cain, the fate of Superboy-Prime and more. Grant Morrison gets to take the lead in a huge event and kind of drops the ball, after a great start and middle, it's kind of ruined by a weak finale. 7 out of 12, Three Star read
2012 read
2012 read
July 5, 2017
Another crisis and not matter its title, hardly it will the final one.
I bought this in its single comic book issues, but I chosen this TPB edition to make a better overall review.
This TPB collects "Final Crisis" #1-7.
Creative Team:
Writer: Grant Morrison
Illustrators: J.G. Jones, Carlos Pacheco, Marco Rudy & Doug Mahnke
ANYONE BELIEVE THAT THIS IS THE FINAL ONE?
I have to say that the beginning of the story was promising, where Orion, of the New Gods, is found dead and soon enough a Green Lantern Crime Scene is established to investigate the "deicide", I loved the use of the GL Corps as real space cops and not just beam shooters.
Also, the secret invasion by Darkseid forces using human host bodies was quite interesting.
But once the all-out war blown...
...you only have a massive multiple scenarios' war, in many cases, using second-rate (even some third-rate) class superheroes that you wouldn't care what would happen to them, and most of the separate super teams are just cornered in several bases, trying to avoid that Apokolips' forces would break in.
It's clear that all those massive scenarios where developed in detail in the tie-in titles, but guess what? I can't buy a zillion of issues, just to fully enjoy a messed up storyarc that it should be enough explained in the main event title series.
Wonder Woman is too easily controlled, Superman is almost gone during the event just to make an audition for American Idol (or is it The Voice?), and Batman...
...well, let's just say that certain things should happen in events of each character, specially when it's a big name in the comic book universe, but even worse, when even that it's not what it seemed, but something dumber and totally inadequate to have Batman involved.
FINAL crisis?
I don't think so.
Crisis, especially in DC, are meant to be...
...infinite.
Hopefully with better narrative in the future.
I bought this in its single comic book issues, but I chosen this TPB edition to make a better overall review.
This TPB collects "Final Crisis" #1-7.
Creative Team:
Writer: Grant Morrison
Illustrators: J.G. Jones, Carlos Pacheco, Marco Rudy & Doug Mahnke
ANYONE BELIEVE THAT THIS IS THE FINAL ONE?
I have to say that the beginning of the story was promising, where Orion, of the New Gods, is found dead and soon enough a Green Lantern Crime Scene is established to investigate the "deicide", I loved the use of the GL Corps as real space cops and not just beam shooters.
Also, the secret invasion by Darkseid forces using human host bodies was quite interesting.
But once the all-out war blown...
...you only have a massive multiple scenarios' war, in many cases, using second-rate (even some third-rate) class superheroes that you wouldn't care what would happen to them, and most of the separate super teams are just cornered in several bases, trying to avoid that Apokolips' forces would break in.
It's clear that all those massive scenarios where developed in detail in the tie-in titles, but guess what? I can't buy a zillion of issues, just to fully enjoy a messed up storyarc that it should be enough explained in the main event title series.
Wonder Woman is too easily controlled, Superman is almost gone during the event just to make an audition for American Idol (or is it The Voice?), and Batman...
...well, let's just say that certain things should happen in events of each character, specially when it's a big name in the comic book universe, but even worse, when even that it's not what it seemed, but something dumber and totally inadequate to have Batman involved.
FINAL crisis?
I don't think so.
Crisis, especially in DC, are meant to be...
...infinite.
Hopefully with better narrative in the future.
December 24, 2015
Final Crisis is essentially a celebration of Jack Kirby’s contributions to the DCU couched in an end of the world “Crisis” event book between good (led by Superman) and evil, as Darkseid returns. His various minions are preparing Earth for his arrival in an attempt to curry his favour. A villain called Libra is trying to unite all the supervillains together against the superheroes, the Anti-Life equation is brainwashing everyone it comes across to Darkseid’s way of thinking, and the Green Lantern Corps has been infiltrated by a Darkseid spy.
The summary above doesn’t really do justice to this book because so much more is going on and it involves practically everyone in the DCU. It also means that it’s kind of a mess and hard to understand completely! Final Crisis isn’t completely awful, there’s some good stuff in here too, but Grant Morrison’s book can be summed up as having big ideas and sub-par execution.
Barry Allen’s back for no reason and he’s brought Death the Black Racer with him! I’m not much of a Flash fan so I’m not bothered with whether Barry’s the Flash or not - all those red guys seem interchangeable to me - but I love Death the Black Racer! When most people think of Death they think a skeleton in a black robe with a scythe and an hourglass; in the DCU, Death is a dude in black armour ON SKIS! Amazing. Jack Kirby was a mad genius. Other notable Kirby characters, besides the Black Racer and Darkseid, are Sonny Sumo, Kamandi, and Metron to name a few.
The Flash storyline is ok – they’ve a clever plan to beat Darkseid that works – as is the Green Lantern’s. And while the various storylines can appear messy, they do hang together coherently – but just barely. Also, you don’t need to know every DC character or storyline to enjoy this – Final Crisis collects all the main issues and tie-ins for it to make sense as a single read.
Grant Morrison rushes certain parts of the narrative because his imagination’s bigger than the allotted page count so we don’t find out how Mary Marvel and Wonder Woman turned evil or how Lois Lane was put in a coma. But rather than focus on these iconic female characters, Morrison chooses to write about the likes of Sonny Sumo and Tattoo Man instead! It’s not the right choice in my mind but then the focus seems to be on Kirby’s characters so Sonny Sumo it is.
There’s a completely bonkers Superman story at the heart of Final Crisis. Switching to 4D perspective after being approached by an interdimensional being, Superman, along with various Multiversions of Superman, saves a few billion lives on a parallel world, goes to Limbo, discovers the Infinite Book (which contains every book ever and will ever be written), turns into a giant robot Superman, sees his grave and fights a giant evil space vampire called Mandrakk for the blood of the universe to save his wife – all in the space of a heartbeat.
… - this is appropriate response to that storyline!
Yes, it is impossible to follow and I believe it’s meant to be that way. Hear me out: Morrison is maybe the only writer who understands Superman. People who don’t like Superman complain about how boring a character he is, punching the same baddies, rescuing cats from trees, uninteresting boy scout, etc. – and that is what Superman becomes in the hands of hack writers. We try to wrap our heads around the concept of Superman by making him a quicker, stronger version of ourselves as well as a generic vision of “good” – and he’s more than that; he’s a god.
While some Superman stories will be understandable to us, shouldn’t some adventures he goes on be completely incomprehensible? Because his powers – the extent of them and as he’s written – are beyond our ken. How could a human understand A GOD? That’s why I really liked this storyline – it’s gibberish and, while I can summarise it, I can’t say I understood it, but I’m glad I didn’t because sometimes Superman SHOULD go on adventures nobody but him (and maybe not even him) could possibly get. Morrison is the ultimate Superman writer because he knows this and really pushes the character out there into unexplored realms. He’s the guy lifting up the surface of Superman and inviting the rest of us to see just what being Superman could be like – and the magnitude of potential there is staggering. That’s why Superman’s the greatest superhero.
I also really enjoyed the two-issue Batman arc, The Butler Did It (which also appeared in Batman RIP). Morrison masterfully summarises Batman’s entire 75+ year history in two issues – absolutely stunning. On Batman though, his confrontation with Darkseid felt very shoe-horned in. There was no build-up and it feels like he and Darkseid just happen to face each other out of the blue. It definitely felt a little contrived to get to that scene on the cover. (For those interested in seeing what happens next to Bruce, read Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne.)
The Monitor storyline is the only one that completely left me cold. I know they’re the key to all the Crisis events but I’ve never cared about any of that bunch. It’s pure psychedelic sci-fi weirdness and I couldn’t follow any of it.
The final third of the book is where things descend into madness as hundreds of characters fight each other (including Tiger Men!), magic Rubik’s cubes that control the universe come into play, and there’s something with Metron’s chair and cavemen and, oh, I just didn’t care by the end, it all becomes far too much! Like many of Morrison’s stories, he botches the ending completely, falling back on the superhero trope of “big brainless fighting” as a substitute for any kind of satisfactory resolution.
I definitely don’t think Final Crisis is unreadable crap but I don’t think it’s pure genius either. Nobody can fault Morrison for the epic scope of his stories, especially given the Kirby tribute angle – the guy was all about pure unbridled imagination in his comics - but this one unfortunately collapses under its own size. Morrison tries to cram it with too much stuff and it overwhelms the story.
The villains especially are very underwritten and come off as one-dimensional when they needed to be more fleshed out as they play such a key role in the narrative. Also the underdevelopment of the characters means there’s no emotional weight to anything that’s happening. It’s easy to see why so many readers felt ambivalent about the whole thing as well as lost in trying to figure out what’s going on!
The art is fine – clearly a lot of effort has gone into it – I’m just not much of a JG Jones or Doug Mahnke fan to say I loved the look of the comic.
It’s certainly not the easiest read and it’s quite frustrating more often than not, but there’s enough good stuff in Final Crisis - the Batman material and one of the best Superman stories ever written - to make reading it worthwhile. Just remember to take regular breaks and keep the aspirin handy!
The summary above doesn’t really do justice to this book because so much more is going on and it involves practically everyone in the DCU. It also means that it’s kind of a mess and hard to understand completely! Final Crisis isn’t completely awful, there’s some good stuff in here too, but Grant Morrison’s book can be summed up as having big ideas and sub-par execution.
Barry Allen’s back for no reason and he’s brought Death the Black Racer with him! I’m not much of a Flash fan so I’m not bothered with whether Barry’s the Flash or not - all those red guys seem interchangeable to me - but I love Death the Black Racer! When most people think of Death they think a skeleton in a black robe with a scythe and an hourglass; in the DCU, Death is a dude in black armour ON SKIS! Amazing. Jack Kirby was a mad genius. Other notable Kirby characters, besides the Black Racer and Darkseid, are Sonny Sumo, Kamandi, and Metron to name a few.
The Flash storyline is ok – they’ve a clever plan to beat Darkseid that works – as is the Green Lantern’s. And while the various storylines can appear messy, they do hang together coherently – but just barely. Also, you don’t need to know every DC character or storyline to enjoy this – Final Crisis collects all the main issues and tie-ins for it to make sense as a single read.
Grant Morrison rushes certain parts of the narrative because his imagination’s bigger than the allotted page count so we don’t find out how Mary Marvel and Wonder Woman turned evil or how Lois Lane was put in a coma. But rather than focus on these iconic female characters, Morrison chooses to write about the likes of Sonny Sumo and Tattoo Man instead! It’s not the right choice in my mind but then the focus seems to be on Kirby’s characters so Sonny Sumo it is.
There’s a completely bonkers Superman story at the heart of Final Crisis. Switching to 4D perspective after being approached by an interdimensional being, Superman, along with various Multiversions of Superman, saves a few billion lives on a parallel world, goes to Limbo, discovers the Infinite Book (which contains every book ever and will ever be written), turns into a giant robot Superman, sees his grave and fights a giant evil space vampire called Mandrakk for the blood of the universe to save his wife – all in the space of a heartbeat.
… - this is appropriate response to that storyline!
Yes, it is impossible to follow and I believe it’s meant to be that way. Hear me out: Morrison is maybe the only writer who understands Superman. People who don’t like Superman complain about how boring a character he is, punching the same baddies, rescuing cats from trees, uninteresting boy scout, etc. – and that is what Superman becomes in the hands of hack writers. We try to wrap our heads around the concept of Superman by making him a quicker, stronger version of ourselves as well as a generic vision of “good” – and he’s more than that; he’s a god.
While some Superman stories will be understandable to us, shouldn’t some adventures he goes on be completely incomprehensible? Because his powers – the extent of them and as he’s written – are beyond our ken. How could a human understand A GOD? That’s why I really liked this storyline – it’s gibberish and, while I can summarise it, I can’t say I understood it, but I’m glad I didn’t because sometimes Superman SHOULD go on adventures nobody but him (and maybe not even him) could possibly get. Morrison is the ultimate Superman writer because he knows this and really pushes the character out there into unexplored realms. He’s the guy lifting up the surface of Superman and inviting the rest of us to see just what being Superman could be like – and the magnitude of potential there is staggering. That’s why Superman’s the greatest superhero.
I also really enjoyed the two-issue Batman arc, The Butler Did It (which also appeared in Batman RIP). Morrison masterfully summarises Batman’s entire 75+ year history in two issues – absolutely stunning. On Batman though, his confrontation with Darkseid felt very shoe-horned in. There was no build-up and it feels like he and Darkseid just happen to face each other out of the blue. It definitely felt a little contrived to get to that scene on the cover. (For those interested in seeing what happens next to Bruce, read Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne.)
The Monitor storyline is the only one that completely left me cold. I know they’re the key to all the Crisis events but I’ve never cared about any of that bunch. It’s pure psychedelic sci-fi weirdness and I couldn’t follow any of it.
The final third of the book is where things descend into madness as hundreds of characters fight each other (including Tiger Men!), magic Rubik’s cubes that control the universe come into play, and there’s something with Metron’s chair and cavemen and, oh, I just didn’t care by the end, it all becomes far too much! Like many of Morrison’s stories, he botches the ending completely, falling back on the superhero trope of “big brainless fighting” as a substitute for any kind of satisfactory resolution.
I definitely don’t think Final Crisis is unreadable crap but I don’t think it’s pure genius either. Nobody can fault Morrison for the epic scope of his stories, especially given the Kirby tribute angle – the guy was all about pure unbridled imagination in his comics - but this one unfortunately collapses under its own size. Morrison tries to cram it with too much stuff and it overwhelms the story.
The villains especially are very underwritten and come off as one-dimensional when they needed to be more fleshed out as they play such a key role in the narrative. Also the underdevelopment of the characters means there’s no emotional weight to anything that’s happening. It’s easy to see why so many readers felt ambivalent about the whole thing as well as lost in trying to figure out what’s going on!
The art is fine – clearly a lot of effort has gone into it – I’m just not much of a JG Jones or Doug Mahnke fan to say I loved the look of the comic.
It’s certainly not the easiest read and it’s quite frustrating more often than not, but there’s enough good stuff in Final Crisis - the Batman material and one of the best Superman stories ever written - to make reading it worthwhile. Just remember to take regular breaks and keep the aspirin handy!
February 18, 2021
Like all of these epic crossovers, not for the novices. A good read if into the illustrious Grant Morrison, such as their 90s JLA, continuing into the continuity clusterf*ck that is the 21st Century DC. Post-Infinite Crisis, but a more linear story (even though there's some weird non-linear stuff--it is Morrison). The whole end of the world, this time focusing on Darkseid and Kirby's New Gods but the Seven Soldiers versions. It may not have been the last of the Crises, but it was the climax of the Batman RIP and Superman Beyond was awesome too. Nobody does DC cosmic like Grant!
September 27, 2014
This best selling graphic novel miniseries led to dozens of tie ins but was confusing to people who had not followed DC closely or were not willing to do the proper research. As a result you get people who say Morrison is a genius and others who say it was a load of confusion.
The tale opens with the archvillain Darkseid planning his usual domination and the JLA trying to stop him. It opens with the alarming death of a New God and an investigation that branches out into several other areas. What follows is a mind blowing array of DC characters and incidents which will send most curious people going online to find out the answers. There are so many nods to previous DC tales, characters and other such standings that only the true experts will spot all of them.
Overall, this is a great story but the fact that you have to be a DC pro and have collected most of the volumes over the last several decades (to get everything) brings the grade down a bit. I almost wish there had been footnotes in this miniseries. At best I am an intermediate of the DC Universe so I sympathize with those who didn't get everything.
Who shows up in this miniseries besides characters already mentioned? I will list some of them: Batman, Hal Jordan Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Black Lightning, Flash (various ones), Mary Marvel, Lex Luthor, Doctor Sivana, Dan Turpin, Libra, Captain Marvel Jr. and Supergirl.
I especially liked the Super Young Team (Japanese mortals with no super powers), Batman's showoff with Darkseid and the race of the flashes (nice idea, Grant).
Written by Grant Morrison. The artists and other contributors take up a page or more so let me list a few: J.G. Jones, Walden Wong, Marco Rudy, Rob Leigh and Alex Sinclair.
Note that this series was preceded by “Countdown to Final Crisis”, “Terror Titans”, “Final Crisis Aftermath” and a host of others.
This was one of the top three highest selling graphic novels in 2008.
ARTWORK PRESENTATION: B plus to A minus; ACTION: B plus to A minus; CHARACTERS/DIALOGUE: B plus to A minus; STORY/PLOTTING: B plus; WHEN READ: mid July 2012; OVERALL GRADE: B plus to A minus.
The tale opens with the archvillain Darkseid planning his usual domination and the JLA trying to stop him. It opens with the alarming death of a New God and an investigation that branches out into several other areas. What follows is a mind blowing array of DC characters and incidents which will send most curious people going online to find out the answers. There are so many nods to previous DC tales, characters and other such standings that only the true experts will spot all of them.
Overall, this is a great story but the fact that you have to be a DC pro and have collected most of the volumes over the last several decades (to get everything) brings the grade down a bit. I almost wish there had been footnotes in this miniseries. At best I am an intermediate of the DC Universe so I sympathize with those who didn't get everything.
Who shows up in this miniseries besides characters already mentioned? I will list some of them: Batman, Hal Jordan Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Black Lightning, Flash (various ones), Mary Marvel, Lex Luthor, Doctor Sivana, Dan Turpin, Libra, Captain Marvel Jr. and Supergirl.
I especially liked the Super Young Team (Japanese mortals with no super powers), Batman's showoff with Darkseid and the race of the flashes (nice idea, Grant).
Written by Grant Morrison. The artists and other contributors take up a page or more so let me list a few: J.G. Jones, Walden Wong, Marco Rudy, Rob Leigh and Alex Sinclair.
Note that this series was preceded by “Countdown to Final Crisis”, “Terror Titans”, “Final Crisis Aftermath” and a host of others.
This was one of the top three highest selling graphic novels in 2008.
ARTWORK PRESENTATION: B plus to A minus; ACTION: B plus to A minus; CHARACTERS/DIALOGUE: B plus to A minus; STORY/PLOTTING: B plus; WHEN READ: mid July 2012; OVERALL GRADE: B plus to A minus.
July 1, 2011
grant morrison: super-hero or super-villain? you be the judge!
on the one hand, Final Crisis is an amazing achievement. it sure seems like dc just handed the reins to morrison and told him You Go And Do What You Do, We Don't Give A Flying Fuckeroo. they wanted to 'end' things with a bang and then press re-set. so he went for it. this is one of the most dense, layered, kaleidoscopic graphic novels i've ever read. the sheer amount of information being conveyed, page by page, is staggering and requires very close reading, an almost encyclopedic knowledge of what is happening and what has happened in the dc universe, and demands the constant flipping back and forth through pages in order to put things together in a way that makes any kind of sense. it is clear that morrison knows the dc universe inside and out - entire storylines are referenced glancingly but knowingly (for example, versions of Hawkman and Hawkgirl - there are several - get two panels; within those two panels, their entire history and potential future together is summed up with shocking ease). morrison's imagination is one of the most fertile working in comics today, and the almost worm ouroboros-shaped narrative is refreshingly challenging and allows him to move in whatever direction he pleases while using the entire universe and all of history as a backdrop. at times he even can be touchingly sentimental, in particular in his loving attention to the Marvel Family (less so with their nemesis Black Adam, unfortunately). the man also knows exactly how to write the New Gods - in my opinion, that is a rarity. most significantly, morrison is possessed of a strikingly individualistic outlook, one that often seeks to attack and destroy the concept of "duality" - and moralistic binary systems in general. how such an anarchistic mentality became so central to the often mainstream sentiments of the dc universe is beyond me.
on the other hand, sad to say, Final Crisis also features some of the most laughably sloppy and shoddy writing i've ever seen by morrison. sure, the concepts are sophisticated, mind-boggling, just plain awesome. but a lot (not all) of the dialogue? good grief, what a load of eye-rolling crapola! seriously, morrison, what got into you? were you just too rushed and needed to get this done and over with? or, God forbid, were you just dumbing it all down because of your potentially mainstream audience? at times, it was a very big challenge to not just toss this across the room in aggravation. the complexity of Final Crisis means that a close reading is required - the multi-tracked and layered narrative(s) are the opposite of a casual, quick read. but that becomes really difficult to do when the things characters say are so damnably asinine. for example, the villain Libra. this character could and should have been so many things - he's the ground level villain (there are two more levels above him - Darkseid and then Mandrakk) engaged in picking off beloved super-heroes. and yet he sounds like a preening, two-bit nitwit, all badly-done juvenile posturing with no dark gravitas whatsoever. perhaps even worse than the often intensely stupid dialogue is the off-hand treatment of certain characters, including Libra. for example, the death of The Martian Manhunter...has there been a more pathetic, useless, pointless, disrespectful death for a major player in the dc universe? mind you, this is a character with actual depth, one with sadness & longing & tragedy at the core of him. instead of choosing one of the many flying fratboys or ditsy super damsels, morrison chooses to eliminate a genuinely interesting character with all the grace of swatting a fly or killing a mosquito. is this laziness or some kind of misguided attempt to confound reader expectation? either way, it doesn't work and is a clear symptom of this series' many lacks. i don't even want to talk about what he does to the Atomic Knights.
still, the concepts within are superlative...although i do think morrison owes a huge, worlds-within-worlds debt to moebius' Moebius 3: The Airtight Garage. and within the Superman Beyond segments, to jodorowsky's The Technopriests: Initiation - Book One which also features sinister, vampiric almost-gods.
despite the many giant flaws, there is a lot to treasure. my personal favorite moments include japanese wannabe super-heroes The Super Young Team and a black Superman from an alternate dimension whose alias is...President Barack Obama! morrison also creates a new character within the pages of Superman Beyond, who i found to be indelible...Captain Allen Adam, a fascinating Quantum Superman version of Captain Atom and Doctor Manhattan (who was himself a version of Capt Atom). poor, tortured Capt Adam takes drugs in order to lessen the intensity of his amazing empathetic powers. gosh, i sure know the feeling! of course Ultraman just mocks him for it. well, he would. that Ultraman sure is an asshole. and so is morrison, at times.
on the one hand, Final Crisis is an amazing achievement. it sure seems like dc just handed the reins to morrison and told him You Go And Do What You Do, We Don't Give A Flying Fuckeroo. they wanted to 'end' things with a bang and then press re-set. so he went for it. this is one of the most dense, layered, kaleidoscopic graphic novels i've ever read. the sheer amount of information being conveyed, page by page, is staggering and requires very close reading, an almost encyclopedic knowledge of what is happening and what has happened in the dc universe, and demands the constant flipping back and forth through pages in order to put things together in a way that makes any kind of sense. it is clear that morrison knows the dc universe inside and out - entire storylines are referenced glancingly but knowingly (for example, versions of Hawkman and Hawkgirl - there are several - get two panels; within those two panels, their entire history and potential future together is summed up with shocking ease). morrison's imagination is one of the most fertile working in comics today, and the almost worm ouroboros-shaped narrative is refreshingly challenging and allows him to move in whatever direction he pleases while using the entire universe and all of history as a backdrop. at times he even can be touchingly sentimental, in particular in his loving attention to the Marvel Family (less so with their nemesis Black Adam, unfortunately). the man also knows exactly how to write the New Gods - in my opinion, that is a rarity. most significantly, morrison is possessed of a strikingly individualistic outlook, one that often seeks to attack and destroy the concept of "duality" - and moralistic binary systems in general. how such an anarchistic mentality became so central to the often mainstream sentiments of the dc universe is beyond me.
on the other hand, sad to say, Final Crisis also features some of the most laughably sloppy and shoddy writing i've ever seen by morrison. sure, the concepts are sophisticated, mind-boggling, just plain awesome. but a lot (not all) of the dialogue? good grief, what a load of eye-rolling crapola! seriously, morrison, what got into you? were you just too rushed and needed to get this done and over with? or, God forbid, were you just dumbing it all down because of your potentially mainstream audience? at times, it was a very big challenge to not just toss this across the room in aggravation. the complexity of Final Crisis means that a close reading is required - the multi-tracked and layered narrative(s) are the opposite of a casual, quick read. but that becomes really difficult to do when the things characters say are so damnably asinine. for example, the villain Libra. this character could and should have been so many things - he's the ground level villain (there are two more levels above him - Darkseid and then Mandrakk) engaged in picking off beloved super-heroes. and yet he sounds like a preening, two-bit nitwit, all badly-done juvenile posturing with no dark gravitas whatsoever. perhaps even worse than the often intensely stupid dialogue is the off-hand treatment of certain characters, including Libra. for example, the death of The Martian Manhunter...has there been a more pathetic, useless, pointless, disrespectful death for a major player in the dc universe? mind you, this is a character with actual depth, one with sadness & longing & tragedy at the core of him. instead of choosing one of the many flying fratboys or ditsy super damsels, morrison chooses to eliminate a genuinely interesting character with all the grace of swatting a fly or killing a mosquito. is this laziness or some kind of misguided attempt to confound reader expectation? either way, it doesn't work and is a clear symptom of this series' many lacks. i don't even want to talk about what he does to the Atomic Knights.
still, the concepts within are superlative...although i do think morrison owes a huge, worlds-within-worlds debt to moebius' Moebius 3: The Airtight Garage. and within the Superman Beyond segments, to jodorowsky's The Technopriests: Initiation - Book One which also features sinister, vampiric almost-gods.
despite the many giant flaws, there is a lot to treasure. my personal favorite moments include japanese wannabe super-heroes The Super Young Team and a black Superman from an alternate dimension whose alias is...President Barack Obama! morrison also creates a new character within the pages of Superman Beyond, who i found to be indelible...Captain Allen Adam, a fascinating Quantum Superman version of Captain Atom and Doctor Manhattan (who was himself a version of Capt Atom). poor, tortured Capt Adam takes drugs in order to lessen the intensity of his amazing empathetic powers. gosh, i sure know the feeling! of course Ultraman just mocks him for it. well, he would. that Ultraman sure is an asshole. and so is morrison, at times.
August 17, 2009
Batman is at risk, no I mean the planet is at risk, no I mean the universe is at risk, no I mean all 52 existing universes are at risk, no I mean all time is at risk – oh screw it, it’s not like anyone cares. This is a trainwreck of a crossover story where characters are introduced and dropped, things happen without consequence and in the end everything is literally wished away. This is an utter failure on a narrative level, and any charms its experiments had are worn out long before you meet Nubia, the black Wonder Woman from a world of “people who look like you.”
March 28, 2021
What an incredible, incredible book. This has got to be the raddest, most ambitious and epic event comic book ever made. Final Crisis is EVERYTHING DC universe has to offer and then some, because Grant Morrison is an insane genius whose mind works unlike anybody else's.
Final Crisis ties together so much stuff — Morrison's own decades of DC work like Animal Man, JLA, Batman, Flash, Superman, Seven Soldiers, Multiversity (yes, it even ties together their books that came out years AFTER the Final Crisis), Jack Kirby's brilliant Fourth World mythology, Warren Ellis's Planetary, the narratives of all the previous Crises, 52, and so, so much more that I definitely have missed. It's utterly impossible to completely understand it unless you've been a DC scholar for decades, knowing every single obscure detail about this vast and beautiful multiverse (i.e. Grant Morrison).
But that's just the point — in-universe, this is an event so big in scope and scale that very few human beings could entirely comprehend its impact. And that's why I think Final Crisis is brilliant, and one of the best event books I've ever read — it manages to translate to the page all the chaotic and terrifying grandness of an event that threatens the entire existence in every direction of time and space. And also because it's just a hell of a fun story, honestly.
Sure, I could complain a bit about how certain storylines weren't given enough attention, some things happened seemingly out of the blue, certain moments felt rushed and the final third of the book really started to drag and dwindle. But it just doesn't feel fair to complain about those things when talking about a book that's so grand — those complaints just feel insignificant in comparison to what Final Crisis has to offer.
Look, I never felt like DC was 'my' comic book universe — for me it will probably forever be Marvel, through good times AND bad. But books like Final Crisis make me fall in love with the DC universe and push me towards learning more about it. I absolutely can't imagine a story of that scope and scale told in the Marvel universe — sure, you could point towards Jonathan Hickman's superb multi-title Marvel run (weirdly similar in many ways to Grant Morrison's DC one) culminating in Avengers, but even that one wasn't as big or as ambitious as this. And I'm sure that the more I keep on learning about the DC universe, the more things I'll grow to understand and appreciate about Final Crisis, because one thing is for certain — I definitely will be reading this one again in the future.
Final Crisis ties together so much stuff — Morrison's own decades of DC work like Animal Man, JLA, Batman, Flash, Superman, Seven Soldiers, Multiversity (yes, it even ties together their books that came out years AFTER the Final Crisis), Jack Kirby's brilliant Fourth World mythology, Warren Ellis's Planetary, the narratives of all the previous Crises, 52, and so, so much more that I definitely have missed. It's utterly impossible to completely understand it unless you've been a DC scholar for decades, knowing every single obscure detail about this vast and beautiful multiverse (i.e. Grant Morrison).
But that's just the point — in-universe, this is an event so big in scope and scale that very few human beings could entirely comprehend its impact. And that's why I think Final Crisis is brilliant, and one of the best event books I've ever read — it manages to translate to the page all the chaotic and terrifying grandness of an event that threatens the entire existence in every direction of time and space. And also because it's just a hell of a fun story, honestly.
Sure, I could complain a bit about how certain storylines weren't given enough attention, some things happened seemingly out of the blue, certain moments felt rushed and the final third of the book really started to drag and dwindle. But it just doesn't feel fair to complain about those things when talking about a book that's so grand — those complaints just feel insignificant in comparison to what Final Crisis has to offer.
Look, I never felt like DC was 'my' comic book universe — for me it will probably forever be Marvel, through good times AND bad. But books like Final Crisis make me fall in love with the DC universe and push me towards learning more about it. I absolutely can't imagine a story of that scope and scale told in the Marvel universe — sure, you could point towards Jonathan Hickman's superb multi-title Marvel run (weirdly similar in many ways to Grant Morrison's DC one) culminating in Avengers, but even that one wasn't as big or as ambitious as this. And I'm sure that the more I keep on learning about the DC universe, the more things I'll grow to understand and appreciate about Final Crisis, because one thing is for certain — I definitely will be reading this one again in the future.
July 1, 2024
"Increase production! Work! Consume! Die! Judge others! Condemn the different! Exploit the weak!"
On my second read through I still don't fully understand what happens. Morrison bulldozes the fourth wall and drags the reader kicking and screaming. It's by far his least accessible and most syncopated story, jumping between scenes, settings, characters, and especially through time. While I generally enjoyed it, this is one of the most cryptic stories I've ever read.
Oh great, he mentioned the fourth wall. Metafiction and all that hipster mindfuck. Well, Morrison loves this stuff and has continued to push the boundaries with Multiversity. Stories, characters, words: what are these things? This story literally tells us that words have power, the power to enslave, govern, free, and embolden, like "Shazam!" and the Anti-Life Equation. That stories are alive and participatory. That--Honestly, that's all I got, but Morrison wants to beat us to death with these ideas.
What's it about? I won't even attempt to synopsize. The comprehensible moments are typical of any event, goodies and baddies fighting and killing each other as the universe is ending. It's the physics and high concepts that still truly baffle me. And the way the story jumps around is contextually unsettling.
Superman Beyond Parts I and II are still utterly confusing. These chapters, I think, are the most interesting but also the least understandable. Seriously, if you know something I don't, let me know.
I could use a cosmic revelation for this book. I can only surmise that Morrison is messing with me, that the story is so crazy because it's random psychedelic free association and there is no concrete why. Or I'm missing some huge detail and everyone else knows it, like when Sonny Sumo says, "Now I get it!" Bumped from 2 to 3 stars on my reread.
June 5, 2013
In homage to Mark Twain's epic critical assassination of James Fenimore Cooper's "The Deerslayer," I present Grant Morrison's Literary Offenses.
There are eleven rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction. In "Final Crisis," Morrison violated eighteen of them. These require:
1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the "Final Crisis" tale accomplishes nothing and arrives in air.
(I can't tell what if any changes affected Earth, space, time or the multiverse from the beginning of the story to its end. I'm told the changes are important, though.)
2. They require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. But as the "Final Crisis" tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes have no rightful place in the work, since there was nothing for them to develop.
(Two Flashes attempt to outrun Death for no reason in particular. Hal Jordan gets taken into custody by the Green Lantern version of Internal Affairs, only to have the case thrown out as soon as they reach headquarters. New super-spooky villain Libra kills Martian Manhunter to prove how badass he is, and nothing comes of it except everyone is very sad since he was such a good Martian and a very good manhunter to boot.)
3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the "Final Crisis" tale.
(In multiple issues it is LITERALLY impossible to distinguish whether members of a race of alien vampires are alive, dead, reborn or rekilled... And if you can distinguish whether it's Superman, Ultraman, Overman, Überman, Vampire Superman, Cyborg Superman, Black Superman, Blaxploitation Superman [yes, two different characters] or Captain Marvel getting killed and resurrected in any two given panels, my hat is off to you.)
4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this detail also has been overlooked in the "Final Crisis" tale.
(Fanservice is reason enough to include both the Monitor and some Anti-Monitors, the Gold and Silver and Modern Age versions of The Flash, all four versions of Earth's Green Lantern, Frankenstein's monster, The Question, Super-Sumo and Mister Miracle. No kitchen sink, though.)
5. The require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the beginning of the "Final Crisis" tale to the end of it.
("The mystery of the silent sentinel haunts Monitor, infects the immaculate intelligence with questions, speculations, pestilential, crawling narratives. Legend takes root... and story, like contagion, spreads unchecked!" "Did you know the super-criminal fraternity had its own secret Internet, the Ünternet?" "Kill me, Superman! Kill the frail old man upon whose soul Darkseid fed and fattened! How can you hurt a foe made of people?")
6. They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. But this law gets little or no attention in the "Final Crisis" tale, as Libra's case will amply prove.
7. They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a minstrel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the "Final Crisis" tale.
8. They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale. But this rule is persistently violated in the "Final Crisis" tale.
(This also applies to pseudo-crypto-mumbo-jumbo like, "I've fused symmetries. Enough energy in my hands to broadcast his pure essence to a receiver in a higher dimension. Only Superman can save us now.")
9. They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. But these rules are not respected in the "Final Crisis" tale.
(Morrison has never seen a gonzo stunt he wouldn't employ: mind-control zombies, universe hatcheries, vampire aliens, God-weapons with time-bullets, Death on skis - it's all in here, no joke. Miracle Man is the LEAST of the miraculous appearances in this book.)
10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the "Final Crisis" tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.
(I've never cheered so hard for Superman to get cracked a good one in his self-righteous jaw. And far from hating Darkseid, the Big Bad of the tale, I just wished he'd get on with the dastardly plot and stop taking so long transforming Detective Pudge McOldperson into his voodoo puppet body.)
11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. But in the "Final Crisis" tale, this rule is vacated.
(Catwoman, Wonder Woman and Batwoman team up to ride giant dogs, kind of Ladies' Night meets Kennel Club. Clark Kent leaves dying Lois's bedside to gallavant to another universe despite his powers being the only ting keeping her heart beating. Hey, can Batman use a gun? Why not!)
I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that "Final Crisis" is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that "Final Crisis" is just simply a literary delirium tremens.
A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.
Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.
There are eleven rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction. In "Final Crisis," Morrison violated eighteen of them. These require:
1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the "Final Crisis" tale accomplishes nothing and arrives in air.
(I can't tell what if any changes affected Earth, space, time or the multiverse from the beginning of the story to its end. I'm told the changes are important, though.)
2. They require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. But as the "Final Crisis" tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes have no rightful place in the work, since there was nothing for them to develop.
(Two Flashes attempt to outrun Death for no reason in particular. Hal Jordan gets taken into custody by the Green Lantern version of Internal Affairs, only to have the case thrown out as soon as they reach headquarters. New super-spooky villain Libra kills Martian Manhunter to prove how badass he is, and nothing comes of it except everyone is very sad since he was such a good Martian and a very good manhunter to boot.)
3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the "Final Crisis" tale.
(In multiple issues it is LITERALLY impossible to distinguish whether members of a race of alien vampires are alive, dead, reborn or rekilled... And if you can distinguish whether it's Superman, Ultraman, Overman, Überman, Vampire Superman, Cyborg Superman, Black Superman, Blaxploitation Superman [yes, two different characters] or Captain Marvel getting killed and resurrected in any two given panels, my hat is off to you.)
4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this detail also has been overlooked in the "Final Crisis" tale.
(Fanservice is reason enough to include both the Monitor and some Anti-Monitors, the Gold and Silver and Modern Age versions of The Flash, all four versions of Earth's Green Lantern, Frankenstein's monster, The Question, Super-Sumo and Mister Miracle. No kitchen sink, though.)
5. The require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the beginning of the "Final Crisis" tale to the end of it.
("The mystery of the silent sentinel haunts Monitor, infects the immaculate intelligence with questions, speculations, pestilential, crawling narratives. Legend takes root... and story, like contagion, spreads unchecked!" "Did you know the super-criminal fraternity had its own secret Internet, the Ünternet?" "Kill me, Superman! Kill the frail old man upon whose soul Darkseid fed and fattened! How can you hurt a foe made of people?")
6. They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. But this law gets little or no attention in the "Final Crisis" tale, as Libra's case will amply prove.
7. They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a minstrel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the "Final Crisis" tale.
8. They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale. But this rule is persistently violated in the "Final Crisis" tale.
(This also applies to pseudo-crypto-mumbo-jumbo like, "I've fused symmetries. Enough energy in my hands to broadcast his pure essence to a receiver in a higher dimension. Only Superman can save us now.")
9. They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. But these rules are not respected in the "Final Crisis" tale.
(Morrison has never seen a gonzo stunt he wouldn't employ: mind-control zombies, universe hatcheries, vampire aliens, God-weapons with time-bullets, Death on skis - it's all in here, no joke. Miracle Man is the LEAST of the miraculous appearances in this book.)
10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the "Final Crisis" tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.
(I've never cheered so hard for Superman to get cracked a good one in his self-righteous jaw. And far from hating Darkseid, the Big Bad of the tale, I just wished he'd get on with the dastardly plot and stop taking so long transforming Detective Pudge McOldperson into his voodoo puppet body.)
11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. But in the "Final Crisis" tale, this rule is vacated.
(Catwoman, Wonder Woman and Batwoman team up to ride giant dogs, kind of Ladies' Night meets Kennel Club. Clark Kent leaves dying Lois's bedside to gallavant to another universe despite his powers being the only ting keeping her heart beating. Hey, can Batman use a gun? Why not!)
I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that "Final Crisis" is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that "Final Crisis" is just simply a literary delirium tremens.
A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.
Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.
August 20, 2017
Final Crisis is typical Grant Morrison. It is big, it is epic, it is slightly confusing and it is different.
Perhaps I am being overly generous with my three stars, since some of the crossover aspect of this story renders it in the 2 star range. But I enjoyed the rather vast premise- who shot and killed a God? With what kind of bullet?
This is the start of the story and it's all over the place. Darkseid is dead but can you really kill a god? Well..except..Orion who IS dead..but anyways..Darkseid is being resurrected and he has found a way to bring his Anti-Life Equation to Earth. Can the superheroes stop him? What do you think? Yeah..same here. Since we know how it ends the joy is in the getting there.
The Batman and certain Superman scenes are nearly superlative (no pun intended) while the other scenes vary in degrees of mediocrity. But taken as a whole, and buttressed by good artwork, this is a huge undertaking. The scope of Darkseid's invasion is truly massive and GM does a good job with it. This could have been truly special if they had limited some of the crossovers-the Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman story was pretty decent. The New Gods stuff was good too. It's some of the secondary character's stories that get in the way of the big picture.
Still considering the needs of DC to make this a massive crossover may have hurt the overall tightness of the story. But it is a fun read. There is some epic fights in this story and for you brainy types some of Grant Morrison's convoluted thinking about universes/multiverses/deities..you get the drift. Consider the banal nature of the current comic market's stories I'll take this impressive undertaking.
Perhaps I am being overly generous with my three stars, since some of the crossover aspect of this story renders it in the 2 star range. But I enjoyed the rather vast premise- who shot and killed a God? With what kind of bullet?
This is the start of the story and it's all over the place. Darkseid is dead but can you really kill a god? Well..except..Orion who IS dead..but anyways..Darkseid is being resurrected and he has found a way to bring his Anti-Life Equation to Earth. Can the superheroes stop him? What do you think? Yeah..same here. Since we know how it ends the joy is in the getting there.
The Batman and certain Superman scenes are nearly superlative (no pun intended) while the other scenes vary in degrees of mediocrity. But taken as a whole, and buttressed by good artwork, this is a huge undertaking. The scope of Darkseid's invasion is truly massive and GM does a good job with it. This could have been truly special if they had limited some of the crossovers-the Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman story was pretty decent. The New Gods stuff was good too. It's some of the secondary character's stories that get in the way of the big picture.
Still considering the needs of DC to make this a massive crossover may have hurt the overall tightness of the story. But it is a fun read. There is some epic fights in this story and for you brainy types some of Grant Morrison's convoluted thinking about universes/multiverses/deities..you get the drift. Consider the banal nature of the current comic market's stories I'll take this impressive undertaking.
August 3, 2022
This has gotta be one of the most ambitious DC stories easily and its epic!
The version I read had Final crisis 1-7, Superman beyond 1-2 and Batman 682-683!
And wow we see the murder of a new god and slowly heroes falling, villains getting organized, Hal being arrested, Superman travelling to Monitor land and meeting alternate Superman to fight Mandrakk, Batman vs the lump story which was fun and getting to see his life story told from that angle and its epic, the return of Barry, whatever is going on with Diana and the fall of the world to Ant-life, the epic moment between Batman and Darkseid then what happens to Bruce then Superman and every DC hero and army vs Mandrakk which was awesome and finally the big status quo shift in the DCU and what starts as dark and despair ends in hope!
Its such a great story, I freaking love it! Its ambitious yes but it takes the promise and delivers on it and shows the fall of superheroes but by the end their rise and brings several characters back and also for others.. well maybe not so much and has so many iconic panels and does well to show heroes at their best by the end and a good message of good triumphing over evil and gives awesome moments to both Batman and Superman like I said! So yeah a definite recommend from my side!
The version I read had Final crisis 1-7, Superman beyond 1-2 and Batman 682-683!
And wow we see the murder of a new god and slowly heroes falling, villains getting organized, Hal being arrested, Superman travelling to Monitor land and meeting alternate Superman to fight Mandrakk, Batman vs the lump story which was fun and getting to see his life story told from that angle and its epic, the return of Barry, whatever is going on with Diana and the fall of the world to Ant-life, the epic moment between Batman and Darkseid then what happens to Bruce then Superman and every DC hero and army vs Mandrakk which was awesome and finally the big status quo shift in the DCU and what starts as dark and despair ends in hope!
Its such a great story, I freaking love it! Its ambitious yes but it takes the promise and delivers on it and shows the fall of superheroes but by the end their rise and brings several characters back and also for others.. well maybe not so much and has so many iconic panels and does well to show heroes at their best by the end and a good message of good triumphing over evil and gives awesome moments to both Batman and Superman like I said! So yeah a definite recommend from my side!
February 24, 2016
I hate it when I have to say this but this one was much too Morrison-y for my taste. So busy and convoluted and did I say busy?. Disappointed to say the least.
February 12, 2024
Dear Grant Morrison,
It pains me to say this, but I feel that my (short-lived) love affair with you has finally waned. It’s not you, it’s me.
Well, maybe it’s partly you, too. Okay, it’s a lot you, actually. Although, to be fair, I wouldn’t want you to change anything about yourself, necessarily, as I find you adorably weird and esoteric and pretentious (in a good way). I also find you extremely intelligent, which is an attractive quality in a graphic novel writer.
My problem is simply this: I’m apparently not worthy. Clearly, I am not as smart as you, which I’m okay with, but I foresee this as being a major problem for both of us in the future if we want to keep the relationship going. I’m willing to give it a go, but something tells me that I’d just be holding you back if we continued on this way.
I’d be constantly asking you about that particular allusion to an Aztec god or that extremely esoteric reference to an event that happened in Justice League #357 or why that particular symbol keeps popping up in the story, and I feel that you’d just get annoyed, because I’ve dealt with pretentious types like you before, and the one thing you all have in common is a very unsympathetic impatience for those of us who don’t “get you”.
I think what did it for me was the graphic novel “Final Crisis”, which I kind of liked and thought that parts were brilliant, but that, overall, I felt it was a gigantic mess of a story, much of which I just didn’t comprehend.
Now, like I said before, I’m willing to take a lot of the blame. I knew going into it it was going to be a problem because of the following facts:
1) I’m not a DC fan. I have read a few Batman and Superman comic books in my lifetime, and I dig on Wonder Woman (for lots of reasons), but the DC heroes are not my favorite. I’m definitely a Marvel guy. Sorry.
2) I have not read a lot of the afore-mentioned series leading up to the “Final Crisis”, including a series called “Infinite Crisis”, which all my DC-loving friends have told me that I probably should have read prior to this, but I didn’t because, well, reason #1.
3) I’m actually not a huge superhero fan to begin with anyway. I only got into the Marvel stuff because of the movies, which have been awesome, but I never really read a lot of those series prior to seeing the movies, either. My tastes definitely run more toward horror and weird, which is why I loved your six-part series “Nameless” and your ‘80s stuff for the British comic 2000 A.D.
So, yeah, I own up to my own personal failings in this relationship. I’m not perfect. But then again, I never claimed to be.
You, on the other hand, have to admit: you came on to me really powerfully. I’m a sucker for a big intellect, and you were really showing off in “Nameless”, what with those ten pages of endnotes describing all the literary, religious, and historical references that you peppered lovingly throughout every panel. That was hot.
I was powerless against you.
Unfortunately, that honey glow has worn off. “Final Crisis” ultimately left me feeling, well, a bit cold and numb. It also left me with the feeling that you and I have very different wants and needs. You want to show off your comic book knowledge and smarts, and I need to read a story that makes a slight bit of sense to me.
I know this may be a big blow to you, but please don’t take this the wrong way: I still have utmost respect for you. I just feel that our journeys would be better suited if we went separate ways. It’s been fun.
Sincerely, a befuddled former fan
It pains me to say this, but I feel that my (short-lived) love affair with you has finally waned. It’s not you, it’s me.
Well, maybe it’s partly you, too. Okay, it’s a lot you, actually. Although, to be fair, I wouldn’t want you to change anything about yourself, necessarily, as I find you adorably weird and esoteric and pretentious (in a good way). I also find you extremely intelligent, which is an attractive quality in a graphic novel writer.
My problem is simply this: I’m apparently not worthy. Clearly, I am not as smart as you, which I’m okay with, but I foresee this as being a major problem for both of us in the future if we want to keep the relationship going. I’m willing to give it a go, but something tells me that I’d just be holding you back if we continued on this way.
I’d be constantly asking you about that particular allusion to an Aztec god or that extremely esoteric reference to an event that happened in Justice League #357 or why that particular symbol keeps popping up in the story, and I feel that you’d just get annoyed, because I’ve dealt with pretentious types like you before, and the one thing you all have in common is a very unsympathetic impatience for those of us who don’t “get you”.
I think what did it for me was the graphic novel “Final Crisis”, which I kind of liked and thought that parts were brilliant, but that, overall, I felt it was a gigantic mess of a story, much of which I just didn’t comprehend.
Now, like I said before, I’m willing to take a lot of the blame. I knew going into it it was going to be a problem because of the following facts:
1) I’m not a DC fan. I have read a few Batman and Superman comic books in my lifetime, and I dig on Wonder Woman (for lots of reasons), but the DC heroes are not my favorite. I’m definitely a Marvel guy. Sorry.
2) I have not read a lot of the afore-mentioned series leading up to the “Final Crisis”, including a series called “Infinite Crisis”, which all my DC-loving friends have told me that I probably should have read prior to this, but I didn’t because, well, reason #1.
3) I’m actually not a huge superhero fan to begin with anyway. I only got into the Marvel stuff because of the movies, which have been awesome, but I never really read a lot of those series prior to seeing the movies, either. My tastes definitely run more toward horror and weird, which is why I loved your six-part series “Nameless” and your ‘80s stuff for the British comic 2000 A.D.
So, yeah, I own up to my own personal failings in this relationship. I’m not perfect. But then again, I never claimed to be.
You, on the other hand, have to admit: you came on to me really powerfully. I’m a sucker for a big intellect, and you were really showing off in “Nameless”, what with those ten pages of endnotes describing all the literary, religious, and historical references that you peppered lovingly throughout every panel. That was hot.
I was powerless against you.
Unfortunately, that honey glow has worn off. “Final Crisis” ultimately left me feeling, well, a bit cold and numb. It also left me with the feeling that you and I have very different wants and needs. You want to show off your comic book knowledge and smarts, and I need to read a story that makes a slight bit of sense to me.
I know this may be a big blow to you, but please don’t take this the wrong way: I still have utmost respect for you. I just feel that our journeys would be better suited if we went separate ways. It’s been fun.
Sincerely, a befuddled former fan
February 15, 2018
Grant Morrison is a man of infinite ideas. Every time I crack open one of his story arcs, I always find myself in front of something unexpected, fresh and unrestrained. Everything he brings to life is of epic proportions and nothing will stop him from green lighting everything his mind conjures. An inter-dimensional war? I got you. Collapse of the multiverse? I got you. Heroes that most people are likely to never have heard of? I got you.
Final Crisis is a story that jumps from one POV to another at the blink of an eye. It revolves around the death of a New God and the rise of an Evil one. It pits good against evil on multiple fronts and puts Superman as the key to everything. If there's one hero that gets a lot of attention in Final Crisis, it's Superman. Half the time you'll wonder what on Earth is going on, but at the end you'll be pretty impressed by the depth in imagination of Grant Morrison and the things he does around Superman. This is the first time I've read Superman as someone more than just some guy with super strength, heat vision and an ability to fly. He isn't just an Alien trying to fit in with humans. The dude is portrayed as a God.
Final Crisis also showcases a lot of heroes that usually don't get much attention, and others who could've had more attention are left in the dark. The story-telling is very choppy, but I can't lie that the bigger picture was truly fascinating. The whole Anti-Life Equation was definitely a nice angle to explore the end of the world, but don't expect this to be an easy read. There's a very religious premise behind it all, but my brain is way too fried right now to try and dig into it. This book deserves to be re-read multiple times to be able to truly "enjoy" it.
This major event in the DC universe also contains another major event, one that will probably bring a lot of people to check out this comic (I find it odd that it was put as the main cover...). Something in me died when it happened, but that's only because I'm a major fanboy. If I try to look at it without the bias, I have to admit that it felt rushed and anticlimactic. A move like that should've brought chaos in real world. From the looks of it, everyone was stunned. Unfortunately, it wasn't because they were impressed.
P.S. Full review to come
Yours truly,
Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/
Final Crisis is a story that jumps from one POV to another at the blink of an eye. It revolves around the death of a New God and the rise of an Evil one. It pits good against evil on multiple fronts and puts Superman as the key to everything. If there's one hero that gets a lot of attention in Final Crisis, it's Superman. Half the time you'll wonder what on Earth is going on, but at the end you'll be pretty impressed by the depth in imagination of Grant Morrison and the things he does around Superman. This is the first time I've read Superman as someone more than just some guy with super strength, heat vision and an ability to fly. He isn't just an Alien trying to fit in with humans. The dude is portrayed as a God.
Final Crisis also showcases a lot of heroes that usually don't get much attention, and others who could've had more attention are left in the dark. The story-telling is very choppy, but I can't lie that the bigger picture was truly fascinating. The whole Anti-Life Equation was definitely a nice angle to explore the end of the world, but don't expect this to be an easy read. There's a very religious premise behind it all, but my brain is way too fried right now to try and dig into it. This book deserves to be re-read multiple times to be able to truly "enjoy" it.
This major event in the DC universe also contains another major event, one that will probably bring a lot of people to check out this comic (I find it odd that it was put as the main cover...). Something in me died when it happened, but that's only because I'm a major fanboy. If I try to look at it without the bias, I have to admit that it felt rushed and anticlimactic. A move like that should've brought chaos in real world. From the looks of it, everyone was stunned. Unfortunately, it wasn't because they were impressed.
P.S. Full review to come
Yours truly,
Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/
March 19, 2011
Found the first few pages waaaaay too abstract to bother reading the rest. However it keeps coming back at me, and after realizing it was the linchpin between Batman RIP and Batman Reborn, I finally gave in.
This book feels like it's all over the place - intentionally. That's good for the DC geeks who know every minor character or sub-plot that gets a cameo here, but holy hell is it uninteresting to a DC amateur like me.
And frankly the hardest part of reading this book was trying to find and follow the narrative. I mean, there's good mind-bending storytelling that Morrison is famous for, and then there's just putting the plot points, characters and dialogue in a blender and simply churning until it's an unrecognizable mass.
I'm sure if I read it again I'd get much more out of it, and maybe I will someday after I've spent a couple of years catching up on the DC universe (after five years I've focused so much on Marvel).
Until then I'm going to lament Morrison's dubious decision to narrate most dialogue in that most insipid and stilted style that was popular back when comic books were still printed using droplet ink.
I totally felt duped into reading this when I saw how little airtime Batman and his "death" actually got. I didn't know anything more about the continuity jump between Batman RIP and Batman Reborn than before I'd read this unholy mess.
This book feels like it's all over the place - intentionally. That's good for the DC geeks who know every minor character or sub-plot that gets a cameo here, but holy hell is it uninteresting to a DC amateur like me.
And frankly the hardest part of reading this book was trying to find and follow the narrative. I mean, there's good mind-bending storytelling that Morrison is famous for, and then there's just putting the plot points, characters and dialogue in a blender and simply churning until it's an unrecognizable mass.
I'm sure if I read it again I'd get much more out of it, and maybe I will someday after I've spent a couple of years catching up on the DC universe (after five years I've focused so much on Marvel).
Until then I'm going to lament Morrison's dubious decision to narrate most dialogue in that most insipid and stilted style that was popular back when comic books were still printed using droplet ink.
I totally felt duped into reading this when I saw how little airtime Batman and his "death" actually got. I didn't know anything more about the continuity jump between Batman RIP and Batman Reborn than before I'd read this unholy mess.
February 1, 2015
I typically love Grant Morrison, including the majority of his mostly magnificent run on the various Batbooks. By and large, I hated this. I tried to care, I tried to delve into the mind of Morrison, I put in the research to understand all of the subtle nods and overarching themes Morrison pulled from 70-plus years of DC comics. Instead I was mostly bored, confused and waiting for it to end. It was so epic and multiverse-shattering in scope, it never allowed itself a chance to make sense or provided us with a window of opportunity to care. It doesn't matter how big and bad you want a story to be if there's no emotional bond. The biggest Crisis here is mustering up the willpower to push through until the Final page.
November 5, 2014
I'd heard many, many talks, interviews, debates, etc. about "Final Crisis" before I'd read it.
I've heard somewhere that it split all of comic book fandom in half.
On one side there were those (who were presumably not fans of Morrison) saying, "This is crap! It's not fair! He's out of his mind and on drugs and he just writes down whatever craziness comes into his head and AAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!"
On the other there were those who said it was pure genius.
This almost made me afraid to read it. I only did so because I've been reading Morrison's entire Batman run lately and most folks listing that run on the ol' interwebs included "Final Crisis" as sort of an apocryphal work. I thought, "Why not? I'll include it."
While I can't really tell you how this ties into or compares to the other big "Crisis" stories of the DCU (having never read any of the rest of them), I can say that from what I've heard about them, it seems to be hinged on the same subject matter: All the heroes of the DCU, multiple Earths, multiple timelines, parallel universes, and the like.
What the book boils down to in a sentence and what is almost a paraphrase of one of the one-liners used to advertise the series is: What if evil won?
Having said that and not wanting to spoil too much, I'll say that I liked this one... a LOT. The book has almost every active character (at that time) in the DC Universe. There are things as simply entertaining as good ol' mash-it-up comic book superpowered fistfights, yet things as complex as, well, MANY parallel universes. The book had AMAZING ART. It at once defines Superman as few other books have and ennobles Batman as NO other book I've ever read has.
This one's a real treat.
If you haven't guessed, I'm on the side that thinks Morrison wove pure genius here. I hope you'll pick this one up and enjoy it as much as I did.
I've heard somewhere that it split all of comic book fandom in half.
On one side there were those (who were presumably not fans of Morrison) saying, "This is crap! It's not fair! He's out of his mind and on drugs and he just writes down whatever craziness comes into his head and AAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!"
On the other there were those who said it was pure genius.
This almost made me afraid to read it. I only did so because I've been reading Morrison's entire Batman run lately and most folks listing that run on the ol' interwebs included "Final Crisis" as sort of an apocryphal work. I thought, "Why not? I'll include it."
While I can't really tell you how this ties into or compares to the other big "Crisis" stories of the DCU (having never read any of the rest of them), I can say that from what I've heard about them, it seems to be hinged on the same subject matter: All the heroes of the DCU, multiple Earths, multiple timelines, parallel universes, and the like.
What the book boils down to in a sentence and what is almost a paraphrase of one of the one-liners used to advertise the series is: What if evil won?
Having said that and not wanting to spoil too much, I'll say that I liked this one... a LOT. The book has almost every active character (at that time) in the DC Universe. There are things as simply entertaining as good ol' mash-it-up comic book superpowered fistfights, yet things as complex as, well, MANY parallel universes. The book had AMAZING ART. It at once defines Superman as few other books have and ennobles Batman as NO other book I've ever read has.
This one's a real treat.
If you haven't guessed, I'm on the side that thinks Morrison wove pure genius here. I hope you'll pick this one up and enjoy it as much as I did.
November 3, 2013
Final Crisis is a frustrating, flawed and ultimately brilliant work. I don’t think I could write anything that would add to what has already been said by its fans and detractors other than regardless of your feelings this should be read by comic book fans again and again.
April 17, 2017
Why do I do this to myself? Fucking dumb as hell. I just...I don't even have words. Fucking fuck Morrison...how many drugs do you take?
January 30, 2019
Fucktangular is about the only word I have for this. Everything else is just incoherent screaming.
July 30, 2010
Here's the basics:
• Final Crisis was last year's massive DC Comics crossover event in which every DC character of note (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc.) was pulled into an apocalyptic battle against Darkseid.
• It was written by Grant Morrison, a major figure on the comic book landscape for more than a decade who is known for his wild, reality-bending plots and encyclopedic knowledge of superhero history.
• Batman dies. For real. (Well, we see him get hit by some super-bullet, and we see charred body, but maybe he just got transported back in time. Regardless, everyone is acting like he's dead, so let's just say he's dead. At least for a little while.)
Even hardcore comic book fans will agree that Final Crisis makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Few who know me will disagree that I have a far better-than-average familiarity with comic books. I got hooked on comics as a kid in the early-nineties and have been reading widely in the world of superheroes ever since. However, despite this advantage over most casual readers and the fact that I adore writer Grant Morrison (who one can always count on to deliver something truly weird), I was totally lost while trying to read Final Crisis. The reasons for this are numerous, but largely boil down to the fact that so much time is spent on "epic" fist-fights between hundreds of more-or-less identical second-string characters (many of whom were created by Jack Kirby in the '70s and never really heard from again) that Morrison can't be bothered to slow down and explain what this crisis is all about. Nor is there any room for readers to feel anything for the characters, or for the characters to do anything but spout melodramatic warnings about the end of existence. Galactic fisticuffs are all well-and-good, but readers need a little humanity or else its just… galactic fisticuffs.
All that said, the art in this book is mostly top-notch and exciting, and the production values of the hardcover edition are quite high. Additionally, this is a really big event that is set to change the DC Universe for a long time which means that comic book fans are likely to want to read it. Any serious graphic novel collection should probably go ahead and pick this up. Just be ready to point patrons to one of the many websites offering annotations to the story when they come back scratching their heads.
• Final Crisis was last year's massive DC Comics crossover event in which every DC character of note (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc.) was pulled into an apocalyptic battle against Darkseid.
• It was written by Grant Morrison, a major figure on the comic book landscape for more than a decade who is known for his wild, reality-bending plots and encyclopedic knowledge of superhero history.
• Batman dies. For real. (Well, we see him get hit by some super-bullet, and we see charred body, but maybe he just got transported back in time. Regardless, everyone is acting like he's dead, so let's just say he's dead. At least for a little while.)
Even hardcore comic book fans will agree that Final Crisis makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Few who know me will disagree that I have a far better-than-average familiarity with comic books. I got hooked on comics as a kid in the early-nineties and have been reading widely in the world of superheroes ever since. However, despite this advantage over most casual readers and the fact that I adore writer Grant Morrison (who one can always count on to deliver something truly weird), I was totally lost while trying to read Final Crisis. The reasons for this are numerous, but largely boil down to the fact that so much time is spent on "epic" fist-fights between hundreds of more-or-less identical second-string characters (many of whom were created by Jack Kirby in the '70s and never really heard from again) that Morrison can't be bothered to slow down and explain what this crisis is all about. Nor is there any room for readers to feel anything for the characters, or for the characters to do anything but spout melodramatic warnings about the end of existence. Galactic fisticuffs are all well-and-good, but readers need a little humanity or else its just… galactic fisticuffs.
All that said, the art in this book is mostly top-notch and exciting, and the production values of the hardcover edition are quite high. Additionally, this is a really big event that is set to change the DC Universe for a long time which means that comic book fans are likely to want to read it. Any serious graphic novel collection should probably go ahead and pick this up. Just be ready to point patrons to one of the many websites offering annotations to the story when they come back scratching their heads.
November 13, 2009
It's fitting that two tie-ins to this massive, profitable event comic are called "Submit" and "Resist"--this book is either inviting an obsessive, detailed reading or a cold, scrambled mess. If you put in the effort, by pouring over the panels or reading Final Crisis Annotations or other guides, it's a dense but engaging and funny metacommentary on the potential for superhero comics. It sucks you in if you submit. On the other hand, if you want a consume-in-one-sitting pop comic, it's easy to find all the bits that are resistible.
In terms of exploring boundaries and highlighting DC history, continuity, and incongruities, Grant Morrison does a bang-up job. But even then, the overarching plot is hard to wade through. Yes, Darkseid tries to take over Earth, and a not-always linked band of heroes stops him in the nick of time, but Morrison doesn't devote as much of his head space or the book's panel space to the momentum of the story or the emotional link to the audience. The one-issue Submit story is the only time he addresses the emotional quality of Darkseid's Anti-Life Equation meme.
Those qualms aside, Final Crisis can be quite an experience, if you let it. It's open to a bunch of different interpretations, and also opens the doors to a lot of different next stories--How is Batman coming back? How will heroes and commoners feel about the Multiverse? And his myriad, sometimes messianic interpretation of Superman is inspiring. He even gives characters like Green Arrow and Super-Bat funny, winning lines. Give this book hours, and it's at least somewhat rewarding. It's also a story that's only works in the comic medium. It may not always make sense on the page, but it's not even possible on film or prose. There are tons of interesting bits--the channel-switching at the end, Morrison's stand-in Nix Uotan, the fatal bullet--that amount to an impressive work, if not a good story.
In terms of exploring boundaries and highlighting DC history, continuity, and incongruities, Grant Morrison does a bang-up job. But even then, the overarching plot is hard to wade through. Yes, Darkseid tries to take over Earth, and a not-always linked band of heroes stops him in the nick of time, but Morrison doesn't devote as much of his head space or the book's panel space to the momentum of the story or the emotional link to the audience. The one-issue Submit story is the only time he addresses the emotional quality of Darkseid's Anti-Life Equation meme.
Those qualms aside, Final Crisis can be quite an experience, if you let it. It's open to a bunch of different interpretations, and also opens the doors to a lot of different next stories--How is Batman coming back? How will heroes and commoners feel about the Multiverse? And his myriad, sometimes messianic interpretation of Superman is inspiring. He even gives characters like Green Arrow and Super-Bat funny, winning lines. Give this book hours, and it's at least somewhat rewarding. It's also a story that's only works in the comic medium. It may not always make sense on the page, but it's not even possible on film or prose. There are tons of interesting bits--the channel-switching at the end, Morrison's stand-in Nix Uotan, the fatal bullet--that amount to an impressive work, if not a good story.
February 27, 2012
If I was going to rate Final Crisis on the ideas and the ambition that Morrison brought to the table, this would be a four star book, at least. If I was going to rate it solely on the writing and execution of those ideas... Well, more like a two star book.
Morrison is like this, and I think we all know it by now: brilliant, mad ideas but executed in a way that can just be confusing. I like to think that if Morrison had been given 9 or 12 issues to tell his story, instead of just 7, it would have been a better read. I also can't imagine how anyone could have possibly read Final Crisis as it was originally released- the trade has to add in the two-issue Superman Beyond and the one-shot Final Crisis: Requiem (which is very good, actually) to get it to vaguely comprehensible. And it would have helped if it didn't contradict Countdown, which was being written at roughly the same time. It's a bit of a mess, is what I'm saying, but it's a brilliant mess, and it's not entirely things that can be laid at Morrison's feet.
The art is good, for the most part, and it better be. But not nearly as good as the beautiful covers. From what I've seen, Final Crisis and its tie-ins were blessed with really nice covers.
Final Crisis is still worth a read, but you might want to check some of the online annotations while you're working on it.
Morrison is like this, and I think we all know it by now: brilliant, mad ideas but executed in a way that can just be confusing. I like to think that if Morrison had been given 9 or 12 issues to tell his story, instead of just 7, it would have been a better read. I also can't imagine how anyone could have possibly read Final Crisis as it was originally released- the trade has to add in the two-issue Superman Beyond and the one-shot Final Crisis: Requiem (which is very good, actually) to get it to vaguely comprehensible. And it would have helped if it didn't contradict Countdown, which was being written at roughly the same time. It's a bit of a mess, is what I'm saying, but it's a brilliant mess, and it's not entirely things that can be laid at Morrison's feet.
The art is good, for the most part, and it better be. But not nearly as good as the beautiful covers. From what I've seen, Final Crisis and its tie-ins were blessed with really nice covers.
Final Crisis is still worth a read, but you might want to check some of the online annotations while you're working on it.
August 1, 2017
Κάποτε είχα να μιλήσω για την ιστορία του DC Universe και τα Crisis Events. Διάβασα το λήμα στη wikipedia για το Final Crisis και δεν κατάλαβα τι έγινε. Είπα: κακό λήμα, θα διαβάσω το Graphic Novel. Το τελείωσα. Ακόμα δεν κατάλαβα τι έγινε στο Final Crisis.
Aλλά είχε ωραίο σχέδιο.
Aλλά είχε ωραίο σχέδιο.
November 16, 2015
Wow. This was quite impressive, a little high-brow, a little complex, a little high concept, but that is exactly why you pick up a Grant Morrison. The only downside for me was the cameo appearance made by Batman... Oh, and the laaaarge cast. It made it hard to track all of them at once, but the beauty of this comic was the action kept moving, the stakes kept rising and rising. Bravo! An absolute gem.
June 26, 2015
This one went mostly way over my head the first time I read it.
However I just re-read it after reading all the Morrison JLA stories and I am starting to grasp some things.
It's still some of the craziest work of Morrison but among the crazy stuff there are some gems.( the monitor stuff is still way over the top in my opinion).
However I just re-read it after reading all the Morrison JLA stories and I am starting to grasp some things.
It's still some of the craziest work of Morrison but among the crazy stuff there are some gems.( the monitor stuff is still way over the top in my opinion).
December 26, 2015
Final Crisis collects a bunch of interesting ideas and tells them in the most confusing way possible, with a constant barrage of people yelling "Anti-life! Anti-life!" which may be the dumbest name for what the bad guys are implementing in the history of comics.
Ok, probably not. But it's a really bad name.
Ok, probably not. But it's a really bad name.
October 8, 2019
Not my cup of tea. I had to force myself to finish reading this. Too long maybe? Too many characters? Concept sounded cool, but execution was too confusing. Just too much.
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