Final Crisis: An Opinion
May. 22nd, 2009 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kingandyYesterday I finally received a copy of Final Crisis #7 (of 7).
It was ... sort of good, but fractured.
The series as a whole suffered from the same thing as Morrison's run on JLA, in that each story had to be more EPIC than the last (and considering his first JLA story involved an invading army of Martians - beings who have all Superman's powers as well as the ability to turn invisible and read your mind - that's saying something). FC can be viewed as a logical continuation of that run, being - in Morrison's mind at least - the ultimate EPIC. (Technically, of course, it's the climax of his Seven Soldiers of Victory stories, of which I have read none, but it also dovetails neatly with some of the major JLA stories - particularly Rock of Ages, in which a Darkseid-ruled future was glimpsed.)
The core of a good story is certainly there. Earth is subjugated by Darkseid and the New Gods of the Fourth World, with all free will crushed by the Anti-Life Equation. Armies of empowered, mind-controlled supervillains hunt down the remaining resistance. It's all very grim and apocalyptic, and all the more so for happening in the here-and-now. This, the advertisers assured us, was for keeps.
And then ... it all went away.
Oh, it was always going to; it's the nature of an ongoing shared universe. No matter how much fun it is to blow up the world, you have to bear in mind that next month's stories are going to need somewhere to stand. So I can't begrudge a soft reset.
What I can begrudge is the very rushed and confused way in which it was done.
I will Grant the possibility that the confusion was intentional. Certainly, time itself gets damaged at some point, and as the narrative of the last issue jumps around one of the characters notes that things seem muddled. However, that's no excuse for the poor pacing. For those who haven't read it, here is a brief overview of the series progression:
The climax also suffers from being a crossover event; the grand final battle is against somebody not mentioned at all in the main series, somebody you'd only know about if you'd read the "Superman Beyond" two-issue spinoff (which I almost discounted on the basis that it appeared to be mostly a "Why Superman Hasn't Saved The Day Yet" story). If you haven't read that, he's just some black hat who inexplicably pops out of the woodwork at five to midnight. And everybody goes "OH MY GOD IT'S YOU" and you're like "What?" And then Nix Uotan appears with seven different armies, who are seen for two and a half panels each before the day is saved. The Supermen of the Multiverse get to hang in space blasting somebody with eyebeams for two and a half panels, then they just go away. Further, it suffers from having to deal with (and in some way tie itself to) the dire "Countdown to Infinite Crisis" year-long prequel. It did this by fixing some of the concepts introduced, and adapting them to serve its own ends, but in the end it only adds to the morass of confusing plot threads.
One could argue that the series would benefit from a few extra issues. After all, the original Crisis on Infinite Earths needed a year-long 12-issue maxiseries to tell the full, rich tapestry of events involved in collapsing a myriad of universes into one. However, I don't think extra pages is what's needed here. What's needed is a good strong editor, or possibly a co-writer.
Grant Morrison is clearly an excellent ideas man; his works burst at the seams with glorious concepts and raw creation. There's not a page in FC#7 that doesn't stand by itself as a masterpiece of sheer invention. Indeed, the simple sentence "Superman builds a magical god machine and saves the universe by making a wish" is itself an example of this. Every individual component of the story is pure awesome; it's only as a whole that it becomes rushed and confused. I suspect that Mr M has become a victim of his own success - suddenly editors are afraid to suggest changes or cut bits out because they don't want to be the Editor who Killed Grant Morrison.
Of course, having complimented GM on his creativity, I now have to go on and note that this is at least the third story in two years - actually the second in the last two months - which has climaxed by destroying the universe and creating it anew. I know it's almost a tradition by now with DC comics, but it's getting a bit tired.
Anyway, that is what I think. Sorry if it's a bit rushed and confused, but one does one's best to emulate one's source material...
It was ... sort of good, but fractured.
The series as a whole suffered from the same thing as Morrison's run on JLA, in that each story had to be more EPIC than the last (and considering his first JLA story involved an invading army of Martians - beings who have all Superman's powers as well as the ability to turn invisible and read your mind - that's saying something). FC can be viewed as a logical continuation of that run, being - in Morrison's mind at least - the ultimate EPIC. (Technically, of course, it's the climax of his Seven Soldiers of Victory stories, of which I have read none, but it also dovetails neatly with some of the major JLA stories - particularly Rock of Ages, in which a Darkseid-ruled future was glimpsed.)
The core of a good story is certainly there. Earth is subjugated by Darkseid and the New Gods of the Fourth World, with all free will crushed by the Anti-Life Equation. Armies of empowered, mind-controlled supervillains hunt down the remaining resistance. It's all very grim and apocalyptic, and all the more so for happening in the here-and-now. This, the advertisers assured us, was for keeps.
And then ... it all went away.
Oh, it was always going to; it's the nature of an ongoing shared universe. No matter how much fun it is to blow up the world, you have to bear in mind that next month's stories are going to need somewhere to stand. So I can't begrudge a soft reset.
What I can begrudge is the very rushed and confused way in which it was done.
I will Grant the possibility that the confusion was intentional. Certainly, time itself gets damaged at some point, and as the narrative of the last issue jumps around one of the characters notes that things seem muddled. However, that's no excuse for the poor pacing. For those who haven't read it, here is a brief overview of the series progression:
- Doom is coming
- Doom is here
- DOOM IS DOOMY
- DOOM IS IRRESISTABLE
- DOOM DOOM DOOMY DOOM
- OH MY GOD THE DOOM
- superman builds a magical god machine and saves the universe by making a wish
The climax also suffers from being a crossover event; the grand final battle is against somebody not mentioned at all in the main series, somebody you'd only know about if you'd read the "Superman Beyond" two-issue spinoff (which I almost discounted on the basis that it appeared to be mostly a "Why Superman Hasn't Saved The Day Yet" story). If you haven't read that, he's just some black hat who inexplicably pops out of the woodwork at five to midnight. And everybody goes "OH MY GOD IT'S YOU" and you're like "What?" And then Nix Uotan appears with seven different armies, who are seen for two and a half panels each before the day is saved. The Supermen of the Multiverse get to hang in space blasting somebody with eyebeams for two and a half panels, then they just go away. Further, it suffers from having to deal with (and in some way tie itself to) the dire "Countdown to Infinite Crisis" year-long prequel. It did this by fixing some of the concepts introduced, and adapting them to serve its own ends, but in the end it only adds to the morass of confusing plot threads.
One could argue that the series would benefit from a few extra issues. After all, the original Crisis on Infinite Earths needed a year-long 12-issue maxiseries to tell the full, rich tapestry of events involved in collapsing a myriad of universes into one. However, I don't think extra pages is what's needed here. What's needed is a good strong editor, or possibly a co-writer.
Grant Morrison is clearly an excellent ideas man; his works burst at the seams with glorious concepts and raw creation. There's not a page in FC#7 that doesn't stand by itself as a masterpiece of sheer invention. Indeed, the simple sentence "Superman builds a magical god machine and saves the universe by making a wish" is itself an example of this. Every individual component of the story is pure awesome; it's only as a whole that it becomes rushed and confused. I suspect that Mr M has become a victim of his own success - suddenly editors are afraid to suggest changes or cut bits out because they don't want to be the Editor who Killed Grant Morrison.
Of course, having complimented GM on his creativity, I now have to go on and note that this is at least the third story in two years - actually the second in the last two months - which has climaxed by destroying the universe and creating it anew. I know it's almost a tradition by now with DC comics, but it's getting a bit tired.
Anyway, that is what I think. Sorry if it's a bit rushed and confused, but one does one's best to emulate one's source material...
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-22 01:55 pm (UTC)I've never got into them, really, they just seem to be a confusing jumble of Deus Ex Machina.
I liked 52. I'm looking forward to Blackest Night, despite the huge amount of build up.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-22 02:00 pm (UTC)I'm looking forward to it too, even though I'm going to be a few months behind due to collecting the TPB versions.
As much as the usual whiney yanks are not liking Johns for his Iconic ideas, I cannot deny that his writing has probably made GL and GLC the best books on the market right now.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-22 02:27 pm (UTC)I kind of regret it now, because I really love Johns' work. Particularly, I love the way he works with history instead of against it. Many writers ignore facets of their characters' backstory that does not mesh with the way they want it to work; Johns takes the entire vista of history, weaves it together with disparate elements and comes out with something that not only works the way he wants it to work but fits with what has come before in such a logical and obvious way that it seems like there was no way things could not have been this way.
At first I thought the Rainbow Lantern business was silly, but I've come to realise that it works really well on a very deep level. It takes the old behind-the-curtain "yellow = fear" rationale behind the yellow weakness, combines it with the many, many "colours = emotion" super-powered beings found throughout the DCU (with a few minor modifications, since Green is typically Envy instead of Willpower) and makes you ask "Why did nobody think of this before?"