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By Jason Bourgeois
What a difference a few years make. Not too long ago, Marvel's big event was House of M, and I was unimpressed. Very much so, and that's probably putting it mildly. DC had Infinite Crisis, and 52, which I very much enjoyed. Even those had their flaws, but for the most part, they were great rides. Now, here we are years later, and Marvel is knee deep in revealing their Secret Invasion which, despite a lack of Avengers in their own titles, I'm actually enjoying. In fairness, some of my favourite movies are alien invasion films, and I love the paranoia you get with them. The Skrulls are a great way to do that, and with superpowers. It's surprising that it's taken so long for someone to really get into this sort of story at Marvel, and it's really a fun, fun time.
Meanwhile, over at the other guys, I've had Countdown which was ok, and that's being kind, but I didn't hate it as much as some other people did. Also, there is Final Crisis, which is catching a lot of flak, and a lot of it is warranted, in my opinion.
A lot has been made about Final Crisis not matching up with things in Countdown, and that's definitely a fair cop. I'm not sure who to lay the blame for that on, but I think there's plenty of blame to spread around to all parties; Grant, DC editorial, Countdown's creators, they all can have a share in this. Final Crisis has been in the works for many, many months, even right around the time of Countdown's beginnings. Grant could have made clear his intentions on where characters would be, the death of the New Gods, the fate of Mary Marvel, etc, but he didn't, so it seems. Editorial could have dragged more details out of him, or maybe passed along accurate info to the Countdown creators. Finally, those creators, if they were getting vague stuff, could have said "forget it" and written a story that wasn't a 52 issue lead up with no narrative climax, since the climax would all be in Final Crisis. If they didn't know what to lead up to, they should have passed. So yeah, there's plenty of blame to go around here. Everyone dropped lots of balls.
Grant Morrison runs hot and cold for me, with his writing. I've read some very good things. I've read some very bad things. I'm looking at you, New X-Men, and the finale of Seven Soldiers. Grant works best with all new characters, or with lesser known characters, who don't have much history to screw up or change. But when he touches a big property, and tries to hammer them into Morrisonian archetypes, they rarely fit, and it shows.
And here he is, doing it again. In Final Crisis, we're given Grant Morrison's version of the Green Lantern Corps, which sounds much more like a police organisation in the way the operatives and Guardians speak. It may make sense, but goes against the past thirty or so years of established Green Lantern appearances. There are other examples, but they were the ones that really stood out to me.
Also, Grant introduced the concept of the Alpha Lanterns. It's a good thing he told some other people about this idea, and other writers were able to introduce them in the past year to lead up to this, or it would be another random Grant Morrison idea that just ignores what's gone before. Fortunately, they were established, and aren't out of the blue, however even such new characters don't match up in the Grant Morrison universe as they do everywhere else.
Probably the biggest offense in the very first issue of Final Crisis was the death of Martian Manhunter. Let me explain, that I am not against character deaths. The death of Phoenix is one of the best loved stories of comicbooks. If done right, comicbook deaths, even knowing they may not have permanence, can be very good, very moving. Martian Manhunter's death was neither. A character with such a long history, and in almost every incarnation of the JLA, should not go out like he did here. He was captured off panel, dragged into the room with the series big bad, Libra, and stabbed dead. His death barely took up a page. He never fought back, he was just a prop to show how badass Libra is. I'm ok with, again, offing someone to establish badassery, but not like this. It is a disservice to such a storied character to just toss him on the bonfire like that. This is almost as offensive, to me, as many of the 'women in refrigerator' type deaths of female characters.
DC at least had the foresight to give J'onn a bit more of a send off with a one-shot tie in, that extended his death scene, gave him a bit more fight in him, actually showed him fighting back, and a proper funeral. But Grant couldn't be bothered, and just wheeled out a character that was little more than a mannequin to be set on fire.
Many people hate that DC killed off Blue Beetle, but at least he went out with an 80 page story, that had him doing what he does best, and fighting the good fight, whether or not the story was actually well written is up for debate, but it was a much more fitting send off than Final Crisis was for J'onn.
And don't get me started on Mary Marvel now being an evil bimbo dominatrix with all her hair shaved off except for twin pink pony tails sticking out through her gimp headgear. Countdown started her down the road to darkness, and in the interregnum between that and her appearances in Final Crisis, there was yet another huge jump between point a and point b. It's more like point a and point q.
The other thing that gets me is the random narrative structure. Or lack of any structure, really. The story seems to be multiple storylines all happening at the same time, with almost no interaction between them. There is no flow from one scene to the next. The only flow is between scenes in the same storyline. As long as those are in order, you could place these separate storylines in almost any order, from one to the next. It feels like Grant wrote seven different stories, hacked them up into smaller chunks, and shuffled them together, regardless of how it all fell together. Morrison is a far better storyteller than this. There is a total lack of transitions between scenes, and stuff just happens. I can see how everything ties together at the end of the day, but on the page, while reading, it just leaves me cold, as everything feels disparate and exclusionist.
Darkseid's master plan also strikes me as being overly complex. Ok, he's a god, they like their drama and showing off, but really. He's sent Mary Marvel to Earth with a virus of evilness, that turns people evil, with the plan to infect a hero with it, they'll spread it to the rest of populace. He's got Mary Marvel. Why go through the trouble of using a superhero turned evil, to give a virus to a hero, to turn them evil, and spread it? It's needless repeating of a step there. I've got some ideas on how this could have been better handled, but I'm not the type to be a backseat writer, so will let it be.
I haven't even mentioned the return of Barry Allen yet.
This series was hyped with ads, wondering, "Where were you when Barry Allen returned?" I was sitting here, reading Final Crisis, and waiting for them to reveal just who this Flash was. They finally did in the third issue. However, those ads had been running for ages, and even at conventions and interviews, they were being cagey. They blew the big story point in ads. It's like if the Sixth Sense had a trailer that ended with "Bruce Willis, playing a dead guy".
I'm also of the opinion that we don't need another Flash. Barry's been dead for 20 years, and I lean towards leaving him that way. But ok, they brought him back, that's fine. But there's very little that sets him apart from Wally, Jay, or Bart. At least with Hal Jordan returning, even with a literal army of Green Lanterns, he always stood out from the crowd. The Flashes all tend to be more or less the same. Impulse had a different personality for awhile, but that got mowed down to blend in with all the rest. I have faith that Geoff Johns can get some differentiation going here, since he's done such a good job with those Green Lanterns, but right now I remain skeptical.
Now, there is something good I can say about this event. The art by J.G. Jones is absolutely gorgeous, as it always is by him. However, it doesn't come anywhere near the level of stuff I've seen from him in the past. It's some of the best artwork out there, but not his best work. It's very good stuff, and he's a master of the art form, and I just expect more of him. It's a shame that a book started so very long ago will still need a fill in artist, even with a skip month built in to allow him to keep up on trying to do seven issues in two years. His panel design in the DC Universe #0 one shot that teased Final Crisis was far more inventive and what I expect from him.
Jones art is almost good enough to keep me interested, but not quite. In a very rare move, I'm actually dropping a big event. I'm dropping a big event, and a miniseries, midstream. This is almost unprecedented for me. That sums up my feelings on this book more than any of these pages of words, I think. If anyone needs me, I'll be over here reading Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, which is so far completely free of anything to do with Final Crisis.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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