Just a simple question, could someone explain to me what this was all about, beginning to end, what changes will be made, and what do I need to read to "get" what Grant Morrison is trying to tell us?
Because, to be honest, while I usually pick up on tough storylines with relative ease, and I'm sure there's a great story in there (with Morrison, there usually is), I just couldn't get into this one. It all has to do with Jack Kirby's characters, right? Is that why Sammy Sumo is there?
i missed #3 and #4. what in the hell happened
and how was catwoman and batwoman fighting the huntress and question and be part of WW's female furies, in different costumes
i'll get back to you once i have a chance to a)read through all 7 again and b)wait for the acid to wear off.
near as i can tell, it's like a comic book version of Girl Talk, a mash-up of hyper-related proportions.
Bendis has been pioneering the decompressed style of storytelling, i'm guessing morrison wanted to pioneer the hyper-compressed style.
now, how everything fits together, and what type of timeline they are on i have no idea:D
Final Crisis to me......
It's Final Give a Damn... build up build up... build up... oh I can't come up with anything let's just ... uh.. yeah.. uh.. yeah that' finishes it yeah yeah.
I read all 7 issues and I'm not convinced there was much of a story.
What little exposition occurs does not seem to relate to whatever is going on in the books. A villain pops out of nowhere and a deus-ex-machina solves the whole thing.
The only change seems to be that the Monitors may be gone but they were gone from DC for 20 years until they decided to make Countdown - which apparently did not tie-in to Final Crisis at all, from what I hear.
Well, CBR spelled out the "bare- bones" reading order, so that answers one of my questions. The order is:
Seven Soldiers: Mr. Miracle #1-4
Final Crisis #1-3
Final Crisis: Superman Beyond 3-D #1-2
Final Crisis: Submit #1
Final Crisis #4-7
EDIT: No, I read that Countdown does not tie into Final Crisis in the least. Morrison told DC to do whatever they want for Countdown, but don't touch The New God. DC did, so Morrison decided to ignore it.
Lovely.
So if there is a story, it's not all actually contained in the series that was sold as a single story.
Yeah, pretty much.
Oh, I guess they brought back Old School Aquaman, but he didn't do anything to progress the story.
(Wait, I guess that's no different than usual, so... )
It certainly is dense, (in the textual, thematic sense, not the intellectually lacking one).
But I have to say I've loved it even though on first and sometimes second or third readings I don't always "get" it all.
Perhaps I am blinded by the dazzle of art and text, and cannot see it as being weak, but I thought that it was the strongest Big Event for decades.
It had integrity in it's exploration of themes such as the power of language, the nature of reality and creation, the definitions of freedom and slavery. It had some wonderful art and very powerful moments, the shot of
Spoiler
all the supermen of 50 odd universes flying towards the camera
was absolutely excellent.
I too need to reread it all, maybe a couple of times before Final Judgement, but my first response is pretty much all positive.
Quote from: tommyboy on January 29, 2009, 07:02:21 PM
It certainly is dense, (in the textual, thematic sense, not the intellectually lacking one).
But I have to say I've loved it even though on first and sometimes second or third readings I don't always "get" it all.
Perhaps I am blinded by the dazzle of art and text, and cannot see it as being weak, but I thought that it was the strongest Big Event for decades.
It had integrity in it's exploration of themes such as the power of language, the nature of reality and creation, the definitions of freedom and slavery. It had some wonderful art and very powerful moments, the shot of Spoiler
all the supermen of 50 odd universes flying towards the camera
I too need to reread it all, maybe a couple of times before Final Judgement, but my first response is pretty much all positive.
I completely disagree with you on all points other than your spoiler being a very cool image.. other than that.. the final issue made me wanna retch.
Quote from: Vertex on January 29, 2009, 07:04:11 PM
Quote from: tommyboy on January 29, 2009, 07:02:21 PM
It certainly is dense, (in the textual, thematic sense, not the intellectually lacking one).
But I have to say I've loved it even though on first and sometimes second or third readings I don't always "get" it all.
Perhaps I am blinded by the dazzle of art and text, and cannot see it as being weak, but I thought that it was the strongest Big Event for decades.
It had integrity in it's exploration of themes such as the power of language, the nature of reality and creation, the definitions of freedom and slavery. It had some wonderful art and very powerful moments, the shot of Spoiler
all the supermen of 50 odd universes flying towards the camera
I too need to reread it all, maybe a couple of times before Final Judgement, but my first response is pretty much all positive.
I completely disagree with you on all points other than your spoiler being a very cool image.. other than that.. the final issue made me wanna retch.
Fight!
Fight!
Fight!
It's certainly not faultless.
It did read as a bit "jumbled up" to me, which I assumed was a deliberate attempt to convey the idea of all reality/time collapsing into the black hole in Darseids heart (and I'm confused enough by it to not know if that odd statement is correct in any way).
It did suffer from "last issue as a flashback told to us rather than shown" syndrome a la Secret *ptui* Invasion to some extent.
But y'know, you like what you like, and dislike what you dislike, that's art for ya. I liked it, but you didn't. Both responses are OK.
From your point of view at least its over, that has to count for something. I still gotta squirm through "Dark Reign"...
*kills Hitman* Yeah, that was almost enough to make me pick it up.
I took issue (ha ha ha) with lumping Captain Marvel in as just being a different incarnation of Superman. I have a Captain Marvel figure displayed in my office and no one has yet mistaken him for Big Blue.
Quote from: yell0w_lantern on January 29, 2009, 07:15:51 PM
I took issue (ha ha ha) with lumping Captain Marvel in as just being a different incarnation of Superman. I have a Captain Marvel figure displayed in my office and no one has yet mistaken him for Big Blue.
I read it as being that Cap M and the Question rounded up the Supermen, but weren't Superman analogues themselves. I'll have to reread the 3d issues to check that though..
Here's the thing to me and maybe you'll understand a bit more why I'm so sick of both Marvel and DC and their EVENTS
The original Crisis of Infinite Earths did a few things that some people didn't like. It did some things we all still to this day go wow.. they really did that.
but it was MAJOR! Whether you agreed with what came out of it or not you agreed that it went cross title.. affected so many many characters.. brought new characters in.. took many characters out.
With these modern "events" they go cross title (which seems way more obvious to be a stunt to sell comics than to tell the story) they've gone so far as to have the build up for the events take an entire year. Now a couple of issues in a series. that's a normal build up that can have a normal 1 issue ending. Nothing major needs to happen to justify the suspense. But to build up over a year I'm sorry, you're raising the bar on expectations. Marvel's invasion series had a few things in it that justified it "slightly" But to me.. this whole Final Crisis came to a conclusion that was a dud. You didn't even get a grand battle to settle it all. This was an atom bomb that turned out to be roman sparkler to me and yes I feel rather unhappy about it.
This all said I'm glad some people like it. On a small level I did "like" that conclusion but as the ending to a 3 or 5 issue series of JLA for example.
Quote from: Vertex on January 29, 2009, 07:25:33 PM
Here's the thing to me and maybe you'll understand a bit more why I'm so sick of both Marvel and DC and their EVENTS
The original Crisis of Infinite Earths did a few things that some people didn't like. It did some things we all still to this day go wow.. they really did that.
but it was MAJOR! Whether you agreed with what came out of it or not you agreed that it went cross title.. affected so many many characters.. brought new characters in.. took many characters out.
With these modern "events" they go cross title (which seems way more obvious to be a stunt to sell comics than to tell the story) they've gone so far as to have the build up for the events take an entire year. Now a couple of issues in a series. that's a normal build up that can have a normal 1 issue ending. Nothing major needs to happen to justify the suspense. But to build up over a year I'm sorry, you're raising the bar on expectations. Marvel's invasion series had a few things in it that justified it "slightly" But to me.. this whole Final Crisis came to a conclusion that was a dud. You didn't even get a grand battle to settle it all. This was an atom bomb that turned out to be roman sparkler to me and yes I feel rather unhappy about it.
This all said I'm glad some people like it. On a small level I did "like" that conclusion but as the ending to a 3 or 5 issue series of JLA for example.
A fair point, well made.
Yes, I long for a Big Story that takes place in one title in 1-10 issues (pref. 1-6), no crossovers, backstory knowledge adds to it but not essential.
Otherwise, yes, these things tend to leave me cold, by and large.
But I've always been a sucker for Morrison (when he writes like he cares), which is maybe why I give FC a pass.
Quote from: tommyboy on January 29, 2009, 07:35:54 PM
Yes, I long for a Big Story that takes place in one title in 1-10 issues (pref. 1-6), no crossovers, backstory knowledge adds to it but not essential.
That is why I enjoyed Green Lantern: Rebirth so much when it came out. #1-6, no crossovers, and the story filled in the backstory as it went.
I just noticed that Ultiman from Big Bang Comics is in the group of Superman-types. Makes me wonder if it was just a nod or if DC has acquired the character.
Justice was a good 12 part story. Although because I didn't collect it until TPB I didn't languish waiting for Ross to finish it.
Now Justice was awesome, I got it in TPB as well.
As a story about the end of reality, on a conceptual level, it is very dense,
I think the story fell apart though on the basics:
1. The idea of Darksied unleashing the anti-life equation and dragging all of reality into a literal nothingness is cool. However, his ultimate goal was never fully explained. What was the purpose of what he was doing. I can understand a villian that wants to enslave all of creation to his will, but the story seemed to be about his destruction of reality, and ultimately what is the goal for that?
2. Mandrakk the Dark Monitor was an awful, not fully realized creation. So he was some kinda space vampire that feeds of the bleed? What connection did he have with Darksied, and what really was his goal.
3. Superman got way to complicated in his storyline whilst all the other characters had maybe a page to do anything.
4. The repercussions of the story are hard to see. We don't know who died because the artwork was to confusing.
Ultimately it felt like a 24 issue epic badly edited down to fit 7 issues.
I would love to see a "directors cut" of this story, where the characters are fully fleshed out and the threat is better defined.
I cried.
Quote from: Vertex on January 29, 2009, 11:05:29 PM
Quote from: murs47 on January 29, 2009, 10:58:55 PM
I cried.
Cause you paid for the issue?
:P
Nuh uh! It was a deep and emotionally impacting story. Everyone should read it.
The Finale left me cold. I read them all again last night hoping it would come together as a whole, and it didn't really.
It was far from perfect.
Apparently Morrison was going for a sort of worm's eye of the apocalypse, like Cloverfield, where rather than getting an omniscient view of the fall of the world with exposition or narration, you just see things from the characters points of view. This I think was a mistake for such a massive dense story.
It left huge holes.
The Super Young team, for example. According to all the rules of story telling, you'd think they're going to actually do something importnat later on. We first see them being derided by the superhero establishment (SunFire) as a bunch of useless poseurs. They then gain a couple of mentors, Mr Miracle and Sunny Sumo, who are established as important heroic figures. If you're familiar with Kirby, or read interviews on the net, links are drawn between them and the cosmic road-trip flower-children Forever People. So this all points to a baptism of fire with these children coming out of it as more adult, responsible heroic figures whilst still holding on to their naive charm, right?
Well, by the end of issue seven, they've done nothing, and get displayed by Nix Uotan as part of his all impressive army of heroes alongside Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew! Did I miss something here?
Let me compare this to say, hmm, Geoff John's Superman and the Legion 6-parter a while back. That was a very safe nostalgia-wallow in many ways, with repeated scenes reintroducing familiar characters. Yay! Polar Boy! Two pages later: Yay! Shadow Lass and Night Girl! It had a very cool premise to it, with an easily read anti-racist message, a cool new spin on the Legion as the kids who made Superboy's childhood much more fun, and spoke about the nature of the in-crowd and outsiders. It had some really good character moments too. So Johns aimed low, and scored a bullseye here. A great piece of superhero fiction, mainly aimed at old time fans who'd get all the references.
In comparison, Morrison aimed high with Final Crisis and failed. He wanted to disorient the reader. He wanted to tell a story involving multiple threats, not just the evil New Gods having already descended on earth and won but something else evil with the power to create and destroy multiverses lurking there. He wanted to kill Batman or something in the process, and bring back Barry Allen. And create and showcase new superteams. And and and...
And yeah, he blew my mind, but not in a good way. It had its moments but lacked the overall cohesion to the point where it just feels like it didnt mean anything.
sadly that's where it left me.. with it meaning nothing. I agree so much got started and nothing really came from most of it.
One of my friends mentioned that his problem with Final crisis was that it was a bunch of interesting ideas, but they were all just thrown together and none of them are fleshed out as much as he'd have liked them to be. I mean, we have:
Spoiler
-Darkseid's plot, and the rebirth of the new gods (which I still don't fully understand...)
-Vandal Savage being Cain, and beating up the Spectre
-Mandraak and the Supermen
-Something to do the with the flashes?
-The tatooed man's strange circuit thing.
-Probably a bunch of other interesting concepts that I dont remember because they were only mentioned on one page.
A bunch of these things could have been an even in and of themselves, and been very interesting. But instead we're left with this rushed, hodge-podge mess of a story, that teases you with great ideas and then forgets about them in favor of something else. It's like the entire event was written by a genius on acid with ADD, but didn't turn out nearly as cool as that sounds.
Spoiler
I did have one overwhelming issue with the event, though, and that was how easily Superman rectified the situation. Everyone else on earth is fighting for their lives, facing the emotional trauma of battling their loved ones, and with the constant threat of being turned into a mindless drone, while superman jets off to a crazy other dimension, meets up with a bajillion other supermen, kicks the poop out of an evil monitor, rattles on about some stuff I don't understand, saves his wife, then proceeds to kick the poop out of the evil monitor again, only with an army of supermen to help him. All the while we've got characters all over touting his greatness; "Only superman could do such a thing!", "Superman is the only being that could be trusted with the ultimate weapon!", "Superman tastes great and is low in saturated fat!"
At no point was superman really in any real danger. The only time he even came close to being defeated, he was just controlling a giant robo-supes.
Honestly, this event made me see Lex Luthor's point. This event would have been so much more interesting without Superman at all. He completely disregarded the best themes of the event, which were making tough choices, never giving up, and how the human race has the tendency to endure through the worst of times. Superman is the strongest there is, and apparently also morally infallible. We're even shown that Nazi superman is really just a good guy.
I know superman can be a good character when written well, when he's given tough choices to make and taxed mentally, as he's rarely ever matched physically, but seriously, his entire motivation was: Help extra-dimensional being in exchange for saving Lois -> beat up extra-dimensional vampire to save multiverse. The tattooed man was a far more compelling character then superman; coming to the realization that he just wanted a good life for his family, and the best way to do that was to be a hero, and yet he's a side character while Supes gets his own book.
GRAAAUUUUGGGHHH!!! *huff* *huff*... okay, rant over.
But other than that, I thought it was pretty decent.
Allllrighty then.
I just finished reading FC #1 to #7 in one sitting, and I take back all the positive things I said earlier.
And replace them with even more positive things!
This was a great comic book, not a good one.
Bursting at the seams with intelligence, humour, emotion, poetry and hope.
The more I have reread every issue the more things tied together, the more sense it made. And reading them all together works so well.
There are so many fantastic ideas, so many brilliant lines, and kick-bottom moments, so much density of intellect and feeling that it's in a class above other comic books.
No, it's not an especially easy read in many ways. It requires some effort from you to follow and understand what is happening, and why it is happening. And so much is happening, compared to the watery, diluted, decompressed rubbish we've been fed for so many years now, that it feels uncomfortable, cluttered even, to have so much go on. Secret Invasion and Dark Reign barely contain one idea between them, but this, this is like mainlining concepts after a lifetime of inanity.
The pace of the 7th issue feels absurd until you read it immediately after the first six, and then it's tempo fits perfectly with the ever accelerating rhythm of ideas and events that has built up since issue one.
And did somebody say there was no big fight? From issue four on there was constant massive battles, sprawling and surging off the page, culminating with the GLs doing their thing.
And although there was a great deal of affection for and reference to the legacy of DC history throughout, ("flash fact!") it never felt cliched, predictable or like anything we'd seen before.
The scope of it, the ambition, were wonderful.
I rank it right up there, probably Morrison's best work ever.
Perfect? No, prolly not. But a hell of a ride.
5 stars. Out of 5.
Of course it makes more sense when read together- Morrison writes for the trade. I've always said that. I'm gonna wait until the hardback comes out (what I've done with most DC Crises), and see what I think of it from there.
Oh god..
They got to Tommyboy!
Please folks whatever you do... don't let them get you.
Quote from: Vertex on January 30, 2009, 05:44:29 AM
Oh god..
They got to Tommyboy!
Please folks whatever you do... don't let them get you.
one of us!!
one of us!1
anti-life justifies my "not that good" meshes!!!1!!
submit!
Sorry, I drew a Metron symbol on face. :P
And I was off in another universe, getting the Deus Ex Machina Machine. :thumbup:
Also, for those who've read FC 7:
Spoiler
Is Batman trapped in time now, or something? What's up with that? This seems to happen every time somebody's body is turned into a shriveled skeleton upon death. Perhaps we'll see some new hero pop up using advanced technology to upstage whoever wins the battle for the cowl... <_<
I thought it was okay, excellent even, in stretches, but my appreciation of
Final Crisis was greatly diminished by the fiasco that preceded it (
Countdown To Final Crisis, which I gave up on four issues in because of the shaky art and poor editorial coordination) and the knowledge that what we saw in print is probably not the full story Morrison wanted to write, if the rumblings of discontent from both sides of the writer-editor divide are to be believed.
I don't know if those things that essentially had nothing to do with the mini-series as a stand-alone artifact soured my experience with
Final Crisis and if that's an unfair criticism of the title, but in all honesty, I was less than thrilled with the final result.
On a technical and intellectual level, I get what Morrison's trying to do, but from a visceral and emotional level, the story just didn't resonate with me as much as it seems to have with readers who have a much more positive reading of the book. Interestingly enough, I have the same reactions regarding a lot of Alan Moore's work not entitled
Watchmen. But hey, that's basically "varied reactions to art" in a nutshell.
Quote from: tommyboy on January 30, 2009, 04:26:45 AMI rank it right up there, probably Morrison's best work ever.
Hmmm... I'd probably put his
Animal Man and
All-Star Superman way ahead of
Final Crisis in terms of his best superhero work. I'd probably put FC on par with the technically well-executed
Marvel Boy (I don't think he's ever meshed with an artist as well as he did with JG Jones on that mini-series), which is probably one of his most overlooked "Big Two" projects.
Quote from: zuludelta on January 30, 2009, 10:47:17 PM
Quote from: tommyboy on January 30, 2009, 04:26:45 AMI rank it right up there, probably Morrison's best work ever.
Hmmm... I'd probably put his Animal Man and All-Star Superman way ahead of Final Crisis in terms of his best superhero work. I'd probably put FC on par with the technically well-executed Marvel Boy (I don't think he's ever meshed with an artist as well as he did with JG Jones on that mini-series), which is probably one of his most overlooked "Big Two" projects.
I loved Animal Man, and All Star Superman. Both are a better, (or easier at least), read than FC in some ways. But both also sometimes felt a little...self contained. That's not a bad thing, but FC had this huge sprawling scope and cast that made it for me technically superior to animal Man, and probably All star supes as well.
I've heard rumblings that there were production problems and changes made to FC which may have damaged it. I don't know the truth of that.
I do know that it is pound for pound the most powerful, ambitious comic I've read this last year.
A strange comparison just occurred to me. The song by REM "its the end of the world as we know it" is similarly cluttered with apparently senseless non-sequiters and imagery, but I think it too works really well. I read final crisis a bit like I listen to that song, dwelling less on what made absolute sense than on the feelings it evoked, it's motion, it's distance from other things in it's genre. I'ts now the soundtrack for me for parts of FC. The analogy obviously falls apart pretty quickly, but I like it still.
Can somebody PLEASE call Tommy a doctor!!
In retrospect, one of the things that probably helped mold my opinion about Final Crisis is my newly-developed, somewhat-mild-but-nonetheless-genuine aversion to the use of superheroes in metatextual and metaphysical contexts (Animal Man doesn't count, since I read it way before I developed this preferential quirk). I enjoyed All-Star Superman immensely despite this because it was just too much fun of a read (and I'm speaking as a comic book reader who's indifferent, at best, about Superman) but for entirely subjective reasons, I couldn't get past that aversion and fully get into FC.
As tommyboy put it in an earlier post, Morrison tackled some pretty heady themes in FC, such as the power of language, freedom vs. slavery, the nature of reality, among others, and he did a good job of getting his points across (IMHO), textual density and occasional lack of clarity notwithstanding. But (and here's where the subjective assessment comes in), I just didn't find myself being stirred emotionally by Morrison's contemplations on those themes (at least not in a positive way), and I suspect it's because my own materialist/rationalist views regarding those themes are, in some ways, diametrically opposed to Morrison's, who has spent a great deal of his comics-writing career exploring gnostic metaphysics/chaos magic-influenced avenues in his superhero writing.
Y'know maybe I'm just not cool enough (which is kinda doubtful ;))...or maybe I just haven't drank enough of the Grant Morrison cool aid...but I just didn't get it! To me this whole "event" (and I wish they would stop) left me cold and feeling a little ticked? Talk about "convulted"! I kept waiting...saying to myself.."ok...it gonna get better...right? Or JG Jones art is worth it...but it wasn't. And sorry to anybody that loved issue 7...but what the hell was that? Spoiler
He could even commit to Batman being dead! :thumbdown: That was the only moment within that entire series that made me go "holy crap...I can't believe it...this is frickin' huge".
:thumbdown:
I don't think anyone here is drinking the Grant Morrison kool-aid... so far most of the responses here (both negative and positive) seem to be reasonable expressions of subjective taste and preference.
I do get occasionally annoyed with the unmitigated Morrison-worship that happens over at the CBR blogs/forums though, particularly when resident chief blogger Brian Cronin, after a commenter laid out his misgivings about the title, suggested that people who didn't like FC were probably unsophisticates too stupid to understand it. A classic pseudo-intellectual response if there ever was one on the blogosphere, of course (I suppose it never occurred to Cronin that taste in art is, you know, a primarily non-intellectual domain, and anybody who tries to justify subjective preference by calling on "objective" intellectual attributes ends up looking like the bigger fool).
I don't think anyone can be "right" or "wrong" regarding their opinions about FC. You either liked it or you didn't, or maybe you felt indifferent about it. But the thing about art is that our responses to it are almost always visceral and emotional at their core. The intellectual side of art appreciation generally only comes in when people try to rationalize their responses to art, and that rationalization, improperly applied, generally leads to all sorts of ridiculous generalizations and pronouncements about how certain examples of art are unquestionably "better" than others and how admirers of the same are somehow "better" in terms of their sophistication and ability to judge aesthetics than those who aren't (which contributes to the common notion of the "art snob"). As my old Philosophy of Art prof used to say, there's no objective measure of good art or bad art, there's only art that you like, and art that you don't like.
I've a question: what did this Crisis actually do?
Crisis on Infinite Earths rebooted the entire DC universe (or tried), and got rid of the multiverse.
Infinite Crisis brought back the multiverse and tried to streamline some character continuity.
Final Crisis...?
Quote from: Blkcasanova247 on February 01, 2009, 06:00:34 AM
Y'know maybe I'm just not cool enough (which is kinda doubtful ;))...or maybe I just haven't drank enough of the Grant Morrison cool aid...but I just didn't get it! To me this whole "event" (and I wish they would stop) left me cold and feeling a little ticked? Talk about "convulted"! I kept waiting...saying to myself.."ok...it gonna get better...right? Or JG Jones art is worth it...but it wasn't. And sorry to anybody that loved issue 7...but what the hell was that? Spoiler
He could even commit to Batman being dead! :thumbdown: That was the only moment within that entire series that made me go "holy crap...I can't believe it...this is frickin' huge".
Spoiler
Morrison stated in several interviews before FC that something will happen to Batman and that is fate worse than death. So this turn of events was not a real surprise.
Zuludelta hit the nail on the head.
Either you like it or you don't. Neither says anything about your taste, intellect, or anything else.
Whilst I did like it, I happily aknowledge that it had faults, quite a few in fact, over and above the obvious ones like being late, inconsistent art, needing other books to fill some of it in.
But even I, who liked it, find it hard to say what it "did", at the moment.
It seemed to be removing the monitors from the multiverse, but why that is a big deal, I don't know.
It rebooted the new Gods/5th world and bought most or all of Kirby's creations firmly into mainstream DC continuity, but again, not sure how Big that is.
So honestly, I dunno what it "did", in those terms. It seemed less of an editorial/publishing device (which is all the first crisis was, really) to achieve some goal, and more of an actual story, of sorts.
I suppose bringing back Barry Allen, "killing" Batman and Jonn Jones dont count as an answer either.
I'll try to find out though..
Heya guys
I wasn't making a comparison or ripping on any of the contibuting artists work....I hoped that my love of JG Jones work would be worth continuing picking up the title...but it wasn't ;). I happen to think that the illustrations the other artist provided were all well done. It did also however "too me" break the flow(and I use that term loosely when it comes to FC) of the book. I hope nobody took my rant to heart...I wasn't making any attack...I merely stated "my opinion" on why I didn't like it. And I definitely appreciate everyone elses point of view but I do feel as though my points "for me" still stand. ;)
Oh, absolutely, it's all about taste. FC just isn't the kind of story-telling that works for me. I don't want this to turn into the GL Corps Message board where people ask your opinion then call you an idiot.
Wait, there's a GL message board? What kinda idiot would make something like that up? You'd have to be a real @$#^%$ %$#@!#@$ for something like that.
j/k
Interesting interview with Morrison here:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/010928-Grant-Final-Crisis.html
Bits I liked:
Spoiler
Grant Morrison:
More than anything else, it's the Final Crisis of the Monitors, as we'll see in #7 and brings that story from Crisis On Infinite Earths to a logical conclusion. It's also the Final Crisis of the Fourth World. How the challenges, possibilities and rules of the emerging Fifth World are developed is something that will either be acknowledged or overlooked by other DC creators in the years to come.
It's also 'final' in the sense that it's all about endings and apocalypses. It shows the DCU degrading, drained of all meaning, drained even of stories and characters, reduced to nothing but darkness, a mute Superman and a greedy Vampire God. We even break down the conventional storytelling modes at the end until there's nothing familiar left in an effort to convey what the end of a universe might feel like.
Spoiler
Grant Morrison:
I wanted to be faithful to the spirit of the King. This had to be a story of gods, of God in fact, hence the 'cosmic' style, the elevated language, the total and deliberate disregard for the rules of the 'screenwriting' approach that has become the house style for a great many comic writers these days. The emphasis on spectacle and wonder at the expense of 'realism', the allegorical approach...it's all my take on Kirby.
And also:
Spoiler
Grant Morrison:
It's one of the most highly-structured and demanding pieces of work I've done and brings to fruition a lot of long-time obsessions, I suppose. It's my Monitor-vision, high-altitude view of the DCU as an entity; before I take a long-awaited break to do some other work. It's my sci-fi/horror version of everything I love about DC, everything I ever thought or felt about DC, in one book. It's about the confusion and excitement of getting into this wild, colourful fictional continuum as a kid, and it's an attempt to define what makes DC unique and vibrant in relation to other superhero universes. It also offers a full cosmology of higher dimensions, including our own, and an insight into the creative impulse of God, so it's well worth the cover price, I like to think. It's filled with interesting and life-changing occult and philosophical secrets too and the more you read it, the more you'll pick up on them.
It's also a deliberate attempt to show how so-called 'rules' can be broken to create different kinds of effects in our comics. It's a way of using superhero comics to talk about the 'real' world that doesn't rely on news headlines, mock-'relevance' or 'adult' language and imagery.
I found myself wondering what it would be like if comics' storytelling stopped aping film or TV and tried a few tricks from opera, for instance. How about dense, allusive, hermetic comics that read more like poetry than prose? How about comics loaded with multiple, prismatic meanings and possibilities? Comics composed like music? In a marketplace dominated by 'left brain' books, I thought it might be refreshing to offer an unashamedly 'right brain' alternative.
Quote from: tommyboy on February 01, 2009, 04:12:37 PM
Interesting interview with Morrison here:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/010928-Grant-Final-Crisis.html
I like how he makes the comparison to 1999's
Marvel Boy. I guess I wasn't just talking out of my pooper when I made a technical connection between what he was trying to do in that series and FC in an earlier post. Hooray for me! (on the other hand, this is probably also a sign that I spend way too much time reading and re-reading my old comics... boo for me!).
Quote from: thanoson on February 01, 2009, 02:16:22 PM
Wait, there's a GL message board? What kinda idiot would make something like that up? You'd have to be a real @$#^%$ %$#@!#@$ for something like that.
j/k
http://www.thegreenlanterncorps.com/Forum/
Quote from: tommyboy on February 01, 2009, 04:12:37 PM
Interesting interview with Morrison here:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/010928-Grant-Final-Crisis.html
Bits I liked:
Spoiler
Grant Morrison:
More than anything else, it's the Final Crisis of the Monitors, as we'll see in #7 and brings that story from Crisis On Infinite Earths to a logical conclusion. It's also the Final Crisis of the Fourth World. How the challenges, possibilities and rules of the emerging Fifth World are developed is something that will either be acknowledged or overlooked by other DC creators in the years to come.
It's also 'final' in the sense that it's all about endings and apocalypses. It shows the DCU degrading, drained of all meaning, drained even of stories and characters, reduced to nothing but darkness, a mute Superman and a greedy Vampire God. We even break down the conventional storytelling modes at the end until there's nothing familiar left in an effort to convey what the end of a universe might feel like.
Spoiler
Grant Morrison:
I wanted to be faithful to the spirit of the King. This had to be a story of gods, of God in fact, hence the 'cosmic' style, the elevated language, the total and deliberate disregard for the rules of the 'screenwriting' approach that has become the house style for a great many comic writers these days. The emphasis on spectacle and wonder at the expense of 'realism', the allegorical approach...it's all my take on Kirby.
And also:
Spoiler
Grant Morrison:
It's one of the most highly-structured and demanding pieces of work I've done and brings to fruition a lot of long-time obsessions, I suppose. It's my Monitor-vision, high-altitude view of the DCU as an entity; before I take a long-awaited break to do some other work. It's my sci-fi/horror version of everything I love about DC, everything I ever thought or felt about DC, in one book. It's about the confusion and excitement of getting into this wild, colourful fictional continuum as a kid, and it's an attempt to define what makes DC unique and vibrant in relation to other superhero universes. It also offers a full cosmology of higher dimensions, including our own, and an insight into the creative impulse of God, so it's well worth the cover price, I like to think. It's filled with interesting and life-changing occult and philosophical secrets too and the more you read it, the more you'll pick up on them.
It's also a deliberate attempt to show how so-called 'rules' can be broken to create different kinds of effects in our comics. It's a way of using superhero comics to talk about the 'real' world that doesn't rely on news headlines, mock-'relevance' or 'adult' language and imagery.
I found myself wondering what it would be like if comics' storytelling stopped aping film or TV and tried a few tricks from opera, for instance. How about dense, allusive, hermetic comics that read more like poetry than prose? How about comics loaded with multiple, prismatic meanings and possibilities? Comics composed like music? In a marketplace dominated by 'left brain' books, I thought it might be refreshing to offer an unashamedly 'right brain' alternative.
Recently, I've been finding Morrison's interviews better than his comics. Not that his comics are bad, but his interviews are usually fantastic, this one was no exception. It would be a great idea if they were printed in the inevitable trade of Final Crisis along with the actual strips.
I read this and still don't have a clue what happened. (Only read the main FC books, none of the tie-ins.)
To me the reason this was called Final Crisis is because it's the final time I will fall for a DC book that uses the word crisis in it.
Ok, I saw number 7 yesterday. I am in agreement with the other statements of WTH? It was very hard for me to follow for some reason. It kept jumping back and forth. And why did Black Flash wear that ugly outfit? Didn't even realize that was him. I like how Clark is just so casual with the machine.
Quote from: thanoson on February 03, 2009, 08:38:00 PM
Ok, I saw number 7 yesterday. I am in agreement with the other statements of WTH? It was very hard for me to follow for some reason. It kept jumping back and forth. And why did Black Flash wear that ugly outfit? Didn't even realize that was him. I like how Clark is just so casual with the machine.
I am pretty sure it was the Black Racer, not Black Flash chasing the Flashs. The Black Racer is a long established Kirby New Gods "death" type character. Not sure if Black Flash is supposed to be the same "character" as they do seem to have pretty similar functions.