FINAL CRISIS HC

Review by: TheNextChampion

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Size: pages
Price: 29.99

Now that the scars have healed, we as an community can try and bond with each other again. But now that the Final Crisis trade is out, it could be every man (and woman) for themselves again. People (including me) are tired of discussing on why Final Crisis was either a brilliant peice of writing or just plain garbage. But leave it to a guy like me….I just have to talk about this event one more time, for old times sake.

Considering this has the majority of Morrison’s reading order, the story might actually be a bit more coherent. Not to say it wasnt coherent for me, considering I didnt pick up Superman Beyond or Submit when this was coming out, but it’s nice that people can see the true form of this story being told. What a story it is my friends. Morrison took the guts to actually tell an event where the heroes lose by the halfway point. Darkseid finally got his Anti-Life Equation and has made Earth is new home. With all the major heroes either submitting to his will, disappeared out of the universe, or just dead in general; only a handful of heroes remain to be the resistance. We got Supergirl, most of the JSA, the Super Young Team, Checkmate, and a few lesser known heroes into the fight. It’s a chance for Morrison to flesh out these minor characters but also delievering an epic event of which no one has ever seen.

His style of ‘changing the channel’ is something to get used to. It seems weird at first for Morrison to constantly change the narrative or ‘scene’ in each issue, but I found it to be a nice new way of telling a story. We get the feel of chaos as we flip back and forth to heroes and villains, and just see how insane this story got. But leave it up to Morrison to make the story even stranger with his style of writing. Everything is constantly vague or just hinting at what’s to come. This event takes a lot of reading to do, and that’s just for the main series itself. The issues of Superman Beyond are just another strange beast to tame. It’s like mixing Alan Moore with a huge amount of LSD….it doesnt make sense at first, but constant reading will make you enjoy the story more.

That’s what I have been defending this series ever since joining the site. Morrison WANTS you to read this again and again and again. He’s not writing a simple event involving Darkseid and the multiverse. He’s weaving a complicated tale that will take some time to figure out what the hell was going on. Even I went a bit to quick in judging the final issue, but then I re-read it and it made so much more sense then the first time threw. But there are a lot of cool moments within this event I think people forget. Martian Manhunter dying, the fate of Batman, anything involving Barry and Wally, a monkey playing with a rubik cube; so much more! This could be enjoyable to both fans of big action and fans of deep storytelling. Cause they are both presented well into each issue.

Now what I have to call out on this event is the lateness and constant change in artists. For the second half of this story, other artists then JG Jones were on board. Pachelo, Mahnke, Alamy, and Rudy all joined in to help finish the series. All of these artists styles work great for this event….but there’s the problem. They shouldnt be involved with this in the first place! Because Jones had to be so late, when telling the public/press he was ahead of schedule, is just plain unforgiveable. Add to the fact that the artists were rushed on a lot of occassions and the coloring/inking is just off at points….The 5th and 6th issues of this looks really bad. Everything comes back once Mahnke is on for the final issue, but man it’s really disappointing on how this looked in the end. I’m giving a 3 overall only because the different styles looked good enough to not say it was bad. But it will confuse a lot of people on how weird this looks late into the book.

I found this event to be one of the best in DC’s history for a bunch of different reasons. A) It was a new way to tell stories. Instead of just telling the same old event, Morrison tried to tell new ways of using characters and giving us a plot with mainstream characters. B) It wasnt a huge fight scene unlike some events were coming out of this time. C) The art, although a big clusterfuck towards the end, looks beautiful at certain points. I know people are burned out on this topic, and so am I. But I know for as long as I live, Final Crisis will be one of the most enjoyable and thought provoking stories I have ever read in a comic.

Story: 5 - Excellent
Art: 3 - Good

Comments

  1. Man I just would buy the book for the cover its beautiful. Your right though the story is designed to be re-read. Nice review

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