Final Crisis Aftermath Dance #1 (OF 6)

This was okay. The production sort of ruthlessly plunges ahead in its uniqueness, then circles back on itself with some self-chastisement about how it isn't really that unique after all, after it's taken a look at itself in the mirror. You're really into celebrity culture, huh? Wow, you like Twitter, huh? My my, how hip of you. Still buying into every new service/technology/cult of celebrity that's offered to you as a really progressive way to waste your time? Well good for you! The book knows these criticisms of itself and isn't afraid to make the mundaneness and unnecessariness (<-that's not a real word) of its hobby horses part of the story. I generally dislike name brand pop culture references in literature, or movies, or tv shows. But this series overdoses on them, which is entertaining to watch. Usually such references take me out of the story, but here those references are basically a part of the story: they're a big, running theme. And there's a sort of sado-masochism at play: the media culture is criticized, revealed as pointless, at the same time as its indulged in, shown as fun. Count me in for this whole sick affair, tentatively, at least until it gets boring, unless the fact that it gets boring itself becomes a theme.

I do like that this story and the characters in it are over the top and super self-conscious, and sort of frustrated with themselves because their super self-consciousness...but I don't know where you go from there. You might as well open the next issue with five blank pages and then show a conversation between the characters and the writer about "where we do from here; we're so depressed about overdosing on pop culture/media. We have a hangover from wanting to be famous so bad and finding out that getting fame stinks. Or maybe we want to be even more famous. Maybe that would make us feel better. We don't know".

The stuff with the older Japanese super-hero and the old super-hero spirit was interesting. The characters and the set-up are really there to have a nice, cool six-issue story. But, again, it really feels like we've already gone through the gamut of what these characters are, how they feel about who they are, and how they second-guess their pop existence, all in the first issue. This was entertaining, but we'll see if it seems annoying or redundant by issue two.

At the starting point, Grant Morrison basically made the tenet of the Super Young Team the fact that their drive or reason d'etre was sort of...superficial. So once they become aware that they're sort of superficial, what do you do as a writer then, when you've got nothing else to work with as far as their characterizations go? I like Joe Kelly, though, hopefully he'll think of something.

P.S. Poor Big Atomic Lantern Boy! How can Shiny Happy Aquazon be so cold and blind!