Final Crisis #5 (OF 7)

I've noticed a cliché trend with this series: Either you love it, or you hate it. To contrast it with another recently ended mini-series, which I felt could've been summed up rather nicely in a few words, (such as: Some aliens invaded, we killed them, now a bad guy runs the world, or "meh"), this series is epic. The only story that's really ever come close to this level of grandeur was the first Crisis. I really believe this is going to retcon or reboot or restart or retell or reimagine the entire origin of the DC universe. And I love it.

I think one reason why people might hate this book is because our mainstay heroes haven't really been featured at all. Superman's in limbo (or something), Batman's incapacitated, Wonder Woman's evil, 3 of the 4 main GL's are on Oa, and the two main Flashes are in the future. I believe this is intentional. We normally believe that these characters are the pinicle of the DCU. But this story is bigger than they are. This story is about new gods becomming newer gods, universe destroying singularities, and fallen multiverse monitors. This story is going to bring about the 5th world, so a lot of things are going to have to happen between issues 1 and 7. So to the people who say that this book is written with too many ideas and characters, I say, how could it be written any way else?

Buy maybe you detest this book because you don't understand what's happening. That could be for two reasons: 1) Morrison is telling the story poorly, or 2) you didn't read enough material before this to understand what's happening. As for option 1, I honestly don't think the guy who wrote Animal Man, We3, All Star Superman, and 13 (1/4th of 52), among others, is going to screw up this story. He'll definitely screw with our heads, but probably not the story. So that leaves us with option 2. And perhaps you're saying, "well why should I have had to have read anything before this, shouldn't every comic be written like it's someone's first book?" Well, I submit that that's a bulls**t argument. Some stories should be written for everyone, yes. But some stories should be layered with decades of continuity, because it's just that much more satisfying for the people who do know what's going on. Final Crisis is one of the latter types. You do need prior knowledge in order to keep up. And if you don't have that knowledge, you should either not have picked it up in the first place, or you should go back and read all the stuff this is based on, from Jack Kirby's 4th World books up through Seven Soldiers of Victory, or you could open up a few Wikipedia pages. So yes, maybe you do need to research the material or read more books before picking this up. But that's like complaining about not understanding the thrid book in a trilogy without having read the first two.

But then again, there's always the possibility you abhor this series because of the art and the multiple artists. Of course, art is art is art, and I probably wouldn't be able to convince you to like a piece of art you hated previously. But I can't see how this book's art can be considered anything less than very good to great. Not amazing, mind you, but very good to great. JG Jones draws great character scenes, Pacheco draws great action scenes, and Rudy and Merino do nothing to detract from the story or bring down the overall quality of the book.

So in the end, I guess this book can be summed up so far with another cliché: To each their own. I probably haven't convinced anyone with this review who didn't like Final Crisis to change their mind. I guess I just really wanted to give my honest opinion on why I love this book and why I think it's one of the greatest DC stories ever construed. Or maybe I was just sick of people hating this book without giving any reason why.

Or maybe I just wanted to procrastinate from studying for my finals so I decided to write an essay on a comic book. Crap, it's probably that one.