Comments

1. JumpingJupiter says:

   January 16, 2009 at 2:38 am

   Very well written review. I enjoy how you lay out your reasoning for each criticism in a very transparent way.

   Good job! This should get featured in user reviews. It is exemplary.

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2. SCOOTMAN says:

   January 16, 2009 at 3:33 am

   real good review. i pretty much have the same issues you have and gave it the same rating. it doesn’t help that the book just assumes things like how batman got out of the machine without telling you what other book you should pick up.

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3. Indycwf says:

   January 16, 2009 at 6:57 am

   Read Batman 682/683 and you will know how he escapes to take down Darkseid.

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4. rwpos says:

   January 16, 2009 at 8:22 am

   @ Indycwf – I read and believe that I even fully understood Batman 682/683 (comics and stories never referenced by the author or editor, and a story never explained nor given any ackowledgement to by the author), so I was able to make up my own little story about how Batman, once freed, obtained the gun, made the bullet usable, figured out what had been going on since his capture, found Darkseid and confronted him.  I made that story up because the lazy author would rather invest his story pages elsewhere.  Very sloppy and lazy writing.

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5. ericwilder says:

   January 16, 2009 at 10:42 am

   Great review. This book was choppy. Both in plot and presentation. Like a fifteen minute trailer to a movie never to be released. Material of this significance shouldn’t be treated so carelessly. Its disappointing considering the talented professionals they have working on it.

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6. FACE says:

   January 16, 2009 at 11:06 am

   Nice to read an opinion not consumed by hype. The fact of the matter is, this story rocks, but the delivery fuk’n blows. You did a great job of detailing the story but forgot the panels featuring hawkman and hawkgirl. WTF was that?!?  

   It’s funny, the two major events found themselves at such polar opposites in delivery. One, SI, was spread out amongst too many books while, the second, FC, wasn’t spread out enough.

   Delivery. Delivery! Delivery!! 

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7. rwpos says:

   January 16, 2009 at 12:56 pm

   @FACE – I totally agree; I loved the idea behind Secret Invasion as well, and was sorely disappointed by the actual delivery (diluted and lacking any real "punch"), so much so that by the final issue I was simply happy to have it end.  Really, I continue to find so many interesting and cool nuggets in Final Crisis that it only makes my disappointment at the actual presentation that much greater with each issue.  As for Hawkman and Hawkgirl, I’m afraid that I was left equally unsure as to the actual point of those moments.

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8. adultbraces says:

   January 16, 2009 at 2:18 pm

   This is a really great review. The story is really great, but the way in which it’s being told is so scattered. I feel like they should have made this like a 12 issue arc rather than 7.  Get 2 artists on it and have it come out twice a month.

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9. flapjaxx says:

   January 16, 2009 at 2:33 pm

   @ Indycwf – I agree with more of what you wrote, but:

   "I read and believe that I even fully understood Batman 682/683 (comics and stories never referenced by the author or editor, and a story never explained nor given any ackowledgement to by the author)"

   I agree that DC should get more in the habit of putting in text boxes that alert readers where other issues fit in, but I think you’re being too dramatic when you say that Batman 682/683, or the events therein, were NEVER acknowledged or referenced. In multiple interviews both Morrison and Didio have talked about these issues and how they fit in. In FC5 Darkseid’s underlings already referred to the Batman-clone mind-meld going awry–a reference to 683. Could things have been clearer? Sure, but it wasn’t the total blackout that you describe. Batman 682/683 also had "Final Crisis" on the cover, which in itself acknowledges the tie-in. Don’t get me wrong, though, I see your overal point and think it is a problem that the tie-in points aren’t being explained in greater detail.

   "so I was able to make up my own little story about how Batman, once freed, obtained the gun, made the bullet usable, figured out what had been going on since his capture, found Darkseid and confronted him.  I made that story up because the lazy author would rather invest his story pages elsewhere.  Very sloppy and lazy writing"

   You didn’t "make up your own little story" so much as you hit upon the off-panel events that Morrison was leading you toward anyway, which is what he trusted his target reader to be able to do. This in itself is up for much criticism, but Morrison’s stated style with FC is to cut out all the "boring" scenes. We don’t need to see Batman getting out of the machine (because we already know that he’s in the process of getting out) or walking to Darkseid’s room. We don’t need those shots much more than we’d need to see Clark Kent taking off his glasses in one panel before seeing him as Superman on the next page. In Batman 683 we see a flashback of Batman putting the god-killer bullet (which at that point looks perfectly intact and "usable" to me…) in his belt. In 683 we also see Mokkari telling Simyan, who is picking up the belt, to "leave EVERYTHING" in the lab so they can hurry away. The gun Batman shoots Darkseid with in FC6 is the SAME GUN Mokkari shot the Lump with in Batman 683. Mokkari presumably left that in the room too (he doesn’t have it in his left hand anymore by the end of 683). So, all the pieces were there–you just put most of them together in pretty much the only sensible way possible. Did you really need Morrison to show you Batman physically putting his belt back on, then picking up Mokkari’s gun, then taking the bullet out of his belt, then putting the bullet in his gun, then walking down the corridor to find Darkseid? No, of course not. On the other hand, it is understandable that many readers would have PREFERRED (not really "needed", though) to see scenes like that. But even as it was, even before FC6 came out many people (myself included) were predicting that Batman would shoot Darkseid with the bullet we remembered him putting in his belt. We didn’t need to see all the ancillary scenes to get to the moment of predicting that Batman would have that bullet ready to go in some sort of gun–and lo and behold, that scenario turned out to be the very next scene Morrison showed us of Batman.

   Not to come off so disagreeable, though: I agree with much of what you wrote, particularly your problems with the art and especially the complaint about so many panels being devoted to characters who aren’t that important (Tawny, the Marvels, Black Canary, etc).

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10. FACE says:

    January 16, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    @flapjaxx – when i think of all the productive things you could be doing rather than writing the most long winded circular responses here at ifanboy, i cry

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11. rwpos says:

    January 16, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    @flapjaxx – I get your comment, but my point was specicially that the story as presented in Final Crisis is woefully incomplete and that the author, in his story (not in interviews) fails to provide a reader of (only) Final Crisis sufficengt story to understand what is really hapening.  This penalizes readers by not even offering a footnote or a single panel of exposition to provide minimal service (and respect) to readers (e.g. customers).  I call that lazy writing.

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12. vinylhed says:

    January 16, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    I loved this issue, I’m in awe of the scope of this series and the brain of Grant Morrison. The way we’re getting Morrison’s DCU greatest hits is simply majestic. If you’ve read all of Morrison’s DC output from Amimal Man onward you’ll get so much out of this series. The respect I have for Dan DiDio allowing Morrison to give us something this multi-layered is immense. I love that much of what might be deemed as the main story takes a backseat to us seeing a cosmic event from a more personal viewpoint of some of DCs supporting characters. As for the artwork, I have to say I didn’t notice the changes in artists until the very last page where I thought to myself "Hey that’s Doug Mahnke!"

    Great stuff, and only a couple of weeks until the final Final Crisis. I’m really quite excited.

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13. rwpos says:

    January 16, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    @vinylhed – thanks for your thoughts and I’m glad that you’re able to "geek out" with this series.  You would appear to be the ideal target audience while I, not having had the benefit of having "read all of Morrison’s DC output from Amimal Man onward…" just feel like so much of what I’d find to be most interesting is being left unwritten between the story panels, and the over-arching story is coming across jumbled.  Obviously every comic won’t be every reader’s favorite, and for as much as this is exciting you it’s leaving me just luke warm.  But I do like reading the other impressions here.

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14. vinylhed says:

    January 16, 2009 at 8:26 pm

    What can I say, I’m a sucker for Morrison. (Although between you and me, The Filth confused the hell outta me!) I grew up reading his stuff in 2000AD and to my mind Zenith is the greatest comic ever written, and I’d stand on Alan Moore’s coffee table with my cowboy boots on (if I had any) and say it!

    Obviously Morrison’s metaphysical musings aren’t to all tastes, but I would recommend people who find this style of Morrison’s too much to take, seriously check out his run on JLA. It’s one of the most enjoyable straight-ahead superhero team books you will find, not bogged down by history and the "C" word. I had thought

    I’ve been reading and enjoying all the Final Crisis tie-ins, but I would say there is an issue as to how much each of these need to be read to get the whole picture. Some are indispensable to understanding what is going on behind the scenes in the main book (Superman Beyond) and others don’t really tie-in at all (Rogues Revenge). I don’t think DC has done themselves any favours by having some of these books as Final Crisis books. But they need to sell books and this is a surefire way to do just that.

     Oh well, let’s hope for some comics this year that don’t polarise peoples views so much…What am I saying? That’s impossible!

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15. rwpos says:

    January 16, 2009 at 9:19 pm

    Although I’ve never read any of Morrison’s Animal Man stories, I’ve read all of his run on JLA and enjoyed most of it.  In general I like Morrison’s writing (I liked his run on New X-Men too!) but I find that he has a tendancy to gloss over major plot points and leave readers to fend for themselves.  The more he does this in a story the less I find myslef enjoying it.  I don’t mind a writer challenging me to think about grand ideas of right or wrong, or to ponder the deeper mysteries of the universe without offering a strong point of view, but I really DO mind an author choosing to not explain plot points that could make sense if all of the relevant facts were provided.  Sometimes Morrison writes as if he can’t be bothered to be clear, which I find neither entertaining nor challenging.  I think he’s been guilty of that with recent issues of Batman and with several major subplots in Final Crisis, which force casual readers to either invest time in fact checking and continuity research in order to make full sense of what they’re reading, or be left confused.  That’s not clever, it’s just lazy (anyone can leave out key facts just to be obtuse; where’s the craft in that?), and I wish Morrison would do a bit less of that.

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16. JumpingJupiter says:

    January 18, 2009 at 12:49 am

    Yup, you’re reasoning is pretty tight rw.

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17. rwpos says:

    January 18, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    @JumpingJupiter – thanks for the kind words above and earlier…

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