Comments

1. Muady says:

   January 29, 2009 at 12:05 pm

   The meta-fictional kind of story is one that I am a sucker for. I was becoming a tad disenchanted with Final Crisis around issues 4 and 5 (The same time so many people were getting into it!). This final issue really struck at the heart of my sensibilties.

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2. Quinn says:

   January 29, 2009 at 12:19 pm

   The DCU, then, is re-booted not along a unified thread of continuity, but as the basis for any story we can imagine. To limit these stories would be death for these wonderful imaginary characters.

   Between this statement,  Templar’s review and Kirkerson’s analogy of this as a jazz tour de force and most comic book events as big-hair rock albums (a lot of fun, but straightforward and easy), I feel less bad about enjoying this, and as though I have more context to enjoy it even more on re-read.  "The stories that can be told with the DCU characters are infinite in scope, and linear continuity will only choke them," is as good a manifesto as any, and explains, in part, why so many readers disliked this.  

   It’s easy to compare this to Secret Invasion, linear, continuity-based storytelling at its worst, but it should also stand next to Infinite Crisis, which was badly named.  In fact, if the two series swapped names they would make much more sense.  Infinite Crisis was about continuity, the connection between all the stories, and the ways in which stories are judged based on the strength of those connections.  In other words, IC was about limiting stories: one world, one continuity, one outlet for storytelling.  FC was about tearing down that wall.  Want to tell a story about Captain Carrot?  Go for it.  Some people think that talking animals are awesome.  Want to tell a story about a world where the black/white racial mix is reversed?  Go for it.  Awesome.  Don’t justify.  Don’t explain.  Don’t spend pages walking your reading through why it fits into continuity.  Just use the best characters in comics to tell the best story you can tell.

   That’s what the DC Universe is about, for me and, I think, for Grant Morrison, as well.

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