It was a mediocre week, and the choice for me was between this and the Powers hardcover, both of which were excellent.  Since the powers hardcover collected stuff from like eight years ago, I felt like FC:SB3D#2 was the more deserving pick.

I had a decidedly “WTF” reaction upon reading the first issue of this series until i went back and reread it over a month later, and realized it was absolutely brilliant.  I haven’t yet digested everything in this issue, haven’t read all the annotations, though I found these helpful: http://www.funnybookbabylon.com/2009/01/21/final-crisis-superman-beyond-2/

But even if i don’t yet get everything, there’s a lot to love in this issue – the uprising of the forgotten, the last page reveal, the tribute to Moore, the profound comment on the nature of the suphero, making DC’s monitor storyline actually semi-interesting, Doug Mahnke’s always striking art, here more reminiscent of his JLA style than his work on, say, FC: Requiem or Seven Soldiers.  And i like the crazy pulpadelic 3D sequences, Morrison’s strong handle on and deep knowledge of the character, and most of all Morrison’s willingness to constantly challenge readers, to create thoughtful, difficult, works which function on multiple interpretive levels, that must  be read and reread over and over, that warrant critique and discussion in a collective mode. 

I probably don’t need to say this, but I think it’s unproductive to criticize Morrison for being abstruse or too far out there or for not being more like Geoff Johns.  These are the kinds of comics Morrison makes, ambitious, full-on crazy, erratic, provocative, radical and occasionally incomprehensible unless you have on hand Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus Vols 1-4.  I’m ok with that, because Morrison’s comics are some of the best ever made.  Animal Man, which ties in directly here in the form of poor Merryman, was so good it broke my brain. 

I don’t love this book as much as I have the main FC series, though that may change after i reread this issue, and i do think that this should have been the 60 page one shot it was originally intended to be, that the gap between issues was too long (although one wonders what the hell happened to Revelations or Legion of Three Worlds, neither of which has come out in like three months, minimum.)  I don’t even think this was Morrison at his best, not by a longshot.  But in a week of mediocrity, it was pretty damn good.