austinite74

I pretty much agree with everything you outlined, Josh. Honestly, the best way to really alienate a non-comics audience would have been to include even more from the book. I mean, a movie has to focus on the important elements that forward plot and character. Unlike when reading a comic, you can't flip back a few pages to remind yourself of who did what to whom, or where you've heard this or that person's name before. You're on a train, so you have to streamline the concepts and events to make sure that they can be followed while you're speeding down the tracks.

That being said, I actually saw the film with a number of people who don't read comics. I did notice that the friends of mine who had read the comic (particularly recently) enjoyed the film a lot more than the others.

Of course, my friends are mostly unbearable pricks, so that could be part of it too.

As someone who has really loved a lot of Morrison's past books, I've got to admit that Final Crisis has unfortunately just not been my cup of tea. But as to why everyone is taking it personally, I think it's been touched on in other people's comments a lot: it's supposed to be the big close to the whole DC Crisis mythology.

I remember practically haunting convenience stores and bookstore spinning racks to find the newest issue of Crisis on Infinite Earths when that came out. I knew a lot about DC at the time, but I learned so much more about the history of it and about the characters it had acquired (particularly the Charleton heroes). Identity Crisis added a personal depth to the story. Infinite Crisis was a great acknowledgment of the original tale and what it had done.

Final Crisis...it's not doing it for me. I'm glad it is for other people. But the reason people are so up-in-arms about the whole thing is that it's a DC Crisis book. To me, the whole book feels too scattered to ever heighten the stakes enough for me to actually care about anyone or anything going on, and that's really, really disappointing to the kid in me who's still waiting with bated breath to find out what happened at the end of each issue of the original Crisis and could barely wait to dive into the book when he saw Superman holding Supergirl's body on the front cover.

Like I said, I like Morrison, but for me, he's not a good fit with this book. I feel that it lacks the cohesion, character, and clarity that a book marketed as changing the way the DC Universe works requires.

 Anyway, like I said, I'm glad it's working for some people. I'm really sorry I'm not one of them. But as to why people are upset, I think it's because they were promised a Crisis book and they got something that fits closer to Seven Soldiers (which I enjoyed, but which really wouldn't have worked as a main DC event).