| |
|
Well, I don't know... you put a devil-child (a witch-boy, for God's sake!) in charge of an army that's devastated human civilisations since the year dot, and I don't look forward to merry pranks. His final splash looked like Kid Joker, and not in a reassuring way.
It's a bit difficult to say definitively, but a major point of the ending is that everyone, in some way, gets what they want. Klarion started out powerless, unable to leave his hometown. Now, he rules over an empire and is able to go anywhere he wants in time and space. And it was all his decision to break with the status quo of Limbotown that made this possible. Is he as evil as Gloriana was at the end? I'm not sure, but the page leads me to believe that he's much happier, and more likely to just revel in his power than go around razing civilizations.
Also, I'm not sure I care whether an ending is thematically appropriate or not if it lacks dramatic punch. The two things don't necessarily go hand in hand, and I think in this case there was a (partial) failure to produce solid drama.
I'd agree with that. However, I don't think the ending inherently lacks drama. The situation I'd compare it to is, and this is probably a bad road to go down, the final scene of The Matrix: Reloaded. Shilo has these incredible powers of resurection in the Life Trap world, but when he gets out, Dark Side is finished with the elaborate traps and just shoots him. There's no escape from that. However, then we find out that the lessons learned in the Life Trap world apply outside too, and, like the other characters, Shilo winds up being able to do what he wants in the real world, to choose his own path, not the one that Dark Side chooses for him. So, it's much like Keanu having the Matrix powers outside of the Matrix at the end of Reloaded.
However, I certainly see your point that it's the expected ending. The thing that makes it work for me is all that energy around him, indicating that it's not just the man who's coming back, it's the idea of freedom itself. That's the critical line for me, earlier, when Dark Side calls Shilo the avatar of freedom. His entire series is about moving beyond mortal concerns and rising to the level of a god.
Also, one thing that struck me last night - why did the sheeda never go forwards in time, to harrow their more advanced future-selves (or even just to check if the whole invade-the-21st-century plan came together)?
At some point, I think they mentioned that it was the evolved culture of past civilizations that they needed to boost the culture of their own, what they were looking for wasn't just resources, it was more the ideas and art objects that we create, the stuff they couldn't get for themselves. And presumably 21st century history was forgotten by the year 1 billion. I suppose they could have went back to shortly after this attempted harrowing, but according to Grant, all tiime already exists, so they'd still have lost, one way or another.
As for the issue of Zatanna's spell, I would agree that figuring out exactly what it did may require a bit of fanwank, but on an emotional level, it makes complete sense for me. She talks right before about magic being the doing of the impossible, right before it looks like they won't be able to win, but her spell makes it possible for good to prevail. And, for me, it's easily the best moment of the issue, and the perfect capper for her mini.
And just in general on the issue, I think what is missing is not so much the resolution of the character arcs, but the denouement. I would have loved if everyone got a page like Ystina at the school, just checking in to see what's going on, particularly with Zatanna and Misty. But, all the character arcs were resolved in the issue itself. Except for Frankenstein, everyone seems to have gotten exactly what they wanted during their series, and I didn't feel left hanging.
However, the abruptness of the ending was problematic. One page we're at the climax of the book, then two pages later it's over. For a 30 issue story, a little more time to sink in would have helped, and might have made the Mister Miracle revival more powerful. I think just eight more pages would have resolved most of the issues people have, by giving the reader a bit of room to breathe towards the end. |
|
|
