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Final Crisis

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00:46 / 01.05.08

I'm trying to play catch-up with DC post-INFINITE CRISIS by reading all of 52 and its derivates before FINAL CRISIS is here.

And I'm going to wear my hair shaved, and start sporting dandier suits aboot toon.

Both of us, I suspect, will be inadequately prepared for FINAL CRISIS.

THERE IS NO WAY TO ADEQUATELY PREPARE FOR FINAL CRISIS!

I guess I'll just sit about in my underwear until it's all over, and the trade comes out.

01:03 / 01.05.08

Twister = Tornado Twins (famous Flash offspring)?

Nah, I didn't think so either.

Aha! I am Klarion

04:12 / 01.05.08

As long as said underwear is on your head.

13:16 / 01.05.08

c'mon, Alex, giddyup, put your running shoes!
gogogo

15:13 / 01.05.08

>> You beat me to the punch with that one- no name villain gathers semi-name villains into a villain club with the promise that they can kill whichever heroes they like (because that worked out great for the Rogues before) but said no-name is actually a front for an evil space demon (I'm guessing Darkseid in Libby's case).

Yeah -- this is the whole Crime Bible thing that Morrison came up with for 52. Libra is a 'herald' of Darkie Baby, clearing the way for his arrival. The religious fervor of the Crime Bible evangelism is, I suppose, meant to evoke religious terrorist fundamentalism (given all of Mozzer's comments about Final Crisis reflecting Western society feeling under attack, worried it might lose the conflict a la fears of losing to Hitler in WW II, etc.)

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:23 / 01.05.08

Wasn't the Crime Bible Greg Rucka? It really was the most awful pile of cods either way, but if if was imposed on the Question/Montoya storyline it might explain a few things.

15:56 / 01.05.08

I think (from what I've read) that Morrison created the concept originally and wrote the about 1/2 the Crime Bible stuff in 52 (specifically, Morrison wrote all the text contained within the Bible and the more superhero-y/horror-type scenes focused around the Bible; Rucka seems to have written all the Crime Bible stuff in 52 that focused more on The Question, Renee, and Batwoman, the more 'street-level vigilante' type scenes). I could, for the most part, tell with a reasonable degree of certainty, writing style-wise, who wrote what in 52... but Morrison seems to be the one who created the idea of there being a Crime Bible as Darkseid's "Evil For Dummies" guide. It's very Morrison-channeling-Kirby New Gods-type stuff.

Rucka, of course, also wrote the Crime Bible miniseries, which have cobble a few small ideas from Morrison in terms of the overall direction of the Crime Bible cult & the general direction that storyline is headed in, as far as the Bible & its followers' role in the larger DCU.

21:11 / 01.05.08

I quite enjoyed 0. But it was strictly for the-geeks-wot-know, despite the rather fetching distillation of Crisis related nonsense. Also, you know, advert not story.

21:17 / 01.05.08

Right - despite DiDio and the writing duo's stated goals on CNN, I didn't think this was really a great, clear primer for someone who hasn't been following DC Comics for a while. I still dug it, though, just sayin'.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

21:27 / 01.05.08

At this point, the whole "Crisis" brand is so irrevocably tied to deeply structured continuity that it seems wholly and boringly counterproductive to try and use it to court new readers, yeah?

Even being in the "know," so to speak, seems a bit useless - I randomly tried to remember how current Superman history regarding the Legion works now, and it's all a kerfuffle! Not even taking into consideration that he's met several versions, and trying to explain that all in a coherent narrative...

21:41 / 01.05.08

It was better than Countdown (barring the three good moments in that series), but other than that?

I can't imagine there's anything in there that would be necessary knowledge going into Final Crisis.

As a primer for the uninitiated or the lapsed reader? I'm so in favor of having no idea who half the supertights on page are, I can't even comment. I came into comics, into superhero comics, when they were already typically gigantic universes with massive crossover and rippling and prefer that immersive sink and swim context to the sort where you bob along on a kindly piece of driftexposition.

There's definitely nothing bridged in the issue that I can see as being totally necessary or not something readers could fill in the supposition on their own. It's the comic Johns was born to write, then, but Morrison? Did they just xerox text from his infamous notebooks? (I know they didn't, but it's not about anything, and that's rare for him, even given the nature of the project as primer.)

13:26 / 02.05.08

SPOILERS (possibly/probably):

xxxxx

xxxxx

Spoilers comin'! Really!

----
What's funny is that the Daily News article has Morrison & Johns basically saying "Yes, Barry Allen will be back," but Dan DiDio avoided saying such in his Newsarama interview following the release of DC UNIVERSE # ZERO.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

15:46 / 02.05.08

But, see, I'm wondering if you-know-who is interesting alive? Doesn't he serve a better function as an inspiration from yesteryear? The resurrection of old school Silver Age square-jawed men is already being handled by Hal "What do you mean, women have rights?" Jordan, isn't it?

17:08 / 02.05.08

I thought it was a good start to Final Crisis, overall - but it certainly seemed to be aimed at getting existing DC customers to buy more DC comics; rather than telling a new customer everything they need to know to be gettin' on the Final Crisis Bus.

Unfortunately, the 'series of trailers for lots of new programmes' approach mean't that I skipped over all the pages to do with Superman and Wonder Woman, pausing only to read the narration.

Random thought:

"I'm the only one who knows there was a war in heaven. And Evil won"...Mr. Miracle, surely? He who fell out of a black hole and into the universe, having witnessed the war?

The flaming guy falling through planes of existence and back into the DCU...are we to assume that this isn't *coughy coughcough* as shown on the last page reveal?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

18:48 / 02.05.08

The fiery hands and flaming body are a lot more -- omnious -- than most depictions of You-Know-Who (at some point, we're just going to have to admit that the spoilers are a little wilted and we can just SAY HIS NAME without turning back into little boys and girls), and I'm left wondering if he's going to somehow turn out to be the villain.

I mean, it happened with Alex Luthor last time.

Meanwhile, I picked up the Crisis on Infinite Earths trade to reacquaint myself with the original.

Uatu.is.watching

19:45 / 02.05.08

I'm with Papers in that I'm not sure this guy will be all that interesting nowadays. I mean, an entire generation has grown up with the new guy.

I also wonder if this character will be sticking around after the Crisis. I hope not, but if he does, maybe he will be one of the New Gods. Remember Rich Johnston's de-bunked runor about Batman becoming a New God? Well maybe it's this guy and not Bats...

20:04 / 02.05.08

You-Know-Who has already popped up twice, IIRC, in John's Flash series and foretold of another, FINAL encounter. So YKW may be back for the duration of FC, but I expect this will be temporary.

I was lukewarm about DCU 0 but remain very psyched about Morrison's proper FINAL CRISIS series, esp the SSoV connections and the re-imagined 5th World New Gods.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

21:07 / 02.05.08

I just really want a pair of FRANKENSTEIN! & Shining Knight ongoings.

YKW has "returned" quite a few times, actually, even under Waid. It was usually a hoax or something, but the idea *has* played out several times. Including a very nasty drag-out battle with YKW's Golden Age forebear...

(For reals, can we just start saying his name? I promise I won't turn into Freddy Freeman!)

Reading Crisis over lunch today, I was weirded out seeing his last few appearances and how genuinely creepy and surreal they were -- even after all this time, Wolfman manages to generate some initial mystery about YKW's situation and make it seem quietly horrifying, even with all the energy clouds and Joker gunplay.

01:24 / 03.05.08

Martian Manhunter will be a new New God.

Libra was/is Metron.

Clark and Lois will split up for a while.

There will be much traffic between Earths 1 and 2.

Spyder Todd 2008

03:22 / 03.05.08

...
Well, I rather liked all three pages with Batman and the Joker.
The rest? Meh. It was... forgettable, mostly. To me, anyway.

06:43 / 03.05.08

For reals, can we just start saying his name?

I think so, yeah. I'm not really sure who you're talking about, TBH.

(If it's Barry Allen, I'll have to, y'know, hurt myself, quite badly)

uncle retrospective

10:48 / 03.05.08

Start hurting yourself.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

16:58 / 03.05.08

Too bad they didn't bring Kid Psycho and his crazy little 30th Century green turban.

Rereading Crisis is a bit like reading DVD commentary tracks to accompany all those superhero action figure games and stories I made up when playing as a small boy. And it's strange -- most of the incidental deaths hit me far more than Kara Zor-El or Barry Allen; the writing isn't any better, but you start to realize how vast the back catalogue was, and so many of them just wink out... I mean, I've never even read a Kid Psycho story, but there he was, winking into nothing...

Keith, like a scientist

17:16 / 03.05.08

It'd be much cooler if we just keep calling him "coughy cough cough" or "you know who" throughout the entire series discussion.

07:47 / 04.05.08

And then in December it will transpire that we've all been talking about different people...

"Barry Allen? Ah crap. I thought for the last seven months we were all talking about Etta Candy. No wonder the storyline did't make sense. I'd been wondering why she'd dressed like that too."

Phex: Dorset Doom

09:30 / 04.05.08

Alrighty, since I was first to refer to you-know-who as you-know-who I'll bury it once and for all: Barry Allen, the second Flash, seems to have merged with the DCU itself following the first Crisis (hence him referring to the Justice League as 'my protectors' etc.) and, in response to the Final Crisis has, um, de-merged and will be coming back. Back to run really fast and make tornados to stop unimaginable cosmic evil.

16:44 / 04.05.08

at first i thought the narration was Libra's.

and we may be in for 2 more ressurections, if the clues in Didio's board are to be trusted.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:15 / 04.05.08

I really want Barry Allen to be evil in this. Badly.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:09 / 05.05.08

So, where was all the stuff in issue #0 about Countdown, or 52, or Infinite Crisis or really, about anything that happened since the first Crisis?

10:23 / 05.05.08

Infinite Crisis was in there. The rest of it can bugger off.

Of all the criticisms I'd level at that comic, not cramming enough continuity isn't amongst them.

19:20 / 06.05.08

FINAL CRISIS COVERS

15:39 / 07.05.08

first 5 pages up at Entertainment Weekly, with original scripts by Grant:

Looks pretty cool!

20:10 / 07.05.08

also, re: DC Universe #0 - Morrison sure loves Professor Ivo, doesn't he? (and, "The Red Volcano" as The Red Tornado version 2.0/3.0)

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:20 / 07.05.08

...golly. Yay for Jones, man.

We'll see where this goes. Nice to see something about what John does when not slinging rings...

20:44 / 07.05.08

Uncritical mode engaged! I am tingling like the excited child.

Pedant mode engaged! Grant's script differs considerably from the art on that final page. Why isn't the Question wearing her mask like he asked?

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