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Final Crisis

  
  

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Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
15:55 / 11.08.08
Why on Earth were you reading Countdown to Final Crisis?
 
 
Quantum
15:57 / 11.08.08
I'll be more specific when I have the comic to hand, but the Rogues kill the Flash in Countdown, then all the heroes have their tedious oratory at the funeral, then larger events lead to the crisis. In which, a bunch of villains get together, kill Jonn J'onnz, then all the heroes have their tedious oratory at the funeral, then larger events lead to the crisis.

I mean, Flash is back with kids before the final crisis even kicks off, and the story is already repeating- is the 'Final' crisis in fact the DCU writers hitting some sort of recurring-plot event horizon? Like the Timewave Zero of the comics world, where the stories repeat at shorter and shorter intervals until the whole continuity disappears up it's own backside?
Then where will we be, eh? Skrulltown, that's where.
 
 
Quantum
15:59 / 11.08.08
Why on Earth were you reading Countdown to Final Crisis?

In an attempt ton make sense of the Final Crisis arc by GM. Turns out, it made me cry and want to run to my mummy wailing that I am wasting my life, and has put me off Morrison. (except ASS which is still good)
 
 
Mario
16:04 / 11.08.08
Um... Morrison didn't have anything to do with Countdown. (And Countdown has little to do with FC)

Oh, and the Flash that was killed, Bart Allen (formerly Impulse/Kid Flash) is still dead. His predecessor, Wally West, is the one who came back.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:28 / 11.08.08
Why, yes, Quantum, you loon - what on Earth possessed you to think that a series called "Countdown to Final Crisis" would have any connection whatever to or shed any light on "Final Crisis"? I say "Um..." before correcting you, which on the Internet means YOU ARE A DOLT.

This thread really brings out the best in people, doesn't it?
 
 
Mario
16:59 / 11.08.08
Mu...

I like you too.
 
 
dark horse
17:07 / 11.08.08
well haus i am sorry if you were offended and maybe i should have picked my word more carefully, but i think we are all very passionate about comics here and so that leads to strong opinions!

i was just thinking like i said about what superman said and how there has been a lot of pissing on the internet about this comic, it seems very cool to sneer at it... anyone who genuinely doesn't like final crisis has the right to their own opinions of course, as should we all, but i can't help but feel sorry for them, because for me this is the most exciting comic book of the year and maybe for a long time... it makes me feel like a twelve year old, all the excitement, it's what superheroe comics should be about... good v evil! the end of the universe! someone else on the internet said it might be the most perfect grant morrison comic ever... 'nuff said!
 
 
Mark Parsons
17:29 / 11.08.08
I've got them but I couldn't see anything in particular -- do you remember what series/chapter they met up in? I checked "HIMON" itself but didn't really click with anything.

I'll try and dig it up. They salute one another "Hail Master Planner" and "Hail Master/architect/builder" or something along those lines. IIRC, Himon invented mother boxes and harnessed the "x-element" for boom tubes and Metron's mobius chair, which makes him resonant with Vulcan and Prometheus (as is Metron in FC 1). Dunno if this has any bearing on FC, but in terms of the 4W saga, the Himon/Metron scene suggested so many back story possibilities. it was one of those moments where you get a glimpse of the vistas Kirby would have visited had the 4W continued.

OT: any announcements on whenish SEAGUY will be debuting? I think I look FWD to that as much as I did towards FC.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:35 / 11.08.08
There's a Seaguy thread, old chum, where you may find everything you need.

Wildstallion - you misunderstand me, I fear. I was not offended at all. However, I was mistaken: I thought that you were indulging in a brilliant, if rather cruel, satire. I'm not, emotionally, wholly ready for the consequences of this revelation. What I am ready to do is list, off the top of my head, about a dozen better Grant Morrison comics, although they might be better mainly because they were the first repositories of all the plot devices and stylistic tropes used in Final Crisis so far.
 
 
gotham island fae
11:52 / 12.08.08
re: Countdown to Final Crisis

Yup, it was crap. Yup, I bought every issue of it, including the even more crap Countdown to Adventure mini.

But it's fairly obvious, reading Final Crisis, that Morrison gave out some pieces of Final Crisis' plot to Paul Dini and the other writers that assisted him with Countdown. See, Mary Marvel is teh EVIL, Bludhaven is connected to Apokolips, one of the Monitors is singled out from the others, Orion is the last New God who sacrifices himself in the war in Heaven. What the hell memo went across Jim Starlin's desk, however, I shudder to think...

So, while it is unrepentant drivel in the majority, with plot holes the size of the Authority's Carrier in places, I'm not entirely ashamed to say that I own it all. And even if I would never suggest it to anyone, neither would I deride anyone else for doing so.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:09 / 12.08.08
There's quite a bit of discussion about this earlier in the thread, I think, frater fae - at the point at which issue 1 came out. It seems that Morrison told the Countdown/Death of the New Gods writers where he wanted them to end up, they didn't manage that, so we ended up with a complex retcon in which there are two Darkseids, one of whom was travelling backwards through time and who was the crime boss in Mister Miracle/Final Crisis (Morriseid) and one who was travelling forwards in time and got killed by Orion (Starkseid). The bit where Orion is killed _twice_, once by the Infinity whatsthrung and once by a radium bullet is a bit trickier, and I think everyone gave up - imagine one of those things where Wile E Coyote steps on a rake, then staggers, stunned, into the minefield he had previously laid in order to trap Road Runner, and is hurled repeatedly skywards, finally landing on a rock outcropping the impact of his body on which leads to its sundering from the cliff face and his precipitate descent to the canyon floor below. The fans, broadly speaking, let everyone down by focusing on the story not making sense as a linear narrative rather than focusing on the cool bits - these presumably being the ones who came to this from conventional superhero narratives and as such were not prepared for the whole mess to be waved away as the impact of a seven-dimensional timesquid visiting this reality. Personally, I would probably have blamed punchy Superboy, but it's a bit late now.
 
 
gotham island fae
14:14 / 12.08.08
Oh, poo. I thought I'd been keeping track of the past posts. Didn't realize they'd actually been touched on.

But further thoughts on my personal outcome from reading Countdown, without Arena and the Search for Ray Palmer, I likely would never have picked up Red Son or New Frontier. And those two separate works are decidedly some of the best comics I've read in a long while. And Liberty Files was alright, as well. So, crap handling or no, I'm not hatin'.
 
 
Quantum
14:50 / 12.08.08
I think Fae is on the money there, the plot is cribbed- New God murder mystery (Lightray), rogues kill A list hero, schmaltzy funeral, global crisis etc.
But, butty butty but, I still maintain the crisis metaplot is getting threadbare- there's always a murder mystery and a funeral (cf. Sue Dibny, Flash, in fact wasn't it a Flash death in Crisis on Infinite Earths as well?), always a b-list villain becoming a murderer (e.g. Dr Light), always a big teamup against some special effects, and then Ray Palmer saves the day (even in the Justice League:New Frontier animated movie the Atom is made of win).

It's not just DC either, the Marvel summer events are the same- House of M into M-Day into Civil War into Secret Invasion, it's always hero-on-hero action with dreadful continuity. The repeating storylines are getting banal, and never make much sense if you don't buy 52 supplementary issues of Suppository Man - Final Invasion or some toss.

(postscript- fuck me, Countdown is bad- the comedy gay Piper, Jimmy the crap superhero, all the tedious Holly Robinson toss, it really is abysmally bad isn't it)
 
 
Triplets
15:45 / 12.08.08
A crisis embiggens the smallest man.
 
 
This Sunday
16:13 / 12.08.08
Maybe I'm just happy this isn't a Frank Miller production I'm the lone voice of total satisfaction with, but it's working for me, this Final Crisis thing.

Yes, there are elements we've seen before. But really, Luthor fighting mind control with his brilliance and his massive evil ego is not cribbing so much as it's a basic Lex Luthor plotline. Batman being taken out early and later proving how Batgodtastic he is with a tt! and a hairchested scienceninja moment. Superman being Super and Man hobbled by his humane-ity. Darkseid conquering. Not cribs, but what you do with the characters. Darkseid conquers, perverts, and destroys. It's what Darkseid is, and baby, you better believe, Darkseid is. And the perverse bondage being visualized with perverse bondage gear is, well, kinda the point, innit?

Of course, it's a bit silly and overdone. It's a superhero adventure mystery summer event book.

Sure, Batman in his rainbow suit beating on Darkseid and Desaad with his lovely batstick would be fab. Yes, Countdown screwed us all six different ways and none of them fun (except, maybe, Countdown to Adventure, which was kinda fun in a I-didn't-pay-for-it way). Yes, the idea that this will have dramatic huge impact and alter the very fabric of the next few years of DC comics forever and ever is silly and not going to amount to much. And, we all know it's going to get all better before it ends. Darkseid will conquer. Hope will be lost. Heroes will die. Heroes will win. Darkseid will be defeated. Superman will be heroic. Luthor will be stubborn and pompous and full of shit. Something will be retconned within two months of the last issue coming out and establishing the new status quo.

All this is true. And, yet, I'm enjoying the thing.
 
 
Quantum
16:20 / 12.08.08
I just feel like Dini rather spiked the impact of Morrisson by basically copying his story a year earlier. He could at least have tweaked the basics a bit more, maybe made the murder victim God someone else (Ares, DeSaad, the new Shazam?)
 
 
Quantum
13:06 / 13.08.08
The superpeople falling from the sky motif was a bit overused too- it's raining New Gods (Hallelujah)
 
 
Spaniel
14:34 / 13.08.08
I don't see the fact that these elements have had some play before as detracting from them in this instance. It's all about what you do with ideas.

Christ, isn't everything to do with Superheroes kinda old? Isn't the DCU stale bread? It seems to me that FC (and most of Morrison's superhero work) is about bringing some electricity back to the tired old beast.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
14:48 / 13.08.08
There's making use of tired old tropes and plot devices in new ways, sure, but then there's copying almost directly plots that were used a year ago (or more properly, having your ideas copied before they have the chance to be published) -- in a way that muddies the continuity waters. We can talk a lot about flat out ignoring things like Countdown or Death of the New Gods, simply focusing on the cohesion of the story in front of us, but that seems to prove quite difficult for a lot of people reading these things -- which ultimately hurts the effort because of all the grousing, no matter how much Morrison complains in interviews and discussion panels.

And as someone who did not read the majority of what was reportedly (but not really) feeding into this series, it still isn't jacking up the beast's electrical levels for me in any significant way, not like reading the Kirby source material has, or reading Seven Soldiers does -- properties he revitalized with a lot of electricity who haven't really done much and now have maybe bit parts in the Final Crisis rather than ongoing adventures.

It's not even working for me as an old Morrison JLA potboiler because it's all standing around and funerals rather than the old, aggressively West Wing talking and walking between epic encounters while reality dies at dawn.
 
 
Mario
16:54 / 13.08.08
It's funny, but I'm seeing a lot of comments on other boards of the form "I'm not really into comics, but I had no trouble following this". Could it be because some readers don't actually expect to have all the characters and references explained?

For example... do you NEED to know Metron's history to understand the first part of issue #1? Or is it just useful?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:49 / 13.08.08
And the perverse bondage being visualized with perverse bondage gear is, well, kinda the point, innit?

Ouch. Third worst use of slang on Barbelith, dude.

What I suppose I am trying to say is that one should possibly have a few more strings to your bow when depicting spiritual bondage than simply googling "bondage" and seeing how it goes. One of the things that has come up in many critical reappraisals of Chris Claremont is his gift for plausible deniability: the sexy enfolding liquids, the constant mummification, the age play, the spiked leather collars... all just this side of plugging directly and obviously into the stroke mags he had to one side of the desk, but not incriminatingly over that line. What with the revelation that the driving creative force behind DC editorial is non-consensual bum love, I'm waiting for the Kryptonite buttplug in #4. Die for Backseid, indeed.

It's this kind of thing that makes me feel, when wildstallion declares that Final Crisis is making him feel like he is twelve years old again, that 2005 must have been a strange and awkward year indeed.

On the plus side, I didn't find not knowing who was wearing the ball gag damaged my enjoyment at all, so that's one vote in favour of Mario's hypothesis. Who is that, anyway?
 
 
Mario
22:51 / 13.08.08
In the last page of issue #3? I'm pretty sure it's Batwoman, based on hair color, mask shape, and the vague bat imagery in her neckline and the dog's collar.
 
 
huckleberry glove soup
01:59 / 14.08.08
Mario, I have difficulty answering your question because I've been steeped in comic myth for most of my life BUT I had very little clue how things in the DCU proper were shaping up prior to FC and most everything I need to know is on the page or, I'm sure, coming soon...

Revelations was pretty much what I expected. A decent read but a bit of a slow burner. Not quite Rucka's best and you can kind of feel him writing to who he percieves his audience to be with a lot of the action in this issue, but I'm in for 4 more issues.
 
 
Cowboy Scientist
02:08 / 14.08.08
It seems that Morrison told the Countdown/Death of the New Gods writers where he wanted them to end up, they didn't manage that, so we ended up with a complex retcon in which there are two Darkseids, one of whom was travelling backwards through time and who was the crime boss in Mister Miracle/Final Crisis (Morriseid)

"Morriseid"?



Oh, brain, why do you do this to me?!
 
 
The Timaximus, The!
03:42 / 14.08.08
Not that anyone asked, but I don't know who most of these characters are, and I haven't felt lost in the slightest. My thoughts:

1.

I didn't know who Turpin was until the internet told me. I assumed he was a new generic man on the street character. Since he reminded me of the detective in Flex Mentallo, I assumed it was a jab at Frank Miller.

I didn't know who Vandal Savage was, or rather, I vaguely recognize the name, but didn't have anything to connect it to. I certainly didn't recognize him in the Anthro scene. By the way, I only know Anthro from the pre-series interviews.

I know what a Green Lantern is. I didn't know there were a lot of them again. I didn't know Hal Jordan was back, but I know who he is.

The only thing I know about The Question is that he's a far-right creation of Steve "Batshit" Ditko, and the basis for Rorschach.

Hey! It's the Mirror Master from Animal Man! I don't know any of the other dump people.

Look at all those villains. That's Gorilla Grodd. That's the 1980s action figure version of Lex Luthor for some reason. I bet the guy with the fins is an Aqua Man villain. I know Libra from interviews.

I know the Dark Side Club from Seven Soldiers.

Super Friends!

I don't know anything about these "monitors," but I don't have any more problem with them than say, the faries in Hellboy, or even the Time Tailors. "Powerful outside observers commenting on and occasionally influencing the main story" is a pretty standard SF, or at least comics trope. "Uotan" sounds like "Wotan," and "Tahoteh" like "Tehuti," which is Greek for Thoth. Are these folk supposed to be language gods? Or the DCU version of The Hand? Why didn't he just use the Time Tailors? Seven Soldiers was DCU, wasn't it?

I know Kamandi is the Last Boy on Earth, not only from interviews.

2.

Are these guys previously existing Japanese heroes? I can't see how it matters. Then it's Mr. Miracle from Seven Soldiers.

This is the guy from the first issue. He's drawing Overgirl, thus causing her to appear in the third issue. Yup, totally the DCU version of The Hand.

Mad Hatter, Clayface, etc.: I know the Batman (and some of the Superman) villains from the 1990s cartoons, but they might as well be new generics, right?

Green Lantern Corps Internal Affairs: I get it.

I knew there were multiple Flashes, but I didn't know they were all around at the same time, like Green Lanterns. BTW, what happened to Kyle Rayner?

3.

I know Frankenstein and Pals from Seven Soldiers.

I know "(berfraulein" from Nix Uotan's sketchpad in the last issue.

This scene explains the Flash situation clearly enough for me.

His wife!?

This is the tiger guy from the last issue. I suppose that scene wasn't clear. Then, it looked like the tiger guy was being tortured, but now he's walking around serving tea, so I suppose he must have been getting Anti-Life Equationed? . Oh, the guy said "shazam," that must be Shazam, then. Drinking Tiger Tea served by an agent of Darkseid. Evil won, and it's spitting in your morning oatmeal, Shazam.

In the superhero crowd scene, I spot people who look like Spider-Woman, Libra, Black Panther, one of the guys from the New Warriors, two Zatannas, and the chimp from The Filth. OMG I DON'T KNOW WHO THE BLONDE LADY WITH A STAR ON HER CHEST IS! THE SERIES MAKES NO SENSE AND IS RUINED!

Please tell me the knights riding horse-sized dalmatians are already existing DCU characters.

At first I thought this was Oubliette from Marvel Boy, then decided probably not, then noticed her name. Is Mary Marvel a thinly-veiled alternate-universe crossover version?

I don't know who he is, but Michael Terrific is an awesome name for a super-person. I know Oracle.
 
 
huckleberry glove soup
04:10 / 14.08.08
TTT, that's detective chimp (not the filth-y russian monkey assassin) and talky tawny (a shazam catalogue character el tigre) not the same tiger dude from last ish. Don't have the issue handy to spot who the second Zatanna may be.

Regarding the luthor suit pages in #1: I've thought since the book came out that those were a pair of uncredited Carlos Pacheco pages snuck in there as an "audience tester" to see if anyone would notice the art change. The flat features on Vandal Savage and buck-toothed Luthor look very out of place compared to every other version JG has done in the series.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!
 
 
Quantum
13:13 / 14.08.08
I have to agree with Haus above about the Mr Miracle/Sonny Sumo segments, they're what keeps me coming back- like the first panel of FC2-

"STOP! You must be supercool to proceed! YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!"

Gold. Or Superbat (driving the flying getaway car)-

"Excuse me. We are the Super Young Team. We've done this sort of thing before."
 
 
Mario
14:24 / 14.08.08
most everything I need to know is on the page or, I'm sure, coming soon...

This is what I mean. Some fans, for good or ill, assume that if a question isn't answered right away, it never WILL be answered.

Others trust the writer, or assume that the answer isn't critical to the plot.

Personally, I blame Claremont...
 
 
Mario
14:27 / 14.08.08
Please tell me the knights riding horse-sized dalmatians are already existing DCU characters.

They are. The Atomic Knights.

So, the only real point of confusion is the two tiger-men. And I'm fairly certain that they will meet before the end...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:24 / 14.08.08
Mr. Cleaning Glove Soup, your suggestion is disrespectful to Mr. Jones, and not the kind of behaviour I expect to see on a board dedicated to the work of the great creator. It is the most disgusting statement I have seen on this message board, and indeed in my entire life. And I've worked in skin.

Peace.
 
 
huckleberry glove soup
17:36 / 14.08.08
Reading through FC again:

Kirby gets the credit for this, but I really love the idea that the Anti-Life Equation is tied to language. The basic idea that if you allow these miserable, hateful, sub-human thoughts into your head they spread like a rotting infection, take over your entire being and leave you a miserable, embittered husk. I loved the lines in #3 Mike spouts after he's tainted:

Judge others. Enslave others. Anti-Life JUSTIFIES my hatred.

Mike is still in there somewhere, knows he's acting like a worthless, seething asshole and the guilt clearly weighs heavily upon his soul. If not, why would he need to JUSTIFY any such behavior?

The bigger question I have regarding the ALE in FC is: if everyone simply ignored the ALE would it have any power at all? I mean, is the solution a JLA distributed earplug program? If you don't allow it to enter your thoughts it's basically powerless, right?
 
 
Mario
21:20 / 14.08.08
Couple of things:

The line about "JUSTIFY my hatred" is a callback to Glorious Godfrey's minions in the Kirby books: the Justifiers. The idea seemed to be to take "the end justifies the means" to an extreme conclusion.

As for the Equation... Grant's version of Anti-Life is a little different from Kirby's. While Jack basically said "Life=Freedom", Grant is taking more of a "Life=Hope" tack. So the Equation is less of a brainwashing, and more of a spirit-crushing.

I suppose earphones might work... but if the e-mail was also the Equation, it may be able to work visually as well. I like to think of this version of the ALE as the most insidious earworm/meme in the universe... once you experience it, it never lets you go.

And Darkseid isn't in any rush.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
21:39 / 14.08.08
The line about "JUSTIFY my hatred" is a callback to Glorious Godfrey's minions in the Kirby books: the Justifiers. The idea seemed to be to take "the end justifies the means" to an extreme conclusion.

Made me think of Madonna, actually. MAD MADONNA OF THE FEMALE FURIES, of course.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:00 / 14.08.08
There is also a flier on the last page inviting people to become Justifiers. So, you know, that.
 
 
Quantum
07:33 / 15.08.08
Damn you Haus and your explicit literalism! Anyway, this-

The basic idea that if you allow these miserable, hateful, sub-human thoughts into your head they spread like a rotting infection, take over your entire being and leave you a miserable, embittered husk.

...made me think of Barbelith for some reason.
 
  

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