Final Crisis

The third and (supposedly, but doubtful) Final Crisis - written by Grant Morrison with art by J.G. Jones, Carlos Pacheco, Doug Mahnke plus others - was inflicted on DC's multiverse back in 2008 but I've only just got around to reading it in trade-paperback form. This collects Final Crisis #1 to #7 plus FC: Superman Beyond #1 & 2, FC: Submit and a small number of pencil sketches at the back.

I find Grant Morrison's writing to be something of a mixed bag. There's obviously elements of brilliance in his work but it sometimes seems camoflaged by minimist storytelling ability and weird dialogue peppered with pseudoscientific twaddle. Some of the stuff he's done - Earth 2, We3 and in fact most of the stuff he's done with Frank Quitely - is very good but then other work - such as some of the JLA stuff he did - left me cold and wondering what the heck it was all about. Unfortunately, Final Crisis falls more in the latter camp.

Not that it's terrible - I've read much worse in my 30+ years of comic reading. It's pretty entertaining, especially the middle part once you get into it. However, I think it might have helped if I've read some of the other DC comics before Final Crisis - things like Seven Soldiers or Countdown - and knew more about the preceding fate of the New Gods and about characters like the Super Young Team and others. Morrison doesn't seem to be a fan of exposition and explaining what's gone before nor even what's going on in the book itself. I think he leaves it to the artist to tell the story, which can work with someone like Quitely but not here.

This lack of explanation means that sometimes you'll read a page or two and wonder what the heck actually happened. Questions like 'Who did what to who?' and 'Who's that and why are they there?' occur at times making this not an easy read. Some have said it's complex but it's more the case that Morrison doesn't make it easy to read. Books can be both complex and easy to read, you know, but this book isn't one of those.

Couple this with Morrison's strange dialogue, which sometimes seems to come out of order. Sometimes it felt like the word balloons should be read in reverse - which would be quite fitting given that the story contains a bullet that is fired backwards in time. Seriously - I actually read some of the pages in reverse and it made just as much sense as reading them the normal way.

Talking of the time-defying bullet - why? How does a bullet, even one that's fired backwards in time, kill Orion (a New god)? And why was Orion shot in some back alley on Earth? Why a bullet and not Darkseid's Omega Beams?

I can only think that Morrison wanted to start this series with a New God found dead in some alley somewhere (vague similarities to Watchman come to mind here) and thought a time-travelling bullet would be 'fun'. Morrison just makes it more complicated than it really needs to be.

Then there's the final issue and the final showdown. This, quite frankly, I found to be a mess. By this point, Batman has already suddenly popped up for about two pages (after being missing for much of the book) shoots Darkseid and promptly dies. Don't worry, we soon find out he's only been sent back in time. The shot doesn't kill Darkseid so Superman confronts him. But also seems to go off and build a Miracle Machine that does, erm, nothing over than provide a "happy ending". He also sings the frequencies to cancel out Darkseid - or maybe the Multiverse. And it seems that Woman Woman binds Darkseid with her lasso for some reason. Plus a bunch of other stuff. Not that the artist shows any of this because it is all just told to us using captions.

It's like Morrison ran out of room, had a bunch of great ideas and threw them all in, one page after another with no narrative to explain it. Instead he relied on the old favourite of having the (vague) tale told after the fact to some gathered people, a bit like the "Previously on..." bit at the beginning of some TV shows. This works at the beginning but not at the end of a story! So, yeah, the finale was a little disappointing.

Anyway, enough bashing of Morrison's strange storytelling and onto the art.

J. G. Jones starts the book and is a pretty good artist. His lines are clean, hinting at a realistic approach whilst still being comic-booky. He's sort of a cross between Bryan Hitch and Alan Davis, which isn't a bad cross to be - even if he isn't quite as good as either of those two. Here, his work is similar to that on Wanted, but actually better in my opinion. Unfortunately, very occasionally his art looks rushed in this book. And indeed, it seems, he couldn't keep up with the schedule and Carlos Pacheco, and later Doug Mahnke, had to be brought in to help out.

Now, usually Pacheco is a very good artist. I loved his stuff on Avengers Forever and JLA/JSA Virtue and Vice. But here it looks like he wasn't given much time and so his usual quality slipped. It suffers when compared to Jones' panels. And, I'm sorry to say, I'm not much of a fan of Mahnke grimacing, weirdly-proportioned artwork. His art put me off JLA some years ago (though it didn't help that Judd Winick was the writer at the time either) and here, although it is better, for me it still doesn't compare to the art that precedes it.

So, overall, a mixed bag. The book seems difficult to get into and suffers from the old crossover problem where not all the story is represented in the mini-series itself. However, the middle third picks up considerably but then it is hampered by the changing art and that messy ending. For me, of the three Crises up to now, this one is the least satisfying. Entertaining but not excellent. Perhaps more for fans of Morrison's other DC work?

Grade: Good.

Friday Night Fights: Eye-Popping

It's Friday again and time for Spacebooger's wince-inducing Friday Night Fight's One Panel of Pain.

Last week, in spite of a bloody entry, I didn't manage to hold on to the title. Still, let's try some blood and brains again this week and see how well that goes down a second time (hopefully with a better scan this week). And let's try an old faithful - yes, that, erm, infamous scene from Infinite Crisis where Black Adam pushes his fingers through Psycho-Pirate's head. Gruesome! I love the little touch with the eye...

(this shunkkch-ing panel is taken from Infinite Crisis #6 written by the current master of mainstream bloodsplatter Geoff Johns, pencils by Phil Jiminez and inks by Andy Lanning)

Infinite Crisis

Infinite Crisis, written by Geoff Johns with art by Phil Jimenez, George Pérez, Ivan Reis, and Jerry Ordway, was DC's big crossover event in 2005/2006 and the follow-up to one of the first superhero-universe-crossing events, the original Crisis on Infinite Earths (COIE). This review is a bit late - then again, that's true of all my TPB reviews - but, anyway, here's what I thought of the TPB collecting issues #1 to #7 of IC. Note that this does not contain any of the tie-ins.

Well, it's a crossover and, as with nearly all crossovers, you don't get the full story. Then again, in order to cover every single little nuance of IC you'd have to follow dozens of different books. Still, what you do get generally makes sense without having to read all the spin-offs (although sometimes some annotations help). Geoff Johns puts together a decent story concerning the heroes of DC's universe fighting against the three ex-heroes - Alex Luthor, Superman of Earth 2 and Superboy Prime - who went off to "heaven" at the end of the COIE.

Unfortunately, that's where the first problem starts. COIE established that the characters of Alex Luthor, Superman of Earth 2 and Superboy Prime were great heroes worthy of paradise; they saved the day at the end of COIE. Casting them as villains in this Crisis feels somewhat forced - especially considering how villainous Alex and Superboy are portrayed here. Thankfully, Earth 2 Superman is redeemed at the end, but Superboy is left as a raging, psychotic maniac and Alex is brutally killed, thus ending this character's brief life.

And that brings us to the other problem that plagues IC - the violence. There are a number of panels that depict characters having their arms ripped off or their head punched into adjacent panels. Black Adam pushes his fingers through Psycho-Pirates eyes and out the back of his head and we get to see all the bloody results. It's generally too much. As shown in some of his other books, Geoff Johns seems to have a thing for bloody violence and, certainly in DCs flagship book like IC, it's not welcome.

It's a pity Johns has such a violent streak, because other than the above two problems this is an exciting read. I enjoyed COIE when I read it in TPB form (I didn't get to read the series in 1985) and, I think, generally IC is a better read. It brings together all of DC's superheroes against a universal threat, which is always great to see and read. Being a fan of superteam books, I love seeing various heroes working together and love the super-bizarreness of huge battles and villains smashing planets together to create new ones.

This time, instead of George Perez (who pencilled COIE), Phil Jimenez provides most of the art on this series. Although, IMO, he's not as good as Perez, his line work is still very impressive. It's very fine, detailed and fun of energy and a lot is crammed onto a page. This is one time where the art would definitely benefit from being reproduced in a larger format.

Unfortunately, Jimenez does not do all the art in this TPB. A minority of the pages are provided by Ivan Reis, Jerry Ordway and the great George Pérez, all of whom are very good artists. I think they merge quite well with the other pages and there's not that much of a disconnect. Reis' style is probably the most different from Jimenez's but even there the transition is not jarring. It's probably helped by the colouring, which, although darker than I would have liked (COIE's lighter colouring was preferable), does a decent job.

Apparently some of the pages of art and dialogue have been changed in this TPB since the monthly floppies went out. Having not seen the original version, I can't really comment. If DC wants to correct any mistakes or clarify things since producing the floppies then that's fine with me - it's just a pity they didn't have the time to do it at the time.

I have the hardback version of this TPB that includes a good assortment of extras. There are the covers, of course, but also interviews with the creators, a discussion of why the changes were made, some used and unused pencil sketches and, I think, a script. So, on the extras front, this does pretty well.

Overall this is a decent story with great art. It suffers from being a company-wide crossover, which means that parts of the story are not explored within this TPB, and from moments of bloody darkness but, perhaps surprisingly, it's very enjoyable. As Andy Khouri of CBR mentioned, "The last time I had this much fun reading comics was when I was twelve years old... I love Crisis On Infinite Earths and this sequel was exactly what I wanted". I agree.

Grade: Very Fine.