Evil has won. The New Gods of the Fourth World have been overthrown by the evil god Darkseid. Now he and his followers have manifested on Earth to release the Anti-Life Equation and usher in a final twilight of hate and fear. This is the story of man's last stand against the gods, of life versus anti-life. This is the Final Crisis.

    God I want to make this movie.

    It would cost ten trillion dollars and I'm not sure anybody would give me ten trillion dollars to do it but man oh man do I want to make this movie.

    I've probably read straight through the book about a dozen times now and I still keep going back and finding more. Grant Morrison's currently my hands-down favorite writer and his books demand to be re-read relentlessly. As much as I sincerely believe you should just go to your local comic shop or book store and just get all of Morrison's books, I figure I might as well rant a bit about how great his latest hardcover release is for now and send you off from there. Figure I might as well do this in a "top ten reasons why this good you buy" style to help rein in the blather of praise and keep it from becoming a book unto itself. Figure it goes something like this:

10. Morrison murdering the multiverse.

    Nobody kills superheroes better than Grant Morrison. Injecting superhero death with any sense of gravity or loss is hard work when the very nature of the format renders death an impotent, temporary force at best. But Morrison already proved himself up to the task way back in the early '90s with his traumatic end run on Doom Patrol, proving that even if you know a favorite character's probably going to be fine in a few issues it's still somewhat jarring to watch their brains get ripped out and smooshed. His recent All-Star Superman run was an instant classic and a "'Death' of Superman" story that ranks right up there with Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow. So when he goes about ending the entire DC multiverse you know he's not half-assing it. Things get crushingly bleak with tragedies ranging from unimaginably cosmic to devastatingly personal. There's something for everybody!

9. It's pretty damn pretty.

    J.G. Jones is best known for his cover work but man do I love his interiors. I'd forgotten that this guy drew Wanted and Morrison's Marvel Boy mini-series, both also insanely gorgeous books. This is easily the most cinematic approach to a DC crossover yet attempted. He sets the bar ridiculously high in the first few issues but apparently due to delays they had to bring in a couple other artists to fill out the series. This could've been high tragedy, as artist-shifts have inadvertently weakened some of my favorite Morrison series in the past. Thankfully it actually works out in a weird way here. For starters, they brought on two more of comics' best, Carlos Pacheco and Doug Mahnke. Secondly, the shift in artists actually worked out well along thematic lines, coming off as appropriate rather than forced. Pacheco worked along with Jones on issues #4-6 and his clean, smooth style flows into Johns well enough. Mahnke's been a favorite of mine since The Mask and although his style's more amped up than Jones or Pacheco's, it fits perfectly for the closing chapter and Superman Beyond interlude. I'll go out on a limb and say this is probably the best-looking major company-wide crossover that DC's put out and the first to really capture the street-level human element with any degree of detail or verisimilitude.

8. Superman Beyond. Way, way beyond.

    The aforementioned All-Star Superman is among the ultimate Superman stories. Final Crisis: Superman Beyond may be among the ultimate Superman deconstructions/extrapolations. I'm not sure what I mean by that but let me explain. This story gets down to the narrative core of Superman, boiling him down to his ultimate existential purpose, and in the process breaks down the comic medium in kind. At the same time the story features damn near every Superman-archetype DC can legally include in a comic, showing just how far the basic idea of Superman can go while still being recognizably Superman. That means we get a supporting cast featuring Captain Marvel, Ultraman (the evil opposite Superman), Captain Atom re-mixed as a Dr. Manhattan analogue, Übermensch the Nazi Superman and hey, what the hell, even a Vampire Superman pops up. That is a lot of Superman. And when the end results of Superman Beyond come crashing into the finale of Final Crisis it is almost too much damn Superman. If you get this and Morrison's All-Star Superman run, you are pretty much good to go on Superman. It will completely suffice for your Superman needs.

7. Batman R.I.P. for reals this time.

    Morrison's Batman R.I.P. may not be the instant-classic All-Star Superman was, but give it some time. Once again, it's a book with a lot of history that may seem impenetrable at first until you realize that all the information you really need to understand and enjoy the story is there. Morrison's great innovation on his latest run on Batman has been declaring every Batman story ever told as in-continuity, meaning that this guy has had the most *ahem* bat-shit crazy life you can imagine. Batman R.I.P. is a must-have for any Batman fan, but while you don't necessarily need to have read anything leading up to this book, you may feel a bit cheated by the very end. The story flows directly into Final Crisis and unfortunately is incomplete without it. In fact, Batman's storyline in Final Crisis seems to have a hole in it if you miss out on Batman R.I.P. Apparently it's not much of a spoiler that Batman dies in Final Crisis (see the cover above; I assure you he's not just taking a nap) and granted, we all know that's not going to last a tremendous amount of time, but the way it plays out is pretty damn sweet and it leaves things off in the last place you'd expected.

6. Seven Soldiers finally pays off.

    Along the same lines as the above, Final Crisis also completes another not-quite-whole-on-its-own Morrison story. Don't get me wrong, I loved Morrison's fractured maxi-series, but the year-late concluding issue couldn't help but fail to live up to expectations. For those who haven't heard of it, Seven Soldiers involved seven obscure characters rebooted by Morrison as the first superhero team to never meet each other. It began with a single issue about an earlier ill-fated incarnation of the team, then split off into a four-issue mini-series about each character. These mini-series for the most part worked well as self-contained stories but the culmination unfortunately felt rushed and undercut the scale of the narrative. The best of these mini-series included the sword-toting bad-ass Frankenstein and the New Gods' Mister Miracle re-imagined as a super-celebrity escape artist. The Mister Miracle mini sets up "Boss Dark Side," the initial human form of Darkseid, as well as the concept that the New Gods of the Fourth World have somehow fallen to Earth and taken human bodies. It's a surreal, intense mini with a hell of an ending splash page. It's also a direct lead-in to the events of Final Crisis. Mister Miracle and Frankenstein both play big parts in the story and the whole New Gods situation doesn't seem to be dealt with as clearly anywhere else. Again, it's not mandatory reading to enjoy Final Crisis, but to me Final Crisis finishes Seven Soldiers better than Seven Soldiers finished itself and in the process elevates the work.

5. Things that are just too damn cool.

    A god killed by a bullet fired backward in time. The entire planet cordoned off as a crime scene. The mathematical proof of doom. The three billion hands of Darkseid. Limbo's last stand. Celestial parasites feeding off the multiverse. Cross-dimensional evacuation and the world's population shrunk and frozen in ice cube trays. The reason for the black hole at the bottom of reality. Frankenstein on a giant dog with a giant sword and kicking ass. I'm just flipping around and picking stuff out at random here. Most writers tend to settle for one good idea and then go build a story out of that alone. Not Morrison. He treats crazy-awesome ideas like filler.

4. Characters that shouldn't kick-ass, kicking ass.

    I never in my life thought I'd root for Tawky Tawny. We're talking about a well-mannered talking tiger wearing a plaid jacket here. It never would have occurred to me that somebody named Tawny could be bad-ass whatsoever, tiger or no. Boy was I wrong. See this picture over here of Tawny in a jetpack disemboweling some bloke? How many times have you ever heard somebody's name followed by the phrase "in a jetpack disemboweling some bloke?" If this guy was on a box of cereal I would buy that cereal. The New Gods' Metron (the New God that prefers to remain seated thank-you-very-much) got an upgrade as well into a much more ambiguous and truly god-like being but it's his mysterious handi-capable human form that gets the big hero moment. It's a brief, strange scene and also seems to involve a cloaked, talking chimp so I don't know what else you could ask for. I hardly read any DC pre-Crisis so I had no attachment to the silver-age Flash, Barry Allen but that's all changed thanks to his immaculate resurrection, racing from Death and chasing the god-killing bullet back through time to save a god who's already dead. When I come back from the dead I hope I manage something half as neat. Also, one of the original characters to this book deserves special note: Most Excellent Superbat, leader of Japanese pop-super group Super Young Team, has what may be the best line of the year. You'll know it when you see it. And the Zoo Crew... well, I've already said too much.

3. Dan "Terrible" Turpin.

    I remembered Turpin from the Superman Animated Series and was stoked to see him in the first few pages of the book as our initial human perspective. From the cartoon I'd figured he was a Kirby creation (just like Darkseid and the other New Gods who are integral to Final Crisis) due to the gruff Thing-like mannerisms and the bushy Kirby-esque eyebrows. This is another prime example of a character that Morrison is using that works perfectly on a surface level but also brings a deeper history and meaning to the table, serving as narrative short-hand. When we meet him, he's a detective coming out of retirement, trench coat and all, out chasing leads on some missing kids when he stumbles upon a dead god in the gutter. He's had a history with "super muk-muks." He's not a fan. That's all you need to know for his story to work. Knowing about his history as a member of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit and his previous conflicts with Darkseid's followers, all that's just gravy. So again, I was stoked to see him in such a prominent role in this series. After a little while, not so much. Turpin goes through the most harsh and horrifying arc in the book and there are moments that are straight-up gut-wrenching. This is once more an instance where Morrison achieves a level of foreboding and despair rarely attained in comics. Turpin's story is the part that makes me want to recommend the book to people I know the most.

2. This is a story about stories.

    It's about everything. Sure, everything blasted through the prism of superhero comics. But Morrison pushes the genre to its breaking point and through, exposing the mythological roots, bleeding through and all over theology, getting right down to the basic element of our understanding of human experience: story. This is a theme that's been threaded through a lot of Morrison's work but rarely with such religiosity, particularly in Superman Beyond. This story builds upon hundreds, thousands of other stories, many of which we only get the briefest glimpse of in the book, ranging from the base level of soap opera all the way up to the ultimate conflict surpassing even good and evil, the conflict between something and nothing. When you get to the reveal about celestial parasites you begin to wonder whether they represent the writers feeding off older stories or you, the reader yourself. (Or perhaps, as Frued said, sometimes a celestial parasite is just a celestial parasite.) Mythology buffs, here's a sweet chaser to follow your Joseph Campbell.

1. Bigger than biblical.

    Final Crisis is the culmination of story elements Morrison's been working with since his landmark JLA run. This Bloody Edge fella makes a good case for Final Crisis serving as the third part of two DC trilogies: one comprised of the "Crises Proper" (beginning with Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis) and the other of the "Modern Crises" (beginning with Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis). I feel the third and more clear trilogy from a narrative sense would begin with Morrison's JLA run and continue with Seven Soldiers. If none of these titles mean anything whatsoever to you, don't panic. You don't need to know about any of it in order to understand and enjoy Final Crisis. That might seem hard to believe (especially after reading this far), but Morrison does a good job using archetypal characters in a fashion that makes it obvious what everybody's all about even if you've never seen these characters before. (In fact, Morrison invents dozens of characters specifically for this book that all feel like they've been around as long as the pre-existing characters.) Reading this story is like listening to extremely sophisticated electronic music, heavily layered with samples from several decades worth of songs. You'll hear a familiar line, a familiar beat, a familiar melody, and in that instant recall the sensation and history of the entire song. Within this one song you've re-experienced hundreds of songs. That's the style of comic-writing Morrison has mastered in this book. You don't have to know who any of the hundreds of characters who appear in this book are. But if you want to know, damn near all of them have long, rich histories that have been factored into this story and all the information is easily available on the internet and collected editions. Final Crisis is an immersive dive into one of the most vibrant and dynamic mythologies to grow out of American culture and the deeper you're willing to go, the greater the rewards you'll find.

Labels: comics

I must confess. Before seeing the preview for next year's Watchmen movie, directed by 300-director Zach Snyder, I knew next to nothing about the comic it is based on. I could recognize some of the characters and the smiley-face logo, but if asked about the details of the book's plot… I would have merely shrugged my shoulders. So of course when my friend Jared, who I consider to be my personal authority in comic-related dealings, asked me if I’d read the rather lengthy trade paperback and I responded with a “no”… well he berated me accordingly and went out and bought the brightly-colored graphic novel for my birthday present. I was curious, and once I had it in my hands, I gave the cover a once-over. “Winner of the Hugo award, huh? One of Time Magazine's 100 best novels, huh? And it was written when?” were among some of the first few thoughts that sprang to mind. “So why had this escaped my radar before?” I wondered. I opened it up eagerly, and dove right in. What I dove into was a seedy world rich in color, which is surprising considering how most of it plays out like a gritty black-and-white noir film from the 40’s. The plot starts strong, with a compelling mix of “who-done-it” and great writing. But what else could I expect from the author who brought us V for Vendetta and From Hell? I sank further into the world of Watchmen. As I read on, I started to think to myself, “Where are all the super-heroes? Where are the ridiculous over-the-top action sequences and the steroid-sized muscle men shooting lasers from their hands or eyes?” Well if that’s what you’re expecting to find in this book. get ready to be surprised. Surprised in the best way possible. What you will find is an ingenious psychological mind trip that delves into the deepest parts of the human psyche and makes us all ask ourselves who we really are.

The characters are real. Really real. They are so real that it makes you wonder why you never thought of patching a costume together and running out and beating up criminals and thugs yourself. But that’s not what the book is about, that’s just the background…the “costume” if you will. The book is quite simply about fear. A fear that has emerged ever since the First World War and a fear that is no less relevant today despite the fact that this book was written over twenty years ago. I’m talking about the fear that eventually the shit will hit the fan and every nation will be at each other’s throats in a race to be the last one standing. But it’s the stark originality in which the plot is conveyed that makes this book truly worth of the praised it has received.

Reading this book, we feel Rorschach’s disdain for humanity in our hearts. Our conscience teeters on Nite-Owl's reluctance to take up arms again. And we definitely come to understand why they call one man the Comedian, though not at first. But these aren’t super-heroes like those we’ve seen in comic books so far. These people act and react just like you or I. And it’s their flaws that make these characters special. The flaws are what keep them grounded, make them flesh-and-blood. There are no happy-go-lucky super do-gooders who save the day with only slight effort and fly off into the sky never asking to be thanked or rewarded. Instead we have Dr. Manhattan, the Superman-type character who forces us to think of what having an almost unlimited source of power does to both the nation that possesses it and its enemies. Not unlike, say, an incredibly wealthy and powerful nation using atomic weapons on another.

The series also makes good use of famous quotes, literary references, and pop-culture phenomena, playing off and on the plot. The imaginative liberties that Moore takes with some of history’s biggest events are both intriguing and refreshing, and each issue is wrapped up by an extremely relevant quote from the likes of Bob Dylan, Friedrich Nietzsche, and even William Blake. This all ties in to the massive countdown that has been building suspense since page one. As readers we are always made vividly aware of how close to doom we are as each issue begins with a clock face, its hands slowly making their way towards midnight as it's gradually enveloped by a sheet of blood. And there is no shortage of surprise and shock waiting for us in the final showdown.

The story tightens its firm hold with what seem like trifle plot points and characters that wind up making up more of the story’s whole than one might think. For example the recurring glimpses we receive periodically from one character’s comic, Tales of the Black Freighter, are a pleasing contrast pertaining to much of the plot in the world of Watchmen. More so are the benefits we receive at reading this story in the form of the trade paperback. Benefits like the lengthy filler between issues that dives into character's pasts and their private and public lives. If not read the first time around, these separate excerpts, throughout the story, are a fun way to start re-reading the book.

Having read through the book a few times now I think what I took away the most were the almost chilling connections I was able to make with many of the key characters; the kind of connections that you never realized were there. After all, isn’t that what good writing is? Forcing the reader into realizations and revelations that send a chill up their spine is, I think, the main effect that all writers hope to receive. Having now stared into the inky black spots of Rorschach’s face and asking myself “Do I really see something there?” I can safely say this…Alan Moore has secured his place among my list of favorite authors of all time. The art by Dave Gibbons is damn good too.

Eagerly awaiting the film,
Quinn Allan

Labels: comics