Overall- ...???...???????????. I think that just about adequately sums up my feelings regarding the events of Final Crisis #7. I'm not going to bother trying to review this comic book, because I don't think I possibly could... And I don't mean that in a good way either... I was absolutely lost from the beginning of this comic book to the end. I'll admit that there were certain aspects of the Final Crisis storyline that I didn't understand from the first issue of the series, but I was always able to come away from each issue of this series with a general understanding of what I had read... That was sure not the case here.
Where do I even begin? Let's start with Darkseid, the supposed villain who was behind the entire Final Crisis storyline... Darkseid was killed, by my count, THREE different times over the course of the last 2 issues! He was shot with a bullet that had killed one of his fellow New Gods by Batman last issue, he was struck by the Black Racer/Black Flash/Death which I guess killed him for the second time, then Darkseid was suddenly without a body(?)and Superman sang at him to kill him once and for all... Sang at him to kill him?!?!?! What the f### is that???
Then of course there was Mandrakk... Ah yes, Mandrakk, the evil Monitor(?)from the horrible Superman Beyond 3D mini-series... Why the hell was he even there??? What purpose did he serve exactly? What the hell was Grant Morrison thinking here? To be fair, if you read my review of Superman Beyond 3D(which you can find here), you know I didn't understand a damn thing from those two comic books. Which just made things even more confusing in THIS comic.
Who the hell were those super-powered Japanese people? Did Hawkman/Hawkgirl die? What about Green Arrow and Black Canary, are they dead? Why didn't Superman wish for Batman's return with the Miracle Machine? Can you believe Superman vanquished Darkseid with a song?!? What the hell was going on in the beginning of this comic? Why were Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson putting the Bat-signal and a newspaper in a rocketship??? I guess that was an alternate reality? Did Superman wish the Monitors out of existence? Do you see the problem here? When you come out of a comic book with absolutely NO idea about what you just read, that means the writer and editors failed miserably. As far as I'm concerned this comic book was a train wreck of nearly epic proportions.
And don't even get me started on Barry Allen... Someone please explain why he was necessary to this story. He WASN'T. Am I supposed to believe that Barry has been running from the Black Racer for the past several years??? I could have accepted Barry's return and Wally West's subsequent move to the back seat, IF the story involving Barry's return made a damn lick of sense. It didn't. You want to bring a dead hero back to life? Do it the way Geoff Johns did it in Green Lantern: Rebirth. Hal Jordan came back for a REASON. Hal was needed... I'm sorry to any fans of Barry Allen, but he was not needed in Final Crisis at all. All he did was lead the Black Racer into an already dying Darkseid, and THAT action didn't even finish Darkseid off once and for all! The thing with Barry and the Black Racer really pisses me off because it diminishes the role Batman played in the defeat of Darkseid.
Batman... I haven't even touched on THAT particular story element yet... All I'm going to say is that what was done with Batman was the ONLY thing that was done right in this comic book. Let's face it, the idea that DC was going to kill off Batman was ludicrous on so many levels. Batman/Bruce Wayne is probably the most popular comic book character PERIOD. Yeah, you've got Spider-Man and Superman, but realistically, Bruce Wayne is the best known comic book super-hero to both fans of comic books and non-fans alike. DC couldn't kill him. It's that simple. Killing Bruce would have led to fan outrage, so they actually did the next best thing, they banished Bruce. Now, Bruce can remain in comic book limbo until DC needs him to come back and reclaim the Batman mantle, which let's face it, is inevitable. DC comic fans will NEVER accept another man in the role of Batman, in the same manner that Marvel fans refused to see another man(Ben Reilly)in Peter Parker's Spider-Man role. I'd wager that in a years time, Bruce Wayne will once again be patrolling the streets of Gotham as the Batman.
What more is there to say? This comic book was a horrible ending to a mediocre at best crossover. While Final Crisis had it's high points and it's good moments, I'll remember it as being as bad, if not worse than Secret Invasion, and that's saying something. I kind of get the feeling that Grant was writing this comic for a group of maybe 10 people, while the rest of us are just left shrugging our shoulders saying, "What the hell did I just read?". For a score, I can't in good conscience give this comic book a score better than 1 out of 10... This series could/should have been much, MUCH better...
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This book should never have had a title like 'Final Crisis.'
ReplyDeleteYeah, I am confused as to why the Monitor's world dissolved... it happened, but they didn't say why?
If Morrison thinks this is the same kind of crap that movies will be like in 20-30 years, he clearly unfamiliar with the trend towards 'low entertainment.' (American Idol, Survivor, etc.)
Like much of this comic book, the Monitor thing baffled me... I guess Superman wished them away or something??? I think the only person who really knows what happened is Grant Morrison.
ReplyDeleteIf Morrison thinks that in 20 years from now, movies and such will be like Final Crisis, than he is crazier than I originally thought!
Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of Grant's work(New X-Men, Marvel Boy, SOME of his work on Batman, although some of his Batman work bothered me as well), but Final Crisis was just a mess... A total mess.
I'm sorry to hear FC was a letdown for you too X-Man. Out of all the reviews I've read, your reviews of the earliest books in the series seemed to demonstrate a real understanding of the story GM was trying to tell. I'm sorry to hear the conclusion was a baffler for you as well. If he'd have wrapped up the damn arc in 5 issues, I think he could've had a much more compelling narrative.
ReplyDeleteYeah Yedna, I kind of have to agree with you here. Grant really should have cut this series down to a more manageable 5 issues, that way we could have avoided so much unnecessary garbage. It seemed like towards the end of this series, Grant was just throwing EVERYTHING at the wall in the hope something would stick...
ReplyDeleteThe inclusion of Mandrakk was just SO utterly pointless. Anyone who hadn't read Superman Beyond 3D wouldn't have any way to figure out who or what the hell Mandrakk even was. Hell, I read SB3D and I still don't really know what the hell Mandrakk was! An evil Monitor? A vampire? A vampire Monitor? Neither? Both? Who knows!
Honestly, for me, the best way to have ended this comic was to remove all the crap with the Monitors(they were totally pointless)and have ended the series with Bats blowing Darkseid away before getting sent to... Whereever the hell Bats was sent to! Superman could have used the Miracle Machine to undo the Anti-Life Equation, and voila, we have an easy to understand ending, not what ever the hell Grant was going for...
Oh well, this just proves once and for all that when you see Grant Morrison's name on a comic book, it's either going to be awesome or terrible. There's really no middle ground when you read his work. You either love it, like I loved his work on New X-Men and Marvel Boy, or hate it, and I hated the end of Final Crisis.