Living Wednesday to Wednesday #22: Back on the Crisis Wagon

It's been no quiet secret that I was completely against Final Crisis since the first issue came out. I was passing sweeping judgments upon quick readings in the store and literally hollering and pantomiming my dissension page by page.

However, much like the Anti-Life Equation whispering sweet Nothings in the ear of folks all across the Earth, there was a contrary voice always piquing my curiosity, that of my friend Raph. He had been a diehard Seven Soldiers of Victory fan and believed in everything that Final Crisis could bring to the DCU.

It was that nagging enthusiasm that caused me to drop an episode of Comic Geek Speak (#497: Final Crisis #3) onto my iPod for a bit of easy listening during my mid-afternoon walk. Honestly, what I really wanted from it was vindication that the event of the year was trash and everyone was hating it as much as Jermaine and myself. Instead I had a giant knowledge bomb dropped on my head from a group of folks that a) were giving the series a fair shot and b) had a far more detailed knowledge of the New Gods and DC Universe at large than perhaps anyone around the shop.

By the time the first ten minutes rolled by, with one of the commentators summarizing the issue scene by scene, I was completely psyched. The story he was describing sounded fresh and new and unlike anything else that I had read before, much less a story that I had in fact grudgingly reviewed three times already. By the end of the hour I was back in the store, pulling the issues back off the shelf and cross referencing away.

As I fell full-on into the story for the first time, I felt I needed to atone for my previous blind hatred in the least bit by making notes of what I found, what I learned, what captured me, in hopes that I might bring back some of the folks I had alienated during my previous whining.

I will still be the first to admit that the series is poorly edited and not perfectly written. There should be notes and shout-outs to tie-ins and past events. There should be transitions between scenes. There should be some tying together of plot threads by this midway point. There shouldn't be throwaway shots of Black Canary in her underwear (someone write a good Black Canary series!) But this is very much a Morrison thing, and while that doesn't excuse it from poor writing, the main fault has to fall to the higher-ups at DC for making this the summer event. If it had been allowed to role on its own track, on its own schedule like Seven Soldiers did, this series would be the underdog gem of the year, a private indulgence for true-blue DC fans rather than the ugly step-sister of Secret Invasion.

Bringing all of this forward, I sparked a bit of a debate in the store that I've continued in private conversations, "should this much work be necessary to get into a comic or should everything be new reader accessible." I think what it comes down to is that comic fans as a whole or on an individual basis have to decide if they want to be passive or aggressive readers. Secret Invasion straddles that line perfectly, giving new readers an opportunity to jump on board, but even Jermaine recommends to everyone that they go back to Avengers Disassembled and read through Secret War, New Avengers, House of M, Civil War, Illuminati, and more to be fully prepared for what they might find in this year's event and its tie-ins. Giving full exposition on the page feels clunky, like the Silver Age comics of yor where the words competed with the art rather than co-existing simultaneously. And expecting everyone to be with you from panel one turns people off and can even leave them feeling lacking in themselves or as though the story is talking down to them.

Anyway, here are my notes and thoughts. Some of them come from the Comic Geek Speak episode I mentioned above, some from Raph, and others are my own connections.

ISSUE 1 - D.O.A. - God of War

• page 1 - The man pictured is Anthro, the first man.
• page 3 - Pay attention to the symbol on Metron's chest. It's going to come back a lot later. Even though J.G. Jones redesigned a lot of the costumes for the story, the symbol remains the same.
• page 5 - The looming figure on page 5 is Vandal Savage, who appears later in the issue with Lex, Libra, etc.
• page 9 - Orion is warning Turpin that there is now a little bit of Darkseid's essence in everyone now, be it hate or temptation or whatever.
• page 14 - There is a Mister Miracle poster behind the dumpster in the background. This is the first glance back to what Morrison had established in Seven Soldiers of Victory: Mister Miracle #1-4.
• page 16 - Mirror Master and Doctor Light are going after the Mobius chair, Metron's means of transport. Mirror Master and Doctor Light also teamed up in JLA: Rock of Ages, another Fourth World crossover by Morrison.
• page 21 - The first appearance of Reverend Good, who's the new Glorious Godfrey, with the power of persuasion.
• page 22 - The first appearance of Boss Darkside, also from Seven Soldiers, as well as Kalibak, Kanto, and a mention for Granny Goodness.
• page 28 - Make note of the Monitors' names and relationships, especially Weeja Dell and Zillo Valla.
• page 30 - Anthro is in the past. He's drawing the symbol from Metron's chest on the ground. In the last panel, though it's not really clear, an anomaly has occurred, transporting Anthro to the future.
• page 31 - Calling out to Anthro is Kamandi, the last boy, bookending the story in history. Anthro is supposed to be standing on the same spot that he was on in the past, fast forwarded into Kamandi's future. The face paint in the last panel matches the design on Metron's costume.
• Final Thoughts - Like the title inferred, the most workable part of this issue is the idea of the Green Lantern police procedural as they get their orders and investigate/cordon off the crime scene.

ISSUE 2 - Ticket to Bludhaven

• page 3 - The Super Young Team are like the Young Ones from the Forever People. Earth-based friends of the New Gods of New Genesis.
• page 4 - Sonny Sumo, with his strength and arrogance, is probably going to be the new Orion.
• page 7 - This is the first Final Crisis appearance of Shiloh Norman, Mister Miracle from Seven Soldiers of Victory.
• page 9 - Pay attention to the sketches that our fallen Monitor, or McMonitor as he will be referenced to henceforth, has been working on. They'll come back later.
• page 10 - Remember than the Mad Hatter has been working on a mind control hat for someone.
• page 11 - Turpin getting carried away is the essence of Darkseid coming to the surface.
• page 12 - the bottom right corner of this page should have a "see Final Crisis: Requiem" editor's note.
• page 18 - Remember that John Stewart throws a right hook that his assailant catches.
• page 21 - Batman says, "John has one hell of a right hook, doesn't he?" implying that it was Kraken that caught the punch on page 18 and is now framing Hal Jordan as an agent of Darkseid.
• page 24 - Kamandi, the last boy, is imprisoned in Bludhaven.
• page 25 - Mokkari and Simyan are performing the experiments as a part of the new Evil Factory.
• page 26 - The Jimmy Olsen in this scene was really Clayface, planting a bomb in the Daily Planet offices as part of the "you scratch my back..." attitude of Libra's Secret Society.
• page 28 - Jay and Wally find the Crime Bible, from Crime Bible: Five Lessons of Blood and a key part of Final CrisisL: Revelations.
• Final Thoughts - This was the Gods of Apokolips making landfall on Earth in a big way.

ISSUE 3 - Know Evil

• page 1 - Though it's not abundantly clear, Frankenstein (from Seven Soldiers Frankenstein #1-4) and the Shade agents are raiding the Dark Side Club and find a mummified Boss Darkside body, probably because he's grown beyond its capacity.
• page 2 - The bottom right corner of the page should have an editor's note saying "see Final Crisis: Revelations."
• page 3 - Here we have Father Time speaking with Frankenstein and Taleb of Checkmate as a digitized version of the Sourcewall from New Genesis writes "Know Evil."
• page 4 - The German Supergirl, speculated to be from Earth 10 of the 52 worlds of the multiverse, was first seen in McMonitor's sketches in issue 2. She says something to the effect of "The heavens are bleeding" because the gods are dead and fallen.
• page 5 - The artifact that Calvin Carson has excavated is the same piece of stone that Anthro drew Metron's symbol on at the end of issue 1.
• page 10 - We see the helmet that Mad Hatter confessed to creating in issue 2 in effect for the first time, a Justifier Helmet, like the one first used by Glorious Godrey for his Anti-Life movement in Forever People #3.
• page 13 - The Monitor that comes to visit Superman is Zillo Valla and there should be an editor's note in the bottom right corner saying "see Final Crisis: Superman Beyond."
• page 16 - This is a new Aquaman that we haven't seen before and Captain Marvel Jr. is nor Captain Marvel thanks to the events of Trials of Shazam.
• page 21 - The Wonder Wagon is the new Whiz Wagon used by the Newsboy Legion or the new Super Cycle used by the Young Ones.
• page 30 - The first appearance of the new Female Furies, Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Giganta, and Batwoman.
• Final Thoughts - This issue was all about digital super-villainy in a super-heroic analog world. The heroes snail mail the Article X orders to everyone, Darkseid e-mails the Anti-Life Equation.