the rolling Final Crisis thread

See, one thing I've noticed in rereading Final Crisis is that a lot of things are subtle Morrison tricks that in another comic (esp a non-canon linked one) one would just dismiss as Morrison being poetic, or Morrison doing something off-beat and weird. But here, because it's unclear what are references and what are Morrison-thingies, it's harder to read.

I promised to explain this stuff using ONLY material that actually appeared in Final Crisis #1--no additional DC continuity at all--so:

Ok. It opens with a caveman. Suddenly he's interrupted from his regularly scheduled events (foraging, hunting, assumedly) by a glowing blue guy in a floating chair. He says that he is Metron. It's not in a word bubble, but a funny-looking bubble. So I assume he's communicating telepathically. Probably in the caveman's language.

All right so far, except as we see in the next sequence the caveman doesn't have language.

He then gives the man fire. Next, we see a bunch of cavemen beating the shit out of each other, some guy is dragging some gal away by her hair - standard caveman stuff. Then the guy from before comes and he's wielding fire. He's totally badass, and lights the whole place up. It's unclear why - maybe he's pissed with everyone. Maybe he loathes himself - he's a self-hating caveman. Maybe it's his way of demonstrating power. (Question one: Why is he burning everything?)

What's going on is that the fire-acquirer's tribe is being attacked by another tribe; the guy who got the fire uses it to drive the attackers away. Note the central attacker, with black hair; we'll see him later.

Now we've got the slightly overweight guy. Today. He's smoking a cigarette and it's a noirish monologue. He finds a super muk muk in the garbage. I have no idea what a super muk muk is. (Question two: What is a super muk muk?) The muk muk is not dead tho - he jumps up and shouts some vague warning ("He is in all you") and then falls down again.

Slightly overweight guy is identified later in the issue as Turpin. "Muk muk" is old-fashioned slang for "powerful person": Turpin is an old-school kind of guy, we deduce from this. We can also tell from his monologue that he's a cop and a detective. Also note the sinister figure who looks like he's on skis hovering above the dying guy, and note that as he's dying the sky has turned red very quickly--over the course of a minute or so.

Stewart lantern is called to the site where the detective found the muk muk. The Detective says that seeing this is like sacrilege. (Question 3+4: What is it that he's seeing that is disturbing him? Why is it sacrilege?) It looked like it was day when we last saw the detective, but now it's night and the sky is full of red lightning. (Question 5+6: Has the detective been standing around doing nothing while it became dark? And what the hell is that weird lightning?)

John Stewart (he's called "John" at the beginning of the sequence, and later by Hal), who Turpin accurately identifies as a "space cop," is called in on a "1011"; we learn from later dialogue that that means "deicide." The dead super-guy is a god; the later scene with the Lanterns identifies him as "Orion, the soldier god of New Genesis." That's why Turpin feels like his presence is sacrilege--he's just a guy, and a god has died in front of him. The weird lightning is weird, and the skies more or less instantly turned dark: "the weather's gone nuts," all over, as dialogue points out at the beginning of that scene. Note the guy with the ski-like stuff is still there.

What does "six" mean? Is it a noir term for a corpse? (I've seen a lot of noir flicks, but I don't recognize it.) Maybe this is the sixth body he's found? Why does the detective thank the Question for helping him, when it seems like Question only asked him a question? What does Dark Side Club signify? (This is questions 7 through 9.)

Turpin earlier said "here's me, way past retirement and three weeks out on the trail of six missing kids." That's the six the Question is talking about: missing kids. The help the Question provided was giving Turpin a flyer for the Dark Side Club; her investigations, she implies, have suggested that when kids with "superhuman metagene activity" disappear, the Dark Side Club is somehow involved. As for what it signifis, we'll see when Turpin goes there later this issue.

What does "deep and dreamless" mean? Does it mean Hal Jordan was sleeping? Or is there some greater significance? It sounds like poetry that is supposed to sound good, but doesn't actually mean anything.

The dialogue indicates that John and Hal are close enough to have running jokes: John asks Hal if the call tore him away from some lady friend or other, and Hal replies that he'd just been fast asleep. ("Blonde or redhead?" "Deep and dreamless.")

I know who Sparx is (from Superboy and the Ravers) but I have no idea what's going on with her here. What are they looking for? Who is this empress? If this was a trap, does that mean the empress's vision was manufactured by some villain?

Doesn't even matter who Sparx is. The point of this scene is that there's a brand-new and very green superhero team that's trying to establish itself, one of them has had a vision of the chair Metron was in ealier as an artifact from another world, and in the process of trying to retrieve it they get their asses kicked by a pair of villains who exemplify the banality of evil.

"waiting 50,000 years for vandal savage to crush..." I get that this probably relates to the opening sequence with the cavemen, but I don't understand it. Who is Vandal Savage? Is this just another piece of poetics?

Vandal Savage is the guy Libra is replying to, who spoke in the previous panel; he is the guy with black hair from the cavemen-battle scene, which means we now know that the opening scene happened 50,000 years ago.

What does M'YRI'AH mean?

I think it's safe to infer from context that it's somebody who was very important to J'onn.

What's the deal with these missing kids? Who is Granny? Am I supposed to recognize this kingpin'esque figure in the club? (I know what the anti-life equation is, so I can guess that maybe this guy is a physical personification of Darkseid, or something. But what does the murder of the muk muk from earlier have to do with these kids he's brainwashed?)

I assume we'll meet Granny later; for now, it's just foreboding. The missing kids, we know from Turpin's conversation with the Question, are probably superhuman; Boss "Dark Side" is creepy as all hell, is wearing out his body, hints that he fell from on high ("I was hurt in a fall, you might say"), etc. You don't need to recognize him, you just need to know that he's very bad news and is turning the new generation of potential heroes into "stunted, malformed slaves." The connection with Orion's murder is that Turpin came across the dying Orion while investigating the six missing kids and was pointed here by the Question.

I don't know anything about Earth 51, or who these monitor guys are. What's their job? To save realities? What is the orrery? Obviously something has changed for these guys, but since I don't know who they used to be, I don't really understand what's going on with them now that's special.

What you have to know is mostly explained in dialogue. "New Earth, the foundation stone of all existence" is the world on which the main body of the story takes place (see the shift from Alpha Lanterns "securing the crime scene" to the Monitors pointing at New Earth); the Orrery is the great big thing holding all the Earths. We can gather from this that the "multiversal monitors, ancient and wise" do something huge and metaphysical involving multiple universes, represented by the Orrery, that "universe 51" was lost, and that Nix Uotan, who is being exiled, was the one responsible for it. (Note his hairstyle.) The subsequent conversation reveals that the Monitors are becoming more human--feeling emotions, gaining individual stories--and that that's a new thing for them.

Back to the caveman, and suddenly there a statue of liberty behind him (wtf?) and some guy is asking for the weapon Metron gave him. (The fire?)

The caveman has developed some pretty major technology by his period's standards--image-making, use of fire to cook, bow and arrow--and he's drawing the pattern he saw on Metron's costume in the dirt. (He still doesn't have spoken language, though.) The red sky isn't just a sunset thing, it's the same kind of everything's-awry red sky we saw earlier. The scene behind him is a 21st-century-era calamity--the Statue of Liberty sinking into the ocean, bombed-out buildings and road signs. Something awful has happened, and there's a temporal anomaly--when the caveman turns around, the blond guy has disappeared again, and the pattern from Metron's mask has appeared on his face. What's the weapon? That's a mystery right now.

Some guy wakes up. I have no idea who he is.

Check his hairstyle. He's Nix Uotan, the Monitor who was exiled a few pages ago: his "exile" is from the Monitors' metaphysical domain to the quotidian world and mortal existence.

Does that help some?

Yes, totally. Let me reread it quickly now and see if I have any still unresolved questions.

"They're asking for it in these outfits"

Is he making a perverse sexual comment with this?

Also, what's the deal with Bludhaven? (Is it like South Bronx?)

And why are there 8 children if Turpin was looking for 6?

(Btw, I understand it much better now. This is my 4th or 5th reading, but it's going very smoothly. I'm hoping I won't need remedial explication for each upcoming issue tho.)

i'm enjoying that douglas's explanation's here are serving a rhetorically opposite purpose to the ones in his annotation-blog. good work!

"asking for it" etc.: there was a very, very stupid plot that involved dr. light being a rapist. i'm hoping morrison has the stones to develop this one-liner into a critique of how fucking retarded that really was. (said story led, convolutedly, into 'infinite crisis', which if you read you will really find final crisis incredibly easy to follow and reader-friendly by comparison)

bludhaven is the even worse neighbouring variation of gotham city they created to give one of the ex robins to go and be a vigilante in when he decided he was called 'nightwing'. i believe it was destroyed in infinite crisis when (stupid, stupid) some villain turned someone with a name like 'pyro, the human flame' into a weapon of mass destruction and dropped him on it.

no idea on six/eight kids other than other's, above; 'deep and dreamless' is from 'o little town' ...

...1

"In Infinite Crisis #4, the Secret Society of Super Villains drops Chemo, a gigantic, semi-intelligent pile of chemicals, on the city, causing a devastating explosion and toxic chemical fallout. The city is destroyed. Nightwing, Batgirl and Robin survive, since all were out of the city at the time of the attack, but the fates of other Blüdhaven-based heroes such as Tarantula are unknown. "

Again, addressing it from within the story:

"They're asking for it": yes, he's a perv. (Note that he's trying to hit up Mirror Master for some Viagra later in the scene.) The point of the scene is that both Dr. Light and Mirror Master are really pathetic guys.

Blüdhaven, we can gather from the context of what Rev. Goode is saying, is kind of South Bronx, kind of post-Katrina New Orleans.

There are more than 6 children because, as the Question noted, there are a bunch of metahuman kids going missing lately; Turpin the cop only knew about the ones in his jurisdiction. (We saw in the first scene that he was in Metropolis, but from the Statue of Liberty in the background as he's outside the Dark Side Club, he's gone to NYC to find out more.)

"asking for it" etc.: there was a very, very stupid plot that involved dr. light being a rapist. i'm hoping morrison has the stones to develop this one-liner into a critique of how fucking retarded that really was. (said story led, convolutedly, into 'infinite crisis', which if you read you will really find final crisis incredibly easy to follow and reader-friendly by comparison)

I don't think he's mocking that story at all, but rather taking an established thing and running with it -- his object is, as Douglas says, to show that these villains are pathetic, terrible people. They are evil. Of course some of them are rapists and misogynists. I mean, Identity Crisis may suck, but it's actually not such a bad thing that it opened up the door to acknowledging that supervillains might be up to other sorts of evil behavior.

Was Chemo that giant chemical guy who showed up in an issue of PAD's Supergirl? The one who was dallying with consciousness?

I realised the other day that the whole "it starts with the first boy on Earth and ends with the last boy on earth" claim (made in interview by GM) doesn't specify which Earth - so if that is Kamandi of earth-51 then the story starts with the first boy on the first Earth and ends with the last boy on the last Earth: even more multiverse-spanning than you might have thought :)

I think that if they want to do a story about how "realistically" supervillains might be up to that, then that why we have Vertigo, so go and do a proper psychological study of it, rather than just going "and then Zatanna magicked it away!"

If you had not noticed, Vertigo hasn't done a "mature" version of a DC property in many, many, many moons. It's simply not what Vertigo does anymore.

Then do it else<s>worlds</s>where, all I'm saying is that it's a turd in the swimming pool of mainstream "this actually happened to Superman" continuity.

Well, I don't think the thing both Marvel and DC have been doing in recent years is trying to keep up with an aging audience that wants to see the stakes raised all the time, and so that means the villains must become increasingly disturbed, which includes the notion that they might be fucked up in ways that don't include putting on tights and trying to Take Over The World or Rob A Bank, or what have you. It's not going to be a "proper psychological study" because that is not what the audience wants. The audience wants "oh man, that guy is FUCKED UP."

yes, but pandering to an unhealthy clientele is how the comics industry dived into the shitter in the first place

I'm pretty sure that Mr. Perpetua doesn't agree with said behavior/aims on the part of the Big Two Superhero publishers; just pointing out the obvious in that's what they're by and large doing.

Though I'd also counter argue that ALL-STAR SUPERMAN is every bit a mature book and psychological study that isn't fucking things up just to show how fucked-up they are, if you catch my drift. But it's also the exception that points out the rule.

Haven't read FINAL CRISIS yet. My interest wanes, but I'll probably succumb.

i have a feeling that reading this thread >>> reading final crisis

I'm ambivalent about it! I feel like the writers should have the freedom to make the villains as evil as they want to make them, because I think the stories are better when the villains are more contemptible. It depends on the writer you know? Some of them suck, some of them are terrific.

I think I used to be more like "these are essentially characters for children," but I don't really believe that anymore. Kids don't really care about them unless they're on the screen, and if they do read the comics, they like the darker stuff. When I was 6 years old, I got hooked on X-Men with the Mutant Massacre, you know?

X-POST, I GUESS:

When I was 6 years old, I got hooked on X-Men with the Mutant Massacre, you know?

Oy - KRAVEN'S LAST HUNT (what with its cannibalism, suicide, and intense claustrophobia on virtually every panel, from what I can recall) pretty much made me when I was...eleven (?). Ah, how I miss the the floor at Waldenbooks...

When I was 6 years old, I got hooked on X-Men with the Mutant Massacre, you know?

-- Mr. Perpetua, Monday, 9 June 2008 20:05 (Monday, 9 June 2008 20:05) Bookmark Link

You do realise that you've just succeeded in making me feel very old.

Oy - KRAVEN'S LAST HUNT (what with its cannibalism, suicide, and intense claustrophobia on virtually every panel, from what I can recall) pretty much made me when I was...eleven (?). -- R Baez, Monday, 9 June 2008 20:13 (Monday, 9 June 2008 20:13) Bookmark Link

And you too? Stop it.

I was 46 when "The Yellow Kid" hit newspapers.

I'm the one who took Jack Kirby's lunch money.

I knew Bendis before he was bald.

I was there when Rodolphe Töpffer sketched out "M. Vieux Bois."
I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make a sou."
I was there.

I told Joe Schuster his BO was more powerful than a locomotive.

I gave Mark of Zorro 3 out of 4 stars in the Gotham Gazette and concluded, "Bring the kids! Or just the one."

I got into X-Men when they were just launching X-Men 1 with Jim Lee. Great fucking timing.

Ha, I'm pretty sure those Kraven's Last Hunt issues were my first Spider-Man comics. They came bundled in these three-or-four packs that you could buy for cheap at toy stores. I was what, seven?

I remember those! For some reason all those packets seemed to contain Sal Buscema issues of SPECTACULAR SPIDER MAN - KBToys, if I'm correct, seemed the prime purveyor. Excepting the Man-Wolf story I got in "read along with Stan" form and a few other bits, I suspect KRAVEN'S LAST HUNT was my first full blast comics experience - god, those issues fucked me up. For years afterwards, I'd pose as Kraven on the trade cover whenever I wanted to seem creepy/menacing.

I'm guessing that you fulfilled your goal quite admirably, if not quite in the way you intended...

(P.S. I totally remember those packs! And the Sal Buscema Spidey action! I got started on the Vermin storyline, which was sort of the sequel to Kraven's Last Hunt, and which added incest into the Spidey Stew O' Fun.)

I'm guessing that you fulfilled your goal quite admirably, if not quite in the way you intended...

heh

(P.S. I totally remember those packs! And the Sal Buscema Spidey action! I got started on the Vermin storyline, which was sort of the sequel to Kraven's Last Hunt, and which added incest into the Spidey Stew O' Fun.)

It's highly tempting to start a BEST OF DEMATTEIS thread, just because he seems to have doomed a great many of us to our sad exile at the ILC.

Oh, wait.

preview at N'rambla looks AWESOME, but also slow building

I've been on a big Morrison kick with Final Crisis and am really looking forward to #2 tomorrow. I'm almost through with Book 3 of the Seven Soldiers of Victory and I read the three part JLA Classified story that is kind of a lead in. 7 Soldiers is really killer read so far.

DC has really screwed it though, as they did not make anything good off 52 or that 7 Soldiers series and to me, there is ALL SORTS of stuff that could have been done. The only thing that seemed to spin out of that that I ended up reading and it was pretty good was the Crime Bible Question series that Greg Rucka did and sadly it seems to have sold about twelve copies.

they did not make anything good off 52

METAL MEN is Morrisonian Madness! It's probably as dense as any mainstream comic has been in YEARS and it's nearly impossible to follow, but who cares??? It's killer fun and mega-thrill-powered!

wake me up when they un-cancel the Dorkin/Allred version

Okay, fine, hold a grudge. But hold it against Didio and whoever else. Duncan Rouleau did an awesome comic.

ComicMix provides dorks (like us!) with a quick & dirty Countdown rundown, complete with illustrations! Here's Part 1 -- behold!

ME: So here's the scoop, Jimmy. Darkseid had secretly been collecting the celestial energies released by the death of each New God and had stored them all in a "soul-catcher" he'd hidden in your body. The idea was that he would wait until it was full, take it from your body and then use it to become near-omnipotent.

JIMMY: But that doesn't make sense. Why not just put the soul-catcher directly into his own body to begin with?

ME: Hey, Jimmy, it's science. Don't question science.

I don't know how anyone in their right mind could call Final Crisis #2 slow-building when so much crazy stuff happens in the last 15 pages or so. More things happened in the first two issues of Final Crisis than in the past three years of Bendis Avengers comics.

Extratextual annotations up here now: http://finalcrisisannotations.blogspot.com/2008/06/final-crisis-2.html

As before, I'm happy to try to answer questions here using only stuff that's actually in the issue, though...!

Oh, and check it out: Jones initially drew the Question in the first issue with her mask! http://www.fanfare-se.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=13534&ArtistId=132&Details=0&From=TDetail&Mag=Final+Crisis

omg loved #2.

I don't know how anyone in their right mind could call Final Crisis #2 slow-building

was going merely on the five pages in the N'Ambla preview. Mindblowing. Cataclysmic! APOKOLIPTIC!

North American Man-Boy Love Association preview?

I have to say: if the pace and quality continue, this may ultimately rate very highly in the "Best Morrison Evah!" pantheon. It's like everything I love about him with none of the filler.

Loved the second issue, glad that it seems to be better received out in the less Morrisonoid regions of the comicosphere too. Now I'm used to the storytelling style he's using I had zero problems with flow.

I don't believe I have pimped my last Pitchfork column, which talked about Final Crisis, Secret Invasion, Marvel, DC, "what's going on" vs "what happens next", the interweb as fourth-wall breaking, etc etc. (with a tiny smidgen of music related context to assuage my guilt at soapboxing about comics on a nindie site). So here it is:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/51361-column-poptimist-16

Great article!

Fans of "Final Crisis" have been quick to claim that its detractors are too stupid to "get it," but there's a cost-benefit analysis in play: how much time should you expect to give to a comic about superheroes fighting gods?

So, it's kind of pop vs. prog thing, isn't it?

Yeah I guess so! I am a lot more prog-friendly than once I was. Anyway obviously for me the answer is "I WILL GIVE IT ALL THE TIME I HAVE" judging by how much of yesterday evening I spent scouring for a. a p1r4t3d issue and b. discussion threads. But I don't think "this is too dense for my taste" is a de facto dumb response to FC.

Bizarrely, I wasn't feeling issue 2 quite so much - I think it's possibly the sight of Turpin having an extended Greg Feely-like breakdown in Bludhaven that didn't sit well with me, from the point of view of "what is Joe Four-Colors going to make of this?". Also the first panel of that sequence included the Atomic Knights, and made me remember the Gray/Palmiotti serieses :(