If you gravitate to comic communities I participate in this is where the broken record starts - I loved Final Crisis#1 and one of the main reasons I’m glad Heidi MacDonald is reporting that Dan Didio is getting an extension (after a really silly internet-spawned attempt at a Shellian neighborhood watch meeting with people a bit too much in the cups or just generally ignorant as Shelly portrayed) is that I want what looks to be a promising platform to be able to go through being a key and sanctioned part of current administration and not be something a new EIC would want to put past him or her. I’m excited not because it’s this superior single issue; sure I found it solid, but I like it more because for the first time major EVENT in comic book history that we have a modern writer at the helm. I don’t care if a lot of it is (and it is) bastardized Moorcockian themes and ideas: Seven Soldiers, Shade, Doom Patrol, Arkham Asylum, The Invisibles - all incredible, and he wrote the X-Men the last time it was remotely readable and unlike almost every ‘classic’ X-Men story it still stands up no matter how much MARVEL wants to cajole Mephisto into magiking (Marvel editorial’s geek word for deus ex machina - which you know, we all love) it away. With recent event I found myself either involved in issues that were just a means to get to the discovery at the end or just full of Hollywood bullet points that lacked nuance - they were getting to a story, not telling one - a storyteller moves in multiple directions at all times, each moment; each panel leads to something more but is not just beholden to what occurs ahead, and the lack of this is why many recent events have held the status of “just tell me about it when it’s done” (in comics called: waiting for the trade). Final Crisis has me anticipating - I don’t know where it’s going, and I’m not a child of the Silver Age that some people say the current DC caters to, indeed I was never a DC fan as a child, I was firmly an ardent MARVEL Zombie, and I think it is this element of discovery that appeals to me. In an age where entire arcs or not much more than the publicity release we can read at Newsarama months before, Morrison at the helm is a promise of more, a promise of risk, and I hope he is able to mold it into a commercial success so we can look back on this event as when the Superhero Event can be the venue for experimentation, of creativity and not just the annual attempt at giving the coolest name to a project going back to the lowest story denominator to attract new readers. When we grew up. Let this be where Moore’s Twilight should have already been.
I’m going to review this well after the majority of the comic book community will have moved on from it to the next event (when it’s thrown in a hardcover) because I find reviewing single issues pointless unless you’re jockeying for initial search ranking and so to visit forums with ‘look at me links’ leading to some disappointing write-up. I do want to point out one place I will be visiting while the series moves along, one Douglas Wolk’s Final Crisis Annotations. He had excellent coverage of one of my favorite feats in mainstream superhero comics, the weekly 52 from DC. I generally find the comic critical/commentary community to be less than desirable and almost non-existent when it comes Super Hero books but Wolk (and Ms. MacDonald noted above) are excellent in these regards. At any rate, I did grab an original art page from Final Crisis#1 for the Bodhisattva collection, a page where Anthro the first boy and Kamandi the last boy on earth both appear:
J.G. Jones goodness! The begining and the end in the first chapter. Let the story begin!
5 responses so far ↓
1 Rob B // Jun 24, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I didn’t quite understand all the hate the intarwebs were directing at this issue, either. I liked it fine as set up for things to come. I loved what he did with SEVEN SOLDIERS and I don’t know that anybody is more mentally equipped to play with Kirby’s toys as is Grant.
2 AERose // Jun 24, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Just a little nit: Shade, The Changing Man was written by Peter Milligan, not Grant Morrison.
3 jaytomio // Jun 24, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Thanks - I have been circling a Bachalo page and it (Shade) must have popped in my mind.
Rob,
I didn’t get it either. Was it monumental?No, and certainly I was aware that the stench of Countdown was still lingering but I looked at it was like, let’s see: Anthro, Kamandi, Darkseid, MM getting done, GL’s, street level investigation, Caveman hair dragging, a prometheus moment, in one single comic. Oh, yeah, the art was at least solid.
I’m not sure what was expected, but I don’t begrudge anyone for whatever they thought. I just think that the way comic commentary is now anything that is this major that’s not perfect is going to be the subject of even more hyperbole, a bit more angst because there is a young group trying to be the critical outlet and this is an opportunity where people will be watching and people want to be cutting. We saw this in our own corner of the web before.
What has shocked me the most is not the rift-raft freelancer, but really some of very uninsightful commentary from ‘major’ comic outlets and I question why sites that have the obvious reach, that have obvious means employ lackluster writers to write for them. In our terms, the venues that should have Clute have Klausner instead.
4 Zach H. // Jun 24, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Speaking of readable X-Titles, I was excited to see that Morrison’s New X-Men is being recollected in three bigger trades (the first released a couple of weeks ago). I’ve been wanting to read this for a couple of years now ever since I first encountered Morrison by picking up an Invisibles trade. Definitely think it would be interesting to read an edgier, more out there (for lack of a better description) take on X-Men. The only other X-Men I’ve read since the Age of Apocalypse in the 90s is Whedon’s Astonishing. I definitely find it readable, although I admit it’s more because of the trademark Whedon banter than any definitive take on the characters.
5 jaytomio // Jun 25, 2008 at 1:46 am
Zach,
While the X-men title became a hit again under Morrison there is some resistance by stalwarts to the run because of the dramatic change to the title. For me, it was just the first time the title morphed back into what I thought it was: a group of outsiders trying to making into this world. This team is supposed to be different, and the X-title never really showcased this since maybe back to Gen-X with Bachalo, and I just always thought the X-Men were supposed to be this - they weren’t supposed to be him Avengers/ Whendon’s X-Men (and I do want to read the Ellis continuation) was excellent, and actually did do some thing that affected X-Men proper (which I think initially the project was supposed to kind of float in its on space
I do like David’s recent stint on X-factor quite -a bit, and I will say he turned Madrox into one of the 3-4 most interesting characters in the MARVEL stable over the last few years.
Morrison to me just scream let’s make events progressive, and not the annual step back ever year.
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