Final Crisis #2

Timothy Callahan: We both liked Final Crisis #1, but I got the feeling that we were in the minority--or at least the minority of loud internet voices. And then when the sales figures came out everyone made a huge deal about it selling less than Secret Invasion--a lot less--even though the numbers reflect the amount of issues ordered by comic shop owners and don't correspond to actual sales. All of which led the internet to call for Didio's head. It's been one of those hot topics, this Final Crisis. So, here we are, looking at issue #2, and wondering--what was the uproar over issue #1 all about? Why didn't people like it? Is issue #2 going to remind people that Grant Morrison does actually know what he's doing?

Your thoughts?

Chad Nevett: People were expecting a big event book and got a Grant Morrison book. I noticed some criticism, but not a huge amount, but that could just be the blogs I read. I figure the fault lies with DC marketing and editorial for people's expectations not being met. If you're familar with Morrison's work, Final Crisis #1 came as no surprise and did exactly what was expected: a smart, slow-building story that is actually far bigger and more expansive than most event books, but doesn't seem like it is. And, issue #2 didn't really deviate from that path except upped the amount of bad things happening. In the first issue, the Martian Manhunter was murdered and that's about it. Here, the JLA is hit harder and may provide some sense of dread for the average reader that the first issue lacked. Also, the stuff involving Anthro and Kamandi wasn't well-received, so the lack of them (aside from one panel where the focus was elsewhere anyway) should help, too.

As for the sales of issue one, Steven Grant said it best: Final Crisis #1 still sold the second-most issues of that month, so why would anyone be mad at Dan Didio? It was still a wildly successful issue, selling nearly one hundred and fifty thousand copies--seriously, why would anyone be upset with him? Or, as you even said in your review of Final Crisis #2 (or was it your blog post linking to the review?), it seems weird having to defend DC's top-selling book.

Issue #2 was a great comic, wasn't it? Big surprise for us to really enjoy a Grant Morrison comic, I know, but this issue contained from where the first left off while expanding the scope of the story even more. Yes, it's a slow build, but that means the pay-off should be even bigger. I'm enjoying Secret Invasion, but it's been in a sort of holding pattern since the first issue where the beginning of the invasion was the climax of the story almost. That hasn't happened here and won't for a while. Morrison seems more inclined to write a cohesive overall work that will stand up to repeated readings rather than a "tent pole" event book that everyone will forget in six months. Neither approach is wrong, they just have different goals in the short- and long-term.

TC: Final Crisis #2 was excellent, yeah. I thought it was terse and powerful and sinister. Just like it needed to be. I have no idea what's going on with Darkseid and the evil New Gods, other than them inhabiting the bodies of humans--Turpin is in particularly dire straits--and there's plenty of mystery with the Libra character. There's far more mystery here than in Secret Invasion, which should more accurately be titled Quite Public Invasion, Seriously, Have You Seen All the Skrulls? That would be harder to put above the title on the crossover books, though. And geez, talk about crossover books. Marvel's got a million of them, and as I think you alluded to in a comment on my blog, even Bendis can't keep his own Skrull invasion timeline right, as he directly contradicts the events of Hank Pym's Skrully replacement in two comics that both came out this week. I'm enjoying the wacky fun of Secret Invasion, because it is just a wild ride of Super-Skrulls smashing into people and buildings--and it's kind of fun to play along with Bendis as he reveals, "oh, that's why that character was acting weird in that issue last year," except even those revelations seem a bit inconsistent. Maybe they were all planned, but he's the guy who changed Ronin into a girl just because the internet found out about his plans, so I have a feeling that he hasn't necessarily been planning every beat of this story for years.

Final Crisis, though, is so Morrisonian--and count me as one of the readers who does not mind AT ALL that Countdown ended up being inconsistent, even though I bought and read every damn issue--and so tightly constructed, and so self-contained (now, although with the spin-offs and one-shots it may get messier) that we can really get an event book that makes sense. I'm going back and rereading Crisis on Infinite Earths right now, because my son really wanted to read it, since he's becoming interested in more and more DC characters--so we read one issue each night together--and even though Marv Wolfman was the architect of the whole story, and the crossovers were tangential, the twelve issues don't really make sense. Monitor has to die, why? Because of some vague need to transfer his life energy into saving Earths 1+2? Really? Or was it because Wolfman needed a dramatic sacrifice at that point while the rest of the early issues were just pages of rallying troops? More likely the latter. And Harbinger's whole character is just a giant plot mechanism that shifts and changes as needed. No, it's not a very good story. Final Crisis might end up being. It's certainly good so far. It's a real story that just happens to be an event book because it takes place on a huge DC canvas.

What about this complaint, though: Final Crisis, like many DC books, is just about the DC Universe and that's it? It doesn't relate to real world problems or fears the way Secret Invasion does? It doesn't have the human drama of the Marvel books? It's just cosmic characters having a bad week? Any validity to criticisms like that?

CN: At their core, how are these two stories that different? In one, we have aliens pretending to be people in a calculated invasion to take over the planet and, in the other, we have evil gods possessing the bodies of people in an effort to take over the planet. Um, how is Secret Invasion more relevant other than being more obvious about exploring the same themes and ideas as Final Crisis? Hell, Final Crisis is the true "Secret Invasion" if you look at it the right way. The heroes don't know it's happened yet! They don't know that there was a battle in heaven and evil won, and, now, evil is about two steps away from having Earth, too. How is Secret Invasion not just about the Marvel universe when half of the tie-in books show flashbacks to comics from years ago? Or when one of the big surprises in Secret Invasion #1 is a ship full of Marvel heroes from the 1970s? When you look at both books, you realize the differences lie in the ways the stories are told, where the emphasis is placed, not the actual plots, because they're remarkably similar in many ways. What's the different between watching the Young Avengers in action or seeing the Super Young Team hanging out in a club, setting up their eventual (I assume) foray into the action? How many people are actually familiar with the Young Avengers or the Initiative in any way, really, but give those characters more slack because they're appeared in titles before, albeit ones not read by anywhere near the majority of the Secret Invasion audience? What's the difference between a brand new character and one that's been around for a couple of years but you've never actually read about before, really? There is none, except weird biases some readers have--and the ways in which the stories are told.

So, no, I don't see any validity in that argument.

TC: Maybe DC should promote Final Crisis as "Even more secret, even more invasive than that other event." There's definitely a bias against Final Crisis and I'm not exactly sure where it's coming from. Maybe it's just that kind of over-reactive fanboy bias that pops up all the time on the internet, but why did it sell considerably less than Secret Invasion at the retailer level? Surely the Morrison name draws more readers than the Bendis name, but maybe not. Maybe everyone's all Crisis-ed out. Just to get some background, I dipped into a CBR thread, to see what exactly people were complaining about, and here are some examples:

Lt. Marvel says, "I also like the storytelling in which characters are mentioned by name. I don't know all of the Titans that were defeated, for instance. Back in 1985, if you had read Brave and the Bold/DC Comics Presents for the obscure characters, a Roy Thomas Earth 2 book, and Swamp Thing for the mystics, you could easily follow every scene."

So I guess he wants every scene to read like Crisis on Infinite Earths, where every line of dialogue is like, "Blue Beetle, come over here," and "Okay, Katana, I'm on my way."

bjtrdff, in response to someone who says Final Crisis #2 wasn't hard to understand, says, " Are you Grant's grandson, or did you just do cocaine before posting? It's not a matter of knowing who characters are, or that things are unanswered. It's the layout of the entire book, and the transitions."

Are these legitimate complaints? Do things need to be more clearly labeled? Are the layouts and transitions problematic? Do people who like the comic do a lot of coke?

CN: I can understand having problems with the transitions as is pacing here is very similar to that of Marvel Boy and the JLA story "Crisis Times Five," which most attribute to his working on 2000 AD where the page demands forced him to develop a very quick pacing that jumps from scene to scene and relies on the reader to fill in some blanks. I had some problems with those stories at first, but I got over it. I improved my reading ability and didn't blame Morrison because he was writing faster than I could keep up. And, before anyone says anything, I don't do cocaine.

As for the first complaint, would he have liked Final Crisis more if it had a page at the front like Secret Invasion that told you the name of all of the characters, which is all well and good but doesn't really tell you anything that meaningful? What does it matter if you know the name of a character appears for a couple of panels and is dispatched or if you don't? Does it make that big a difference? Does your reading enjoyment hinge on that small insignificance? That is a very, very, very stupid complaint. I'm sorry, but it is.

I am actually having a hard time with the complaints I read, because I've seen complaints where people attack the pacing or use of characters, and it's a case where what they say as a negative, I was about to say as a positive. It's like if you have two guys, one who likes girls with glasses and one who doesn't... there's no way one is going to convert the other to his way of thinking. Do we really need to be apologists for this book, Tim?

TC: On some level, I suppose we do, not just because of this particular comic, but because these complaints represent a frustrating level of ignorance about basic storytelling methods. I don't think it's purely just a matter of never-changing taste. I think it's a matter of certain readers not being patient, or certain readers not looking at what actually happens in the comic. I read a dozen comments speculating on which New God might be inhabiting Turpin's body, even though the story clearly indicates that Darkseid has taken Turpin's body after the events at the end of issue #1. Now that might be a misleading bit of suggestion in the comic, but that's the clear suggestion, and one character says it explicitly. Some readers still didn't know. So for me this is about helping people realize that a comic, even a superhero comic, might require a little tiny bit of effort to read, and that's not a bad thing.

I don't think the girl with or without glasses analogy quite works. It's more like someone thinking Saved by the Bell is better than The Office or something like that. That's not taste, that's just plain wrong. Okay, it's not that bad. Secret Invasion is maybe the best Marvel event ever, so I shouldn't criticize it just because some readers like that and not Final Crisis, but it chafes me when readers are both loud and ignorant. Although the reviews of Final Crisis #2 have been far more favorable than those for issue #1, so maybe the tide is turning.

CN: Firstly, which version of The Office and which version of Saved by the Bell?

Secondly, as I've said, I haven't seen as many negative criticisms of Final Crisis as you have since I insulate myself in a lovely little bubble of blogs of like-minded individuals. What I have noticed is that issue two has indeed been received more warmly, suggesting that the slow build is working. The consensus still seems to be "good Morrison comic, bad event comic," which I don't necessarily agree with, but I think is still a valid comment.

Thirdly, yeah, we really should make it clear that we like Secret Invasion and don't mean to slam it in an effort to defend Final Crisis. It's not an either/or choice with those books, which is what I think is partly fuelling some of the negative criticisms directed towards Final Crisis. What I want to know is why anyone would want Final Crisis to be more like Secret Invasion? Do we really need two identical books (despite quite possibly being about the same basic ideas)? Wouldn't people rather have two distinct books that tell the stories in their own distinct ways as the stories demand?

TC: I'm pretty sure any version of The Office is better than any version of Saved by the Bell, by the way. Unless you have different kinds of Saved by the Bell episodes in Canada.

I would think people would want two distinct books, and maybe they do and there's like six guys on the internet whining about "not getting" Final Crisis #2. So, I'm going to move on to a plot point question: Do you assume, like I do, that the bullet in the final image--the one Barry Allen is chasing (or being chased by--although I read it as chasing)--is the one headed for Orion in the past? Or do you think it's destined for a different target?

CN: We actually do, it's called Degrassi...

But, I didn't assume either possibility as correct, I just figured it could be either one and I'd wait until future issues to explain that. My first instinct was to assume it was heading for Orion, but since the other possibility is just as valid, I'd rather wait and see. I'm also unsure about the chasing/chased, but that's because the perspective on the art is unclear.

Is that, perhaps, a key to liking this book, that willingness to not get everything and assume that answers will come later? I think that goes hand-in-hand with being an attentive and careful reader, because not everything is meant to be understood right now. Some fans want it all right away and that causes problems for them, do you think?

TC: Probably. The ones who complain are the ones who, when you take them to a movie, constantly turn and ask, "who's that guy? What's he doing?" and you yell at them and say, "watch the damn movie and you'll find out!!!!" I think we all know people like that.

Final Crisis #1

Chad Nevett: Well, Final Crisis #1 has finally shipped after an entire year of build-up in Countdown along with DC Universe #0 and the sketchbook from a few weeks back. It has been a long, long wait for the reuniting of Grant Morrison and JG Jones to deliver what we hoped would be one hell of a crossover event. Now that it's here, what did you think, Tim? Was it worth the wait? Did it deliver? Are you anticipating the second issue with bated breath?

Tim Callahan: I don't know that I've ever anticipated a comic with bated breath. Except that Captain America Annual where he fought Wolverine. When I saw the Mike Zeck drawing for that cover, I could not wait to buy that comic. And, guess what, I never saw it in the comic shop! I have still never actually seen that comic, although I think the story is included in some Wolverine hardcover that I own, so I did eventually read it. But I have never seen the floppy version, and after all those years of anticipation and then disappointment--and when I read the story, I was even more disappointed, because it sure didn't live up to that Mike Zeck cover--I think I've become to jaded to bate my breath for anything. (Although I am unusually excited when I see that a new issue of Morrison's Batman is coming out, so there's some bate for you.) So, no, I won't be anticipating Final Crisis #2 with bated breath. But I did like the first issue quite a bit.

Here's what I liked about Final Crisis #1: the scope. Morrison is great at the huge, cosmic stuff, but he's also great with the small, street-level scenes. I like that this comic features both the Rene Montoya Question, Guardians of Oa, and the Monitors, all without feeling like one of those late 80s, early 90s crossover events where the characters all just hung out together. Like, here's Vigilante standing next to Firestorm getting ready to punch Time Travelling Robots from the Future. That may sound cool in theory, but those crossovers didn't make much sense for the characters. Morrison has each level of character maintain his or her own plane of existence withing the DC Universe. The Question talks with Dan Turpin, the Green Lanterns talk to eachother, the lame super-villains fight the lame super-heroes. The Monitors hang out and observe. Everyone has their place, and Morrison moved deftly between each layer. The layers may begin to overlap as the series moves forth, but I still doubt we'll get a scene where Rene Montoya punches a Monitor in the face. That's not what Morrison seems to be setting up here.

I also like that it's basically a detective story at first. And seeing the Green Lanterns actually acting like the space-cops they're supposed to be is a nice touch.

I also like that Morrison has made the Monitors more interesting, and more dignified, in just a few pages, then we saw in the entirety of Countdown.

And J.G. Jones's art was nice, especially in the opening sequence. But it looks a bit sloppier in the middle, doesn't it. Compare the Secret Society pages to the initial Anthro pages, and it almost looks like a different artist. Still good all the way through, but not as great as the opening.

Did you like the first issue as much as I did? If not, what's wrong with you?

CN: Of course I liked it. I liked it quite a bit, actually. It was exactly what I was hoping for: a Grant Morrison comic that uses the entire DC universe as the backdrop. I mean, this guy goes from the Stone Age to the last guy on Earth! He has the Guardians of the Universe and the Monitors of the Multiverse with everything between thrown in. As you said, he moves within these layers with ease, just dropping little bits of story on every page that will no doubt accrue over the course of the series.

What particularly impressed me was how unlike most big event books this was. I've read a few things online taking it to task for that--that it isn't new reader friendly or doesn't match up with continuity or relies on Seven Soldiers for a plot point or two... but since I am not a new reader, someone who cares much about recent DC continuity or ignorant of Seven Soldiers, I don't care. And neither does Grant Morrison apparently, because all he wants to do is tell a huge story of some sort that, let's be honest, doesn't require you to know all of that stuff anyway. Do you absolutely need to know who Anthro is? No, because that knowledge doesn't really add much since the important information is obvious: yeah, he's a caveman. End of lesson--and if you couldn't figure that startling piece of information out on your own, there's no helping you. Hell, Morrison does a better job at getting across who everyone in this story is, at their core, than I've seen in recent history. What better way to tell a new reader that the Green Lanterns are space cops than to have them ACT LIKE SPACE COPS? Or to get across the idea that the New Gods are very big, very important and much more powerful than regular superheroes than to have the superheroes treat them as such? The more I think about it, the more I realize that this is a very new reader-friendly book--it's just that the average fan knows too much and, weirdly enough, having too much knowledge gets in the way here. You have to accept what Morrison tells you rather than enter with your own preconceptions. Wait... did I just say that knowing too much hinders your reading of a Grant Morrison comic? What?

I am going to disagree about the art... except for the way Lex Luthor looks in the first panel he appears in. That is sloppy, but that's all that's sloppy by my eye. Although, those opening pages are gorgeous. That double-page spread is beautiful.

What did you make of the death of the Martian Manhunter? I thought it was a great match with the death of Orion, the "Dog of War" (although, Morrison casts him as the god of war, really) since Mars is also the Roman god of war. I wonder if we'll continue to see such doublings as the series progresses.

TC: I always get annoyed when people evaluate a book negatively because it's not something else. It's not "new reader friendly," and that's bad? Says who? New readers? I don't think new readers are saying anything, although I would like their opinion out of curiosity because, like you, I don't think it's new reader unfriendly anyway. And the Martian Manhunter death is getting flak on the internet because it wasn't a majestic enough death for such an important character. The death happened, "off-panel," some critics have said, and the Manhunter deserved better. First of all, I don't see how his death happened off-panel, since you can see him impaled by a flaming spear pretty clearly. Second, just because he deserves better doesn't mean he's going to get it. He's killed by SUPER-VILLAINS, not nice, sweet, kindly old farmers who care if he deserved better or not. His death is disgustingly under-emphasized because these guys don't value human life. Maybe instead of criticizing Morrison for under-playing the scene, readers should think about the effect of his under-playing it. What does it mean in the context of the story? Third, does anyone really think J'onn J'onzz is dead for good? Come on! He'll be back in a different form by the end of the series.

So, my recommendation to everyone is to read and interpret what's on the page, not to speculate on how it "should" have happened. Of course, I only really apply that approach to a few creators, but Morrison is definitely one of them, because I trust that his decisions have meaning and are not just examples of bad storytelling.

And I wouldn't be surprised by more doubling, of course, since we've seen so much already: Orion/Martian Manhunter, Anthro/Kamandi, Turpin/Green Lanterns, even Oans/Monitors, and the implication in DC Universe #0 that Libra/Flash are somehow doubled. Doubling? You bet.

What do you make about the Seven Soldiers connection? How does this story fit with what Morrison did in Mister Miracle? Do you think that contextual knowledge, while not necessary, would help figure out what's going on here? What's the deal?

CN: I saw those complaints about the Martian Manhunter stuff as well and immediately thought that had Morrison shown the entire death on panel, those same people would be complaining about another long, drawn-out murder of a superhero--the sort of complaint Geoff Johns gets a lot. But, people love to complain... I'm just always surprised when they complain this much about a well done comic.

I do think knowing what happened in Mister Miracle #1-4 and Seven Soldiers of Victory #1 helps, but isn't necessary. It is nice to finally see Mister Miracle make a bit more sense, though, as it was, by far, the least important of the Seven Soldiers series, and didn't tie into that story that much. It established the conceit of the New Gods manifesting themselves on Earth in the bodies of humans, which we see here. Seven Soldiers #1 shows where evil--Darkseid--actually won, but it's a subtle win and not required to see. As I said earlier, though, Morrison makes it pretty clear what's happening in Final Crisis, so I don't think Mister Miracle is absolutely necessary. At least, not yet.

To test my theory that this is new reader friendly, I gave this comic to my roommate, Adam, who reads comics from time to time. He's not a DC fan at all and hasn't read a DC comic in ages, but he's familiar enough that he seemed like a good test audience. Yeah, he had no idea what was going on. He followed some of the stuff well enough like the Orion scene, the Green Lantern scene, and the Justice League scene--but, the stuff involving Anthro, the Monitors and then Kamandi really threw him off. The Anthro/Kamandi scene especially had him wondering what was going on. And, some of the recent changes in DC like the Martian Manhunter's costume change or even the reintroduction of the multiverse did not make it easier for him. However, the Justice League scene that has people bitching over Morrison's little mini-revamp of the New Gods' role in the DC universe did go over well and established the New Gods as very powerful, mysterious and badass according to Adam. Some of his problems are problems he has with superhero comics in general, but, he did say, he would not buy the second issue. He also really, really hated Morrison's writing of the cavemen stuff since they were shown in camps with tools, but no fire--which is apparently very, very inaccurate. So, I guess I was wrong.

TC: You were, and so was I, because I read it to my son tonight, and he had no clue what was going on without me explaining everything (and saying "orrery" out loud repeatedly is pretty difficult!). So, it's not new reader friendly at all. But that's okay. I want stuff targeted to me anyway. I'm the one reading it, and your roommate and my son would never have picked it up without us saying, "here, try this as a guinea pig." I asked my son to rate it after we finished reading it, and he gave it 3 and a half stars out of 5. But, he gives everything 4 or 5 stars, because he's a little kid and lacks critical discernment.

I don't have a problem with the cavemen having tools and no fire, because it's not real cavemen. It's DC Universe cavemen, and the rules don't apply to them. They are above the laws of anthropology.

How do you think Final Crisis compares to the other big event this summer: Secret Invasion?

CN: Good question as I've been enjoying Secret Invasion quite a bit. But, that's also based on the Avengers titles that Bendis is writing, as well. It's really given the even more depth than it would have were I just reading Secret Invasion. It also has a couple of months on Final Crisis, but were I to compare the first issue of each... I'd have to say that Secret Invasion is a better event comic, but Final Crisis is just a better comic period. As you said, it's nice to have a book whose target audience seems to be me. Final Crisis is Morrison being Morrison without much attempt to pander whereas Secret Invasion is much more basic and easy-to-get-into. Adam, for example, read my copy of Secret Invasion #1 and had no complaints about not getting anything. It's a better book at being for everyone, while it seems from our experiences and the reactions online that Final Crisis is more for us Morrison fans who have read everything he's written for DC and a lot of his interviews, so we really get where he's coming from, what he's building upon, and what his intention is. I enjoyed Final Crisis #1 more than I enjoyed Secret Invasion #1--but Secret Invasion seems a better event for the masses.

Does that make sense and, more importantly, do you agree with my assessment?

TC: I do agree, and everything you say seems to perfectly encapsulate the differences between a Morrison comic and a Bendis comic. Bendis can wallow in self-reflexive dialogue and a lack of plot progression, but his stories are always simplistically structured and accessible. Morrison plays with structure and subverts expectations while molding traditional superhero tropes to fit his own personal concerns. I like Bendis, but I can't say that rereading Bendis's work adds anything that I didn't pick up the first time. Morrison, on the other hand, writes stories that work on multiple levels and reward a second or third reading of his entire run (on whatever). Secret Invasion is also more fun: Dinosaurs! Skrulls! Jive-talking Luke Cage! Mockingbird! And feels more like a summer movie. Final Crisis feels more like Watchmen. Not that it aspires to be Watchmen, or that it comes close to mimicking it in any way--but it has a gravitas to it, and it has a tightly-wound structure (and a murder "mystery") at its core. I'm just going to read the heck out of both series, and pretty much all their spin-offs too. I'm on the event train this year.

CN: Me, too, which is weird. How did Marvel and DC so capture the imaginations of two readers such as us? I never thought I'd see the day where I was reading both summer event books and really liking them. Who'd've thunk it?

TC: Either they're doing something right, or we have become soft in our old age. Probably both.