A Crisis of Chronology: The DC Universe According to Grant Morrison
- Posted by Walter Richardson on Sunday, February 21, 2010
Welcome to the first article of the weekly A Crisis of Chronology, where I pick a character/writer/event/what-have-you and fill you in on what to read so that you can go from start to finish with as little confusion as possible. The world of comics (particularly the mainstream) can be hard to follow, but once you have a basic outline to follow then you can usually fill in the gaps. That all being said, follow the jump and find out how to "properly" enjoy your Final Crisis experience.
Just like its writer, Grant Morrison's Final Crisis was a highly polarizing work. The flaw with Final Crisis, however, was not in its writing; rather, DC's promotion and presentation of the book had it doomed from the start. As it was promoted as DC's big event of 2008-2009, many readers called foul on the title for making little to no sense, simply because DC had failed to mention its heavy reliance on his previous works. As you wouldn't read and criticize the last Harry Potter novel without reading the six preceding it, so should one read all that lead up to Final Crisis before passing judgement.As it was his first work for DC, the best place to start with Grant Morrison is his run on Animal Man. It requires little prior reading (though having read Crisis on Infinite Earths may help with one part of the story), and introduces you to many of the themes present in the rest of Morrison's work, as well as introducing the reader to the realm of Limbo (which plays a crucial part in Final Crisis: Superman Beyond). Plus, its simply a cool read. Animal Man has been collected in three trade paperbacks.
From Animal Man we move to Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Those familiar with the title might be confused with me including an out-of-canon story in this list, but it is my opinion that the graphic novel serves as a metamorphosis of Batman from the gritty hero of the 80's into the character that Morrison later uses in his runs on JLA and Batman. This belief, I feel, is supported by the newly-released script revealing that (Spoiler) it was all a dream. Additionally, it introduces an important aspect of the Joker's character that Grant relies on heavily later down the line, and so, canon or not, I feel it is integral to Morrison's later Batman stories.
We skip ahead six years to the relaunching of JLA. The storytelling in JLA is superb, and the ending arc in particular shares many thematic elements with Final Crisis. Morrison also does an excellent job of acquainting the reader with Jack Kirby's New Gods, a group that (in my opinion) hadn't been handled properly since Kirby's original Fourth World saga, and who also play an important part in Final Crisis. Morrison's JLA is collected in six trade paperbacks, and is now being released in oversized hardcovers as well.In the midst of JLA comes DC One Million, one of the best handled crossovers published in quite some time. Unfortunately, the current trade is missing out on some issues that are pretty helpful towards telling the story, though it shouldn't be too difficult to fill in the gaps. Hopefully since Morrison's JLA is being reprinted readers can look forward to a more complete collection of this great tale being released (a man can dream). DC One Million occurs between trades three and four of JLA.
Also written around the same time was Morrison's brief run on The Flash with co-writer Mark Millar. While the events in their run occurred chronologically between the various JLA stories, since no stories in either JLA or Flash rely on knowledge of the other, it is perfectly acceptable (and recommended) to read them separately. While it isn't completely essential to Final Crisis, Morrison's Flash is heavily alluded to in the parts involving our favorite speedster. Morrison and Millar's collaboration has been collected in two trades. Be prepared for good old Morrison-y extra-surrealism.
Next comes the graphic novel JLA: Earth 2, the first on our list with the otherwise frequent Morrison collaborator Frank Quitely. This is a fun little story wherein Grant recreates the silver-age Crime Syndicate, which consists of evil alternate-universe counterparts to the JLA. The idea of traveling to alternate universes is a common theme in Morrison's work, and the reader will definitely be seeing plenty of Ultraman in Final Crisis: Superman Beyond. Learn more about it in Gil's recommendation.Following JLA: Earth 2 is JLA: Ultramarine Corps, which is collected in a single trade. Another fun stand-alone story, Ultramarine Corps centers around C-listers that have to take charge once the Justice League goes missing. The characters of The Knight and Squire later become important supporting characters in Morrison's Batman, and the story itself serves as a prelude to the next title, Seven Soldiers.
Seven Soldiers of Victory is next, and boy is this one a doozy. In my opinion, this is Morrison's most technically impressive work, due to the intricate connectivity of the seven separate miniseries that make up this monster of a megaseries. The Mr. Miracle mini in particular is very essential to the plot of Final Crisis, but the whole thing is (to quote Matt) "so eff-star-star-kay-ing good" that you should go pick up all four volumes. Right now. Read Matt's review to find out more.
Before we get to Final Crisis we have Morrison's run on Batman, which was the run that truly made me a comic fanboy. Grant had been developing the character of Bruce Wayne in the team-up books of JLA and the like, and finally had his chance to write the series he had been dying to get his hands (and gloves) in. Read Matt's great recommendation, though I would skip on the third of the four trades (The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul) as it doesn't have a big effect on the rest of the run. And don't read Last Rites (in the back of the R.I.P. trade) just yet!We have finally arrived at Final Crisis, the most misunderstood event I can think of. Another problem in the presentation of Final Crisis by DC was in how the Morrison-penned tie-in, Superman Beyond, got very little promotion even though it was essential to the story. Thankfully, the lovely hardcover Final Crisis was released in contains both this and the other tie-in (Submit) that Morrison wrote. However, before reading issue six of Final Crisis I recommend picking back up your Batman R.I.P. trade and reading the two-issue Last Rites that I told you to skip earlier so you may fully enjoy the saga the way it was meant to be enjoyed.
Sure, this list doesn't include everything written by Grant Morrison that is set in the DC Universe (there is a startling lack of Doom Patrol, after all), but I feel his other titles don't necessarily contribute to the overall tale he has been weaving since Animal Man. The only thing that I would possibly add to the list is 52, since it deals with the multiverse heavily, but I feel there is so much in 52 that doesn't contribute to Morrison's work that you can really skip it (in the context of this list) and fill in the blanks with his Batman run (anyways, you should have already read 52). Nor am I saying that it is absolutely necessary to read everything prior to enjoy Final Crisis. However, if you have read it before and not read one or more of the titles I listed, I urge you to read at least one of them and then reread Final Crisis. It gets better every time.
To sum it all up, the final list is:
Animal Man
- Animal Man
- Origin of the Species
- Deus Ex Machina
JLA
- New World Order
- American Dreams
- Rock of Ages
- DC One Million
- Strength in Numbers
- Justice For All
- World War III
- Emergency Stop
- The Human Race
JLA: Ultramarine Corps
Seven Soldiers (in four volumes)
Batman
- Batman and Son
- The Black Glove
- Batman R.I.P.
Walter Richardson is a staff writer for Multiversity Comics, Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico. If it's in a creative medium, be that comics, literature, music, or anything in between, he probably has something to say about it.
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16 comments:
Three cheers for saying Final Crisis was good and the critics were at flaw! While I feel that's not the best argument to make, I 100% AGREE WITH IT, hahaha.
...I loved Final Crisis.
Also, while it's not written by Morrison, Countdown to Final Crisis does help, considering a lot happens in there (even though most people hate it). 52 probably should be read, but like you said it's not necessarily needed. You should just read it because it's great anyway.
If you did a list of all the things you needed to read to understand all the Crisis stuff in general, 52 and Countdown would definitely need to be on it.
While I agree with 52, I still think Countdown should be avoided at all costs. Morrison and Johns pretty much wrote DC Universe #0 (unfortunately not reprinted in a trade) so you didn't need to read Countdown before reading Final Crisis (at least that's what I've concluded due to interviews in such). It's too bad it started out with such a good idea, because now I fear that due to Countdown's poor sales and reception we will never get a good title that consists solely of multiverse adventuring.
Weeeeell, Countdown has that stuff with Superboy Prime, as well as Mary Marvel's corruption and the death of Bart Allen is connected to it as well. There are some things that you "need" to know in order to help make FC make more sense, but they're not by Morrison.
Blast, I forgot about Mary Marvel's corruption. Other than that, the rest is just semantics over what you need to know and what you "need" to know, which people will always disagree with each other over. I concede your point though.
Yeah, Mary Marvel as a villain is the biggest thing. And Darkseid prepping his army, but that was seeded through a lot of different titles, like the stuff with the Crime Bible and the Dark Side Club. But see, this is what I adore about Final Crisis. In comparison with the "big three," FC was a story about stories. He tried so hard to find all these different stories and weave them together into one large uber-inter connecting DCU, which is something DC has always tried to do. They fully believe that every damn little thing is interconnected, which is why they have events like the Crisis events (i.e. Crisis on Infinite Earths, which straightened out continuity and then Infinite, which helped open it up again). So you've got Morrison, who loves every book ever (see: his Batman run) and he's like, "alright, now I'm going to reference EVERYTHING EVER!" Hahahaha. It was epic.
I mean, to partially understand Final Crisis, you have to read Captain Carrot, so.... :-)
Well duh, hasn't EVERYONE read Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew? hahaha
Hahaha, it's pretty ridiculous.
Honestly, I could talk Morrison all day!! But I think, in the end, this comic sums it up better than I can:
http://comiccritics.com/2009/02/20/final-confusion/
ohh boy!! this list could easily scare a newcomer. and i don't see how his JLA/Animal Man are crucial to understanding of final crisis apart from letting us know his style of writing. and then, i agree that final crisis is highly misunderstood and might have garnered more appreciation if it wasn't named "FINAL CRISIS". but credit to DC for turning it into best event that ever took place in comics. all those tie-in's are of very high quality (although they do not support the main title directly) and i loved each and every single one of them.
looking forward to many more multiverse stories by morrison.
Here's my central problem with Final Crisis: you shouldn't have to read it in concert with other titles in very specific order to get the full experience.
Morrison's recommended reading order is:
Final Crisis #1-3
Superman Beyond #1-2
Submit
Final Crisis #4-5
Batman #682-683
Final Crisis #6-7
That't great. Final Crisis should have been 12 issues long and they should have called that Final Crisis. As is, the series as a whole made little to no sense. Even if you did throw in the proper order, I couldn't get through the interminable dreck that was Superman Beyond.
All in all, I am not a Final Crisis fan. I think that it fails at its core concept: to tell a story. If you read Final Crisis (by itself) you are missing large chunks of story that are hidden in other issues...that is not how a comic should be written.
Nice write up assuredly, and it's cool that you targeted the proper order if you want to experience it fully. I'd prefer Morrison to tell one logical narrative that didn't involve Superman saving the world by singing.
Well, first off it wouldn't be very "Morrison" if you didn't have to read 50 things before it, now would it? Hahahaha. My favorite thing about Morrison is that he's so complicated, but that's just me.
And second, Superman didn't save the world! The Green Lantern Corps did with their uber stake construct, duhhhhhhh
I definitely get what you're saying, David, and have often wondered whether Morrison purposefully broke it up that way or if DC originally wanted Final Crisis to only be 7 issues long and Morrison was able to wiggle in a couple of tie-ins so he didn't have to compress the story any more than it already was.
As for what Killboi said, I suppose the importance of Animal Man is debatable, but I feel it is just a great way to get in the proper mindset. I disagree with you on JLA though, seeing as it introduces the concept of superheroes as the heralds of the Fifth World (which an integral part of Final Crisis).
Note to self: Pick up all of the titles I don't currently own.
It's only about...18.
Haha, yeah, these will all be a bit lengthy (wait until I do one on Batman). But I'm spurred on by the thought that there have to be other suckers for continuity out there!
Right?
Oh, absolutely. I really enjoyed this article. While is may be daunting, I think this will be really helpful for people trying to make sense of some of the more difficult titles to penetrate.
As for David, I liked Superman Beyond. He can suck it.
I think 52 directly relates to Final Crisis. Off the top of my head the birth of 52 Universes, and the somewhat undarkening of Batman. Play a part in his Batman run and Final Crisis.