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.
Continued belowAlso 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.
Continued belowTo sum it all up, the final list is:
Animal Man
- Animal Man
- Origin of the Species
- Deus Ex Machina
Arkham Asuylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
JLA
- New World Order
- American Dreams
- Rock of Ages
- DC One Million
- Strength in Numbers
- Justice For All
- World War III
Flash
- Emergency Stop
- The Human Race
JLA: Earth 2
JLA: Ultramarine Corps
Seven Soldiers (in four volumes)
Batman
- Batman and Son
- The Black Glove
- Batman R.I.P.
Final Crisis
