Grant Morrison’s run as writer of “JLA” was the book that hooked me on comics, and I’ve loved most of his other DC work. Even though I bought the “Final Crisis” issues years ago, I never got around to reading them. It’s a work that seems to be more polarizing than Morrison’s generally loved “All-Star Superman,” or “JLA.” “Final Crisis” was Schrödinger’s Comic for me; there wasn’t a chance I would dislike it if I never read it. DC is currently publishing another big event series, “Dark Nights: Metal,” and it has multiple elements that are clearly homages to “Final Crisis,” as well as Morrison’s other DC work. It gave me the push I needed to finally go back and read Morrison’s opus.
Cover by J. G. Jones.Written by Grant Morrison
Art by J. G. Jones, Doug Mahnke
Colored by Alex SinclairWhat happens when evil wins? That’s the question Superman, Batman, the Justice League and every being in the DCU have to face when Darkseid and his otherworldly legion of narcissistic followers actually win the war between light and dark. Featuring the deaths and resurrections of major DC characters, FINAL CRISIS is more than your average multi-part event-it’s a deconstruction of Super Hero comics and a challenging, thought-provoking take on the modern, four-color icons.
Morrison is an aggravating creator. When his special blend of obscure comic history references, stream of consciousness dialogue, and frantic pacing all click, it becomes something really special. “JLA,” “All-Star Superman,” “New X-Men,” etc. all hit that sweet spot. Sadly, “Final Crisis” doesn’t quite get there. There are definitely moments that get close within the series, and its Morrison-penned tie-ins, but those stand-out moments become buried under the rest of the near-impenetrable storytelling.
The story starts off as a straight-up mystery, before pivoting halfway through to a cosmic epic. Events kick off when Orion turns up murdered on Earth. No weapon or suspect is found. It’s quickly revealed somehow the New Gods of Apokolips have inhabited human bodies and are deeply intertwined with Orion’s murder. Darkseid is doing Darkseid things, and trying to turn Earth into a new Apokalypse with plans to kill pretty much everyone currently living there.
I should mention now I read through the new/absolute edition of the event, which compiles the main issues along with all of the tie-ins written by Morrison. The extra issues are crucial to understanding what’s happening in certain parts of the main series, even if they throw off the pacing a bit. Here is how they are ordered in the collection:
- DC Universe #0
- Final Crisis #1-3
- Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1-2
- Final Crisis: Submit #1
- Final Crisis #4-5
- Batman #682-683
- Final Crisis #6-7
I applaud anyone who stuck with this series when it was coming out in single issues. The first three issues jump around way too much, making it hard to figure out what’s going on the whole time. It felt like Morrison was trying to shoehorn every single DC character into the narrative somehow, and not in an organic way. Most scenes don’t last more than a couple pages, which can definitely work, but there isn’t very good connective tissue between them to keep the reader from getting discombobulated. There are so many new characters introduced we’re not given anyone to really follow. Detective Turpin somewhat serves that role, but again, he only appears sporadically, and for short amounts of time.
Beyond #1 - Morrison sets
the scene.
Morrison’s dialogue quality runs the gamut. There are truly special sections, and then there are other times when it’s just nonsense after nonsense. Luckily the verbiage doesn’t shift tone out of nowhere. It fits, as much as possible, with what’s being depicted. For example, Morrison’s words are poetic when he’s making some meta commentary about superhero history: “We used to fight in the alleys. Guys these days fight in the clouds.” Another excellent moment is his use of prose-like captions in the first “Superman Beyond” tie-in. He describes time freezing in the hospital before Lois Lane’s last heartbeat, “The whole perfect structure of existence is ringing like a wine glass.” You can almost hear that ringing after reading those panels. But the Superman issues are also where he provides some of the most impenetrable sections. I get that a “book with an infinite number of pages, all occupying the same space” is going to be a bit of an oblique read, but the retelling of what ends up being Mandrakk’s origin is extremely hard to follow. It completely undercuts his eventual reveal at the end of the series. There’s no weight to it because the reader doesn’t have a solid understanding of his significance.
Continued belowSpeaking of the infuriating ending, I don’t know that I’ve seen a deus ex machina used so many times in quick succession. First, Superman knows to sing a specific note to finally get rid of Darkseid. That in turn reveals Element X, the magical substance that provides the missing piece to Superman’s wishing machine. He then just wishes everything back to normal. Well, except for Martian Manhunter and Batman’s lives, because . . . reasons. It was not a good way to lead into the reveal it wasn’t actually the end of the series, and everyone still had to fight Mandrakk.
Throughout the book, it felt like there was an ongoing disconnect between Morrison and the various artists. There are several times in the story where something very significant happens, but I didn’t even realize the full weight of it until several pages later when the characters were talking about it. A prime example of this is Martian Manhunter’s murder. Even though he’s in one of the opening battles, it’s not really clear how that fight ended, and that it was actually him being brought to Libra to drive a spear through. Once I reached the page of Manhunter’s funeral, I first just assumed that he had died in another comic and they were just referencing it. It wasn’t until I had gone to Wikipedia to find out where it happened that I realized what occurred just pages before. There are several other moments in the series where I also had to flip back a few pages to verify what had happened.
At first glance, the list of artists that worked on the book might be alarming, but it actually wasn’t too distracting. Apart from the Batman issues, everyone pretty much followed DC’s “house style” and because of Morrison’s frantic pacing, it provided a natural way to switch between the fill-in artists and initial artist J. G. Jones. The cohesion between artists was also helped by having Alex Sinclair coloring all of the main series. There were only a couple instances that the transitions stood out. Jones’s preference for black panel borders and everyone else’s preference for white was a little jarring at times, and the transition to the spread of Batman’s “death” didn’t flow well from the panels leading up to it, although the spread itself was amazing.
page. Right: J. G. Jones plays with the nine-panel
grid.
To be honest, J. G. Jones was probably the weakest part of the art in “Final Crisis.” He’s a master of hero poses, as evident in his incredible covers, spreads, and splashes. But his regular panel work is just okay. Most pages are just four to five rectangular panels without very static layouts. He does play with the nine-panel grid for a few pages to good effect, but it was only once. Starting the collection off with Doug Mahnke in “DC Universe” #0 didn’t help with the comparison either. The first page is already playing with perspective in relation to the panel layout. Even with those complaints, J. G. Jones still drew my favorite moment of the whole series: Barry Allen’s return. That splash page closing out issue three is just epic, from the abject terror on Barry’s face to Black Racer right on his back to the crazy time warp background.
This story was a slog, but I’m still glad that I finally read it. It’s a significant piece of DC history and there are plenty of little moments to enjoy without needing the story to actually make sense. It also gives me a whole new lens to read “Dark Nights: Metal” through. There are several fun parallels between the two, like the fact they both start as a mystery before pivoting to a completely bonkers concept once the whole thing is revealed. I won’t, however, be returning to “Final Crisis” any time soon. Getting through it one time was a chore, so I can’t imagine going through the whole thing again. Grant Morrison swings for the fences with every story, but this one was a big miss.
