After months of pestering, the powers that be at BSI (which I’m guessing is that plastic fertility God on the counter) have finally submitted and let me post on the  BSI website.   And this will probably be the last time they make that mistake.

Just sayin’.

I figured now would be a good time for me to finally get around to discussing Final Crisis.  There are two reasons for this: 

1. Enough time has passed to be sufficiently unbiased about the story and its ramifications.
2. At this point it won’t affect Jason’s sales, so he can’t really get mad at me.

There’s a famous line in theatre that says ‘if you’re going to fail, fail spectacularly.’   Congratulations Grant Morrison. The combined wonder twin powers of Jeph Loeb and Rob Liefeld laugh at you.  

So how bad is Final Crisis?  So bad that DC Comics has literally tried spin-doctoring the fallout.   While at Mega Con in Orlando, both Dan Didio and Mark Waid responded to all questions about FC with the following line: “Final Crisis is a much better story when you read it in trade form.”   Which may be true.  But that’s sort of like buying a sandwich that fell on the floor and then being told by the server that it would have tasted better had he rubbed it under his armpits first.

When asked if Morrison was on drugs while writing the story, Waid replied to the rougishly handome questioner (me) that Morrison had not been medically enhanced for some time.  Which leads me to one of two conclusions.  Either Waid is in deep denial about  his friend’s problems, or Morrison is just completely bat-guano insane… and may in fact believe himself to be Batman.

It was supposed to be the culmination of everything Grant had worked on since his career took off.  And more specifically, it was to be the ultimate chapter in the Crisis trilogy of the last 7 years. Instead it may have been the coupe de gras that killed interest in the Crisis brand.  To call these similarly named events a trilogy is a bit of a stretch.  Each has been thematically very different from the next.  Identity Crisis was a pulp inspired detective story, that introduced a shadier element to the mostly squeaky clean Silver Age heroes of the DCU.  It also served to explain why Batman was such a jackass.    Infinite Crisis was just a big sprawling action story that tried to reconcile the continutity flaws of the past two decades since the original Crisis.   And Final Crisis… I.. I’m not really sure what the frak that was about.

Jokes aside, Final Crisis is exemplary of everything that was wrong with 90′s comics and didn’t even feature women with giant breasts to soothe our pain.  This is what happens when an editorial staff doesn’t do it’s job; when an A-list talent is allowed to get juiced up on goofballs and just do anything (and literally everything) that crosses his mind.  There were about 3000 times when the editor of this story should have rolled up a wet newspaper and smacked Grant on the nose and said NO!  BAD MORRISON!   

Lets look at some of the more egregious acts commited.

• The time traveling bullet.  Whhhhhhhhyyy did it need to travel through time?  Anyone?  No?  Me either.
• The first and last boy on Earth.  What did they have to do with anything?  They were just there.
• The Super Young Team!  Okay, they were kind of awesome.  But they didn’t do anything.  They were just there.  It’s kind of a pattern with characters in this story
• The much balleyhooed (as opposed to hooplahed) return of Barry Allen!!!!  He… he ran fast.  Really fast.  And had a Stand By Me moment with Wally.  Which touched me deep in my cold, black, beef-clogged heart.
• The magic “Superman can do anything” machine which Brainiac all along had access to, but never used despite the Crisis in the year 3000 that they had just gone through which would have saved a lot of lives.  The story ends with Superman wishing the Universe back to life.
• How did Darkseid get the Anti-Life Equation?  Wasn’t he dead?  Is that how you get it?  By dying?  Well then why didn’t he get it the other 3 times he… you know what?  Screw it.
• THE VILLAIN DOESN’T SHOW UP UNTIL THE LAST FEW PAGES AND WE DON’T KNOW WHO HE IS!

That may be the worst story error of all.  Yes, worse than Superman’s literal Deus ex Machina.  In order to fully understand and appreciate Final Crisis, you absolutely HAD to read the 2 part Superman Beyond story which Morrison also penned.  The only problem with that is that its an even worse story than Final Crisis.  At least I can give you the gist of what went on in FC.  I read the first issue of Superman Beyond about five times and still have no idea what was going on.   All I know is that Nazi Superman and Communist Superman weren’t bad guys.  Is that even allowed?  Aren’t we morally obligated to make all Nazi’s seem at least mildly annoying in stories?  Add to that the fact that SB was also another experimental 3-D issue.  I didn’t use the included 3-D glasses based on the superstitious belief that the combination of story and 3-D goodness would give me an instantaneous stroke and send me into a Morrison induced coma.  So I never bothered to read part 2.  And never saw the intorduction of the villain behind the curtain.

Now that the story is over, I think it’s pretty clear we’re all just going to have to forget about it.  In terms of story repercussions, there aren’t a whole lot.  Batman is (temporarily) dead.  So is the Martian Manhunter.  Barry Allen came back (but apparently Geoff Johns is the only one who cares).  Thats about it.

Looking back, I think that the only way I would have been satisfied with Final Crisis is if they had ended it with the only logical ending I can think of.  Superman holds the withered, fried corpse of Bruce Wayne.  Super tears flood his supercheeks.  And he kissed his best friend tenderly on the lips and whispers “I wish I knew how to quit you.”

Admit it. You’re crying right now, just thinking about it.