p.1 - This has nothing to do with President Obama. Not a thing.
p. 2-3 - And there's a Black Wonder Woman called Nubia. Not a Jack Kirby reference, but definitely an early-70s DC one.
p. 4 - Well, at least Renee didn't say "A whole %#$@%$ Multiverse and they all look like you people." Still, I thought Renee was clearing the path to settle a new reality - not gather the shock troops to save it.
p. 5 - When did Power Girl start growing her hair long again?
p. 6-7 - Okay, so Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Captain Marvel and Supergirl make a time capsule for humanity, telling the story of the final battle and it's nominally the one we are reading right now. Is that why this doesn't seem to be making sense? Reality warped it in transit?
p. 8 - This is a good line. "You turned your back and I wrecked your world. I robbed your people of their powers, their hopes, their future themselves. What will you do when your friends, your enemies, your lover are all Darksied? When there is One Body. One Mind. One life that is Darksied. Will you be the enemy of all existence, then? What irony that will be, Son of Krypton."
p. 9-12 - So... The Flashes guide The Black Racer to Darksied, as he fires the god-killing bullet that goes back in time to kill Orion. So since Batman got the bullet AFTER it killed Orion... where did the bullet come from in the first place? And what the hell does Aquaman's prophesied return have to do with any of this?
p. 13 - Heroes and Villains, working on building something while trying to find a Life Equation. Presumably The Miracle Machine Superman was given a glimpse of last issue. But when are they doing it? Post Darkseid's death? Another world?
p. 14-15 - Here's Checkmate going down in flames and the Japanese superhero team going through a Boom Tube... somewhere.
p. 16 - And here's Supergirl telling stories to a bunch of kids, about what is going on. They look as confused as I feel.
p. 17 - At least we didn't get a full-on splash-page parody as we see Ubermensch mouring the death of Uberfrauline. (NEEEEEEEEEEEIN!)
p. 18-19 - And thus did Frankenstein show up on a giant dog to beat up Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor showed up save Superman, uniting Good and Bad in a war against Evil. But what the heck is all this about a bacteria that strips away superpowers? That wasn't mentioned anywhere in the last six issues!
p. 20-22 - Ah, okay. The kids Supergirl and Wonder Woman are talking to are being stored... somehow... to be revived later, along with Lois. Somehow, Superman is going to use The Miracle Machine to fix everything later. And Wonder Woman somehow got un-Darkseid Zombified and used her lasso to tie the guy up without hurting him.
p. 23 - So Superman sings the Life Equation into the machine and uses that to kill Darkseid. Or reverse the effects of the Anti-Life Equation. Or something.
p. 24-25 - We're sorry Mario, but your princess is in another castle. And Darkseid's plot was all a build up to the appearance of Mandrakk. Yes, Mandrakk.
Not Marduk. Not Mandark. Not Mandrake. Mandrakk.
p. 26 - Annnnnnd, the Green Lanterns FINALLY show up.
p. 27-28 - And it's the League of Supermen. Kinda.
p. 29 - And then it turns out that one guy is The Monitor of the Universe and he uses his powers to summon what appears to be The Legion of Superpets of Earth 35, The Armies of God and... Captain Mother%#$ing Carrot!
Somewhere, Scott Shaw! is smiling.
p. 30 - Maybe now that Marvel is writing Samuel L. Jackson out of all their movies, Sam can get hired to play the Monitor in the Final Crisis animated movie? Because who else could say "No one #$%% with the judge of all evil." the same way.
p. 31-36 - So basically, The Monitors write themselves out of existence, having decided the best way to prevent their interference is to not exist at all? And Superman wound up using The Miracle Machine to put everything back the way it was so that none of this ever really happened. And Earth 51 is now officially the home of every crazy ass thing that Jack Kirby ever thought of that doesn't fit into mainstream continuity. Works for me.
p. 37-38 -
Yes. Batman is not dead. But we already knew that.
I flipped thru it in the store. The whole thing felt like snippets of a half-dozen good stories. It would have been nice if Grant had PICKED ONE to write about for Final Crisis. Still the appearance of Captain Carrot, PigIron and the Poodle I can't remember the name of was pretty damn cool...
ReplyDeleteIs that Kal-L's rocket? And old man has a Metron motif?
ReplyDeleteWho is really surprised that Batman isn't dead? *lol*
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The crazy part is that based on the Newsarama interviews, he had MORE ideas that are going to be developed in other projects and he kept throwing ideas out in the hopes that some other writer would develop them into a series.
ReplyDeleteSeriously - that's his hope for Shilo Norman and the Super Happy Japanese Wannabees or whatever they were called.
Alarmingly, a large number of people who apparently missed it two weeks ago when Darkseid said The Omega Sanction wouldn't kill Batman. :P
ReplyDeleteWell, Metron DID give him the gift of fire. Makes sense he would honor him the only way he knew how.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's a Krypton designed rocket. Dunno if it's the same one.
Those "Superpets" were the Zoo Crew. They've been transported to New Earth in that Ark miniseries.
ReplyDeleteI think the rocket was the time capsule they sent out. Now, what Batman was doing there, I don't know. Was his corpse included in the capsule?
I don't understand much of Final Crisis, but I seriously want to reread it again. Somehow, not getting everything in one sitting is okay with me, especially since I've been used to literary analysis in college, but I guess other comic book fans aren't as used to it.
*I* am Batman!
ReplyDeleteNo one ever plays with Grant's characters. I think Azael got some play in "Shadowpact". And I guess in "Suicide Squad" when they made Grant a character briefly to get killed by werewolves. Though I think he resurrects himself as one of the Ultramarines in the JLA: Secret Files arc. Where he may or may not of died again...
ReplyDeleteNot to mention nobody did anything with Aztek...
ReplyDeleteI am Superman. I can do anything.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see the Ark miniseries.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure the time capsule IS the rocket and that was Kryptonian design - NOT the actual rocket they sent Kal-L in as an infant. I don't think Batman's body was in there though.
And yeah... it needs more analysis. And for me to have read a lot more books I didn't really care about the first time around, apparently.
Oh yeah? My movie was better!
ReplyDeleteOnly if you don't count movies over 30 years old!
ReplyDelete