Sorry, rest of the internet: Final Crisis is not good. There’s been some pretty fabulous reviews for Final Crisis #6, and I’m still willing to give the whole series the benefit of the doubt, storywise, once I see how it pans out in issue #7. But as a series? As individual issues? It is incoherent.

Now, before you all flip out, I’m not saying I don’t understand what’s going on. I’ve levied the complaint before that it, “makes no sense,” and I don’t think that’s actually what I mean. I mean the actual definitions of incoherent, at least according to my online dictionary:

1. Lacking cohesion, connection, or harmony; not coherent: incoherent fragments of a story.
2. Unable to think or express one’s thoughts in a clear or orderly manner: incoherent with grief.

Yup, that about hits the nail on the head. The story, as it were, doesn’t hold together, and is not expressed in an orderly manner. I’m going to post a pretty good explanation why from a viewer of the show down below, but to keep this post coherent, I’m first going to list some explanations as to what I think is going on with Grant Morrison’s writing:

1. It Was Written By a Five Year Old: I remember lining up all of my action figures and making them fight when I was a kid. It was the coolest thing ever, because Transformers would take on He-Man, Star Wars vs. Thundercats, and lording over them all was… An all powerful Cabbage Patch Kid. But this isn’t my point. My point is, this is what most crossovers are like; however, Final Crisis seems to exacerbate the problems of this nature of storytelling. It usually goes something like this: “Okay, so Mary Marvel and Supergirl are fighting, and then Black Adam is a total badass, but Mary Marvel beats him up! So cool! Meanwhile, Green Arrow is fighting Black Canary… In space! But Batman is all like, I’m gonna get you Darkseid…” You get the picture. It’s all over the place, and services one section of what fanboys want (fights), but not what good storytelling wants (emotional payoff). Which brings us to our next explanation of what’s wrong…

2. It Was Written By a Robot: Where’s my f-ing emotional payoff??? Barry Allen’s death was anointed with the tears of a thousand fanboys. His return is… Nothing. We did get a short scene with Iris Allen, which was nice, but for the most part, every character is like, “Oh hey Barry. You outrun death? Cool, let’s stand around in this living room.” The much ballyhooed Martian Manhunter death scene was of course, marred by occurring in a tiny off hand panel in the corner of a page. This was part of the point: death is often sudden and unexpected.

But in Final Crisis #6, the same thing happens, essentially. After more than a year of Mary Marvel sinking into darkness, Freddy’s brilliant idea is to turn her back into a human by saying Shazam. Which they could have done 58 issues ago. And, the whole thing happens, again, in tiny panels. This doesn’t nearly provide the emotional impact it could; instead, the whole thing feels rushed. This is endemic throughout the series… Every moment feels robbed of any emotional impact by the clutter of the panels and the stiffness of the dialogue. By the way, first person who says that Morrison just writes like a robot all the time gets hit with my copy of We3.

3. It Was Copied Out of Grant Morrison’s Idea Notebook: The one thing Final Crisis has going for it is great ideas. Morrison has always been the big idea guy, and every few pages or so, there’s a really cool comic book idea, that could easily be fleshed out into its own series. However, they all happen without (or, hardly any) connection to each other. The Fifth World is coming. Braniac 5 built a god machine. A bullet travels back in time. Darkseid is creating a gravity well in space. All neat ideas, but it’s almost like someone got their hands on Grant Morrison’s notebook of ideas, and is just running down them in order. A lot of the praise for this series has focused on calling it “Grant Morrison’s Greatest Hits,” as he revisits ideas from his JLA run, Seven Soldiers, Batman, and more. But just like when you take the hit singles out of the album they premiered in, they doesn’t necessarily re-cohere into a whole.

4. It Wasn’t Written by Grant Morrison: This is by far the most disturbing, yet, sadly, most likely option. Morrison has been public about his distaste for DC’s handling of the series feeding into Final Crisis, and how they conflict with the plot he laid out. Because fanboys have an inherent need for continuity, it makes sense that DC editorial is, how shall we say… Tweaking the story to fit in a little better with the rest of their books. I know blaming editors is the first thing we all jump towards, but I actually don’t blame them: DC has a business to run, and they have to make sure their whole product line is strong. I would bet that there’s two things going on:

- DC has been silently tweaking aspects of Final Crisis to make it fit in more with continuity.
- Consequently, Grant Morrison has stopped caring.

By which I mean, the tweaking may be by Morrison’s hand, but I don’t think it’s his story anymore, at least not 100%. It never is, when business comes into play, but chances are that it’s a combo of the two above items that lead to the checklist nature of the book, the robotic-ness of the writing, and the general incoherence.

So those are my thoughts… One last thing before I go. Up top, I said that Final Crisis was not good. That does not, inherently, mean it is bad. I don’t think it’s bad, actually, at all. It has a good writer, and a good artist, and is printed on high quality stock. It’s well made; it’s just not good. And I think that’s where some reviewers are having a problem, making that distinction.

I know I promised you a viewer response, but this is running long, so I’m going to put it in another post. Thoughts? Comments? Complaints?