Final Crisis: An Explanation, Part 2
Posted by: Alex Zalben on January 15, 2009 at 11:10 am
In Part 1, I talked for a very, very long time regarding what I think is wrong with Final Crisis, and promised that there was a counter-point to my point from a reader. Here it is, and I think it pretty effectively makes the case that I’m totally wrong (and, as a note, this was written before issue #6 came out):
It seems like your biggest complaint with Final Crisis and Batman: RIP is that it “feels off”. The odd transitions and unfleshed out scenes have been refered to as “sloppy writting”. We all know Morrison is anything but a sloppy writer, so what gives? Is he losing his touch?
Let’s look at his other recent works, All-Star Superman and his long run on Batman. All-Star Superman has never been effected by choppy cuts at all, so he didn’t get sloppy there. On first thought, it appears RIP is the first time we saw the choppy cuts in a very long run. After my theory occured to me, i went back and flipped through his whole run and started to realize that the sloppy cuts where, in fact, not absent, but getting progressively worse. This led me to believe that there is a reason for them. For now let’s call this reason “X”.
So Final Crisis finally starts, we’re at issue five now. Something feels off to a lot of people. Awkward. It doesn’t seem to flow. Go back through the issues and you’ll find a hand full of scenes that are not choppy in this jarring manner:
1) The opening scene with Anthro saving his village with fire from Metron.
2) When Jay Garrick is retelling the story of him and Wally chasing Barry through time.
3) Hal’s trial in the most recent issue.
What do these scenes have in common? None of them take place with in the main narrative of the story. Number one was well “before” the narrarative and events of X and Final Crisis; while Number 2 and Number 3 where outside them. How is this significant?
Towards the end of issue one, “during” the events of final crisis, Anthro has a vision of Kamandi and the end of time; like those two points in time have somehow been “bent together”. Also, notice this is another short choppy scene, even though the first one with Anthro is not.
Issue two had another big clue. Kamandi, the boy from the end of time is in the present, and a prisoner in Bludhaven.
Issue three had a lot of clues. The falling Supergirl from another Earth, and an Aquaman from the past.
Also remember Barry at the end of #3 stating that they somehow overshot the “present” and ended up three weeks into the future. If you picture time as a straight line with three equal distant points, A three weeks ago, B now, and C three weeks from now, the line was somehow compressed so that C was at the position B should have been. One major hint I missed was the compressing of time.
Now, in issue five it is revealed that Darkseid’s “impacting with earth” has shattered the space time continuum around Earth. This event is X.
Weeks smashed into days.
In the first issue we see that Darkseid is in the form of Boss Dark Side from Seven Soldiers. So Darkseid’s “impact with Earth” was way back then. That means space/time has been crumpling since Seven Soldiers. Read space time as Continuity. Read Continuity as DC editors. Morrison has just provided us with a brilliant, in story retcon of everything any fan boy has complianed about over the last handful of years. So and so seemed out of character, or such and such was a dumb idea. You’re right. It was never supposed to happen. It only happened because Darkseid’s fall effed up space/time.
Now for the actual structuring of his books. The short choppy scenes which everyone seemed to be upset about. THAT WAS THE BIGGEST CLUE OF ALL!!!!
If you read comics for ten years in real time, how much time has passed for your characters? A month? Maybe two? How do you convey the idea that time is being scruntched together without spoon feeding it to the reader with a sloppy narative bubble? You take the standard convention that three month’s worth of issues could happen in a single day. You compress three weeks worth of in-story events into a single issue. You only show the reader a “highlight reel” of events happening in warp speed. The flaw in space/time was centered around Earth, so the Oa scene played out in “regular” comic time. Jay’s retelling of chasing Barry took place outside the time stream so it played out in “regular” time. The opening with Anthro was before Darkseid’s fall, so it played out in regular time.
Look at All-Star Superman: It did not take place on this world where space-time was in Crisis. The scenes played out more classically. Batman, on the other hand, became more “rushed” as space-time unraveled.
So when you say it feels off, or not right, or like it just missed the mark… You’re right. Morrison has just proved his brilliance beyond any shadow of a doubt, by making you feel like something was wrong with the story and not knowing what it is.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts on it. I’d love to here what you guys think, even it means sending me back an e-mail that says “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Thanks,
Matt Schneider
Nope, Matt, that’s certainly not the dumbest thing I’ve heard at all. In fact, I think it pretty much hits right on the mark. What do you guys think? Agree with me? With Mark? Have your own takes?
9 Responses to "Final Crisis: An Explanation, Part 2"
1 | Andrew
Matt, that makes a ton of sense! I honestly couldn’t figure out what was going on a lot of the time. Im going to read FC over again, with new eyes, and hopefully I’ll be able to get it more then I have before. And you know what, screwed up as this series and it other titles have been, I cannot wait for #7, just to see how this crazy train ride ends…it might be bad, might be good…til then, lets hope Legion of 3 Worlds actually comes out soon :(
2 | Eric
January 15th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Holy sh*t. If Grant Morrison did all this on purpose, he’d be a genius and an idiot at the same time. Smart, because of the complexity of it all, but dumb by leaving himself one issue to explain all this.
Personally, I want Anti-Monitor rise from the grave and eat Darkseid and threaten to absorb the universe. Truly, the Crisis-s were better when Anti-Monitor was a dick and Pariah was a whiny prat.
3 | Jrrd
So, basically, just wait for the Trade is what’m hearing.
I kinda find it funny there’s only one dude who knows what this is about. Even still, reading the explaination makes me wonder what the point having of all the readers wade through that kind of confusion.
5 | Robert
As interesting as all that is, here’s me problem with it. It’s still made for a lousy read. While I can appreciate Morrison’s experimentalism, it’s still read on a month by month basis. Now this might all work really, fantastically well in the context of a long form collection, on a monthly basis it sucks.
I’d also like to point out, that until the last issue comes out, this is all hypothetical conjecture. If that last issue fails to support this, or fails to convey the ideas properly, then what was the point?
But since the thesis is heavily supported (though no other writer has mimicked this gimick in the course of the tie-in series), I’ll go ahead and not argue about whether that was Morrison’s plan all along. However, all of Alex’s points still stand and the fact that Morrison failed to properly clue the reader, and other writers, in on his plans during the course of the series. While it is a noble failure, it is a failure all the same.
6 | S
January 20th, 2009 at 12:56 am
I agree with Matt’s interpretation. I’m pursuing that the aspects of the birth of the Fifth World are an antithesis to the Big Bang. So instead of an explosion, it is an implosion so time and light are drawn in (pun? no?) hence the quick scenes. I might also add it’s also quite emblematic of the symbol for Apokolips.
This whole situation reminds me of when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko were discussing the identity of the Green Goblin and Stan preferred it was someone Peter already knew because it made more of an emotional impact but Ditko balked at the idea because he thought it was implausible.
Morrison always has great ideas and concepts but in this case the concept has begun to outweigh the plot. If anyone picked up the Final Crisis preview, from a personal standpoint it was exciting to see all these character designs and their annotations of who they were and how they fitted into the DC world. But as of reading Final Crisis, I see none of that which I find frustrating. As readers we have to remember “time is compressing bla bla bla.” I want to care for the characters, if I care then I’m enjoying the story. But because time is speeding up, there are brief snippets of each character which deflates their arc and the feeling is nonplussed.
I hope Morrison proves us wrong in the final issue and makes settles the head scratching because I don’t want to fork out money for the trade if I have to.
p.s. How come Darkseid gets a headstart in this birth of the Fifth world, what about the Light father?
p.s.s. it’s all kind of like that Futurama episode where time intermittently skips forward.
7 | Rubato
I agree with Matt. The way Final Crisis is written is a stylistic choice. Meant to represent the chaos and anti-order that reigns in earth, and to specifically play on the reader through the manipulation of external tempo. Maybe we’ll eventually find out the particular explanation Matt came up with to explain said stylistic choice is not “on the mark”, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a reason. As Matt said, Morrison is a great writer, he’s not gonna make stupid mistakes like failing to use the medium effectively. That would be akin to Godard using the wrong transition between scenes, or taking the wrong shot.
Also, i’ve red various complaints regarding how “there’s no emotional pay-off” and whatnot, and how we can’t relate to the characters and all that stuff, but i mantain that FC is not a character piece. Its a story about the DC universe, about mythology, not about any particular character in it. I just think ppl are trying to take it the wrong way. The emotional feedback in a character piece does come from the emotion conveyed by the specific characters, but in this scenario the emotional pay-off comes only from the distinct situations those same characters are put through, and not through those characters but because of them. It has to do with their alegoric (symbolic) and specific meaning as oppossed to their relative humanity. Its not through empathy, because the story is not about them, the story uses them, though. And this story has some of the most potent symbols ever to draw upon, so no wonder its such a huge space-opera-kinda superhero epic.
Also, superheroes are not suppossed to be relatable, im tired of superheroe’s being “realistic” and “plausible” and “real life” and all that other pseudo-deconstructionist stuff, its been done to death already, and hollywood does it better than comics, so comics need to focus on what they can do best: Epic superhero comics! sci-fi to the extreme. But thats only my personal view on the matter.
So anyway, back on topic, i just think people are taking this comic the wrong way. And although i may or may not disagree with Matt’s specific take on why Morrison wrote FC the way he did, his conclusion is still one i totally agree with.
8 | Essej
If the space time thing is right, All I am saying is when you mess with space/time continuum, things are bound to get screwed up and there are going to be inconsistencies and plot holes. Think about movies which mess with the concept. How many plot holes and inconsistencies can you find?
9 | Matt
Glad you all dug what I thought. One other thing that bugs me about reviews is the comments about emotional payoff and wanting to see superheroes in a superhero epic. Are you kidding me? The entire book has been about the strength of the human spirit being more powerfull than even the most outlandish super human.
What body won’t fall apart when Darksied posseses it? superman’s? Captian Marvel’s? No, dan Turpin’s. Why? becuase he has faced evil as a cop… rapist, murders and worst. He doesn’t have Superpowers, he’s in danger in a gun fight with a criminal. But he still hasn’t lost his humanity facing true evil. darksied had to make him submit. The end of issue four was ahuge emotional impact because Turpin submitting to Darksied was humanity giving up.
The sheer strentgh of Batman’s humanity alowed him to escape the lump, fight off a terror specifically designed for him.
Darksied’s minions are systematically hunting down the big guns, Supe’s, martian manhunter, Wonder woman, because he’s over looking humanity. Who’s going to stop him? Renee Montoya.
Yes, the martian Manhunter was killed almost off panel. Like his death didn’t matter. That was the point. his death didn’t matter. Humanity is stronger than superhumanity. Wipe out all the Superheroes and mankind will still percivier.
