Comments on: Final Crisis: An Explanation, Part 2

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:04:52 +0000

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.

By: Essej

Essej — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:19:13 +0000

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?

By: Rubato

Rubato — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:21:27 +0000

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.

By: S

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:56:19 +0000

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.

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:38:44 +0000

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.

By: John

John — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:58:49 +0000

SPOILER: Matt is Grant Morrison.

By: Jrrd

Jrrd — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:33:29 +0000

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.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:07:38 +0000

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.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:08:31 +0000

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 :(