Final Crisis Concepts: "Evil Winning"

[Spiffy]

There's so much talk about Final Crisis going on, but I thought it worth exploring one idea in particular--the notion of evil "winning".

For me, I'm curious how this is supposed to work.

Then again, I never quite got how it worked on Apokolips either.

Follow my logic here for a bit...

Philosophically its an interesting scenario. How would the world work if evil was the default, if bad was like good and good was like bad, at least in some senses.

Its the actual physical accomplishments that puzzle me. Perhaps this is explained better in New Gods comics I haven't read, but I don't see how evil CAN work as a long-term prospect.

Evil kills. Which means you slowly whittle down your population of slaves. Evil hurts, which means they get weaker and more ineffective... until they die.

If you are an effective evil warlord, it almost seems as if you are doomed to suffer from the eventual consequences of entropy. You can breed new slaves, but we have to swallow a pretty big pill to accept that they can replace the dead or injured on any equitable schedule. And in the world of Final Crisis, we've been told that the New Gods can't invent, they can only adapt. So even a miracle fix like cloning is unlikely to relieve their need for slaves, because while the DCU has some amount of cloning, it seems to be a pretty hit or miss proposition, which would require human free will to improve and perfect.

In the real world we have some examples of "evil" holding its own for longer than we expect. We can read tales, for example, of how Saddam Hussein terrorized his own people and yet had a firm grip. How Kim Jong Il rules with an iron fist, and yet seems to not be short of resources. But realistically are these admittedly evil men ULTIMATE EVIL? Darkseid is supposed to be Ultimate Evil. The level of suffering would seem to be so much greater that I don't see how all limits of human endurance wouldn't be exceeded for those living under him. It might take a long time, but it seems like it would eventually be a losing game.

Discuss please. I'm sure there are a ton of holes in my conclusions, and I won't take it personally if you bash on them a bit.

[Jack Zodiac]

Look at Morrison's own Earth-2. There, Evil is intrinsically greater than Good, and thus the entire universe reflects that, from its societies to its superheroes. We're seeing that now on our Earth in Final Crisis. That's the metaphor.

The actual, physical, working universe of "evil" is no different than that of "good," except that everything is controlled by the ruler. On Apokolips, this was seen in Darkseid's orphanages, armagettos, and fire pits, where the weak were used like cattle to fill the orphanages with new meat to confuse and subjugate, and the weakest of them were killed to make room for the strongest to be tortured into submission and hardened in the fire pits to become Darkseid's elite. That's where Granny got all of her girls, like Barda, and where Apokalips' heroes were born, like Scott Free and the Hunger Dogs.

That was before he even had absolute control. Now, with the Anti-Life Equation, he can break and control all of humanity. All of Life, essential. With that level of control, he could make anyone on Earth do anything he wanted. He'd probably tire with toying with us long before we'd even come close to naturally dying out.

[Ogre U AHole]

Well, the conquering evil either spreads, as Darkseid has spread his evil to Earth, or it just destroys and decays what it's conquered til there's nothing left.

To evil, nothingness = victory?

[Samuraixsithlord]

I think the idea of evil "winning" is pretty self destructive.

Darkseid should have watched Star Wars or read some Machiavelli before he tried to take over the world.

You can't control a nation/world by oppressing the masses and strength of arms. Sure the Ant-Life equation is a powerful tool, but it's not omnipotent from what is being shown.

[Spiffy]

I think the idea of evil "winning" is pretty self destructive.

Darkseid should have watched Star Wars or read some Machiavelli before he tried to take over the world.

You can't control a nation/world by oppressing the masses and strength of arms. Sure the Ant-Life equation is a powerful tool, but it's not omnipotent from what is being shown.
See, even with Ultimate Evil, I'd appreciate some more subtle subtext. Ultimate Evil comes off as horrifying to me, sure, but in an odd way also kind of boring. Torture, torture, death, death, etc, etc.

If there was another level (and maybe there is and I just don't know it) that Darkseid was simply jealous of his inability to CREATE, and convinced he could do a better job, then maybe that would break things up a bit. The most interesting villains, to me, aren't moral vacuums, they are deluded and jealous. "I could do it better", they think. "I might have to break a LOT of eggs to get it done, but in the long term they'll thank me for it".

I have some vague recollection that maybe this was part of Darkseid's motivation at some point. But I'm not sure I'm seeing it in the current story, where he's basically a replacement for The Devil. But even The Devil, in many versions, thinks he can do Gods job better than God and got called out for it (in the versions where he isn't simply another servant of God, who has the most unpleasant job).

[Samuraixsithlord]

I have some vague recollection that maybe this was part of Darkseid's motivation at some point. But I'm not sure I'm seeing it in the current story, where he's basically a replacement for The Devil. But even The Devil, in many versions, thinks he can do Gods job better than God and got called out for it (in the versions where he isn't simply another servant of God, who has the most unpleasant job).

Are we talking about the actual Lucifer or the Entity that most modern christians have made up to represent evil?

Original Lucifer wasn't evil at all. He was created by God to test the faith of Mortals and to question his will. He was considered a "fallen" angel because he walked the earth. He wasn't evil at all, he was called Light Bringer because he revealed the light of truth that is god to mortals.

[Spiffy]

Are we talking about the actual Lucifer or the Entity that most modern christians have made up to represent evil?

Original Lucifer wasn't evil at all. He was created by God to test the faith of Mortals and to question his will. He was considered a "fallen" angel because he walked the earth. He wasn't evil at all, he was called Light Bringer because he revealed the light of truth that is god to mortals.
Yeah. That's the version who's just another (much maligned) servant of God. But the Devil's been reinterpreted in many ways since then. Sometimes he's supposed to be some kind of "balance" for God. Sometimes he's a rebel tossed out on his ass. Sometimes he's a competitor, and sometimes a pawn.

But back to Darkseid. Forget the parallel to the Devil if that confuses things. To me, the way out of the paradox of the self-destructive nature of evil would be if the character claimed that evil acts were only necessary to bring about a new order. Maybe a lot of stuff can be thrown at a wall to make the world of Darkseid able to control and/or replace its cogs as needed (or at least until he grows bored with us) but ultimately that seems to limit the story--at least for me.

Of course there are some deep concepts than can be explored no matter what. Forget Darkseid for a moment and let's talk about Luthor. Apparently he's been cowed. But the best versions of Luthor usually contain an oddly heroic layer inside a selfish exterior (admittedly with maybe another selfish layer BELOW that, but more on that in a second). Not ALL versions of him, but the best most readable ones. In this revealed world of evil, I hope we get to see a Luthor who's working from the inside to reverse things. Because Luthor at least pretends to be a humanist, exactly the kind of person I spoke about who claims that the evil acts are only necessary to lead to a better more noble world. Of course, Luthor has been caught out in the past as someone who's using that as an excuse to cover his own selfish need for power, but FC could be a way to show that maybe on some level Luthor DOES actually believe this--and he's horrified at what's actually happened.

[Jack Zodiac]

Wasn't there a bit about Darkseid wanting to remake the Fifth World in his image? Maybe that's the set up. Anti-Life lets him control Life in preparation for whatever he has in store for the Fifth World, whether it's using Earth and humanity until it dries up and dies, or creating his new brand of Hell on Earth, building a bigger, bolder Apokolips.

[Samuraixsithlord]

Of course there are some deep concepts than can be explored no matter what. Forget Darkseid for a moment and let's talk about Luthor. Apparently he's been cowed. But the best versions of Luthor usually contain an oddly heroic layer inside a selfish exterior (admittedly with maybe another selfish layer BELOW that, but more on that in a second). Not ALL versions of him, but the best most readable ones. In this revealed world of evil, I hope we get to see a Luthor who's working from the inside to reverse things. Because Luthor at least pretends to be a humanist, exactly the kind of person I spoke about who claims that the evil acts are only necessary to lead to a better more noble world. Of course, Luthor has been caught out in the past as someone who's using that as an excuse to cover his own selfish need for power, but FC could be a way to show that maybe on some level Luthor DOES actually believe this--and he's horrified at what's actually happened.

Well Luthor sees himself as a hero, who wants to make the world a better place (and to get a little piece of it himself) to him Superman is the villian because while Superman saves lifes, in Luthors mind he does nothing to make their lives better. He treats the symptoms of the worlds ills instead of the disease.

What's worse is that he even stops people like luther, who believes that his actions will ultimately make the human race stronger. You understand what i'm saying?

Does Darkseid have a reason for what he's doing other then acquiring more power? To me Darkseid is a slaveto his desires just as much as his slaves are.

[Jack Zodiac]

I think that's, for the most part, true. Darkseid's primary motivation has always been to control. Now he has control, so I guess we'll see what he does now that he's finally gotten what he wanted.

[Buried Alien]

Forget Darkseid for a moment and let's talk about Luthor. Apparently he's been cowed. But the best versions of Luthor usually contain an oddly heroic layer inside a selfish exterior (admittedly with maybe another selfish layer BELOW that, but more on that in a second). Not ALL versions of him, but the best most readable ones. In this revealed world of evil, I hope we get to see a Luthor who's working from the inside to reverse things. Because Luthor at least pretends to be a humanist, exactly the kind of person I spoke about who claims that the evil acts are only necessary to lead to a better more noble world. Of course, Luthor has been caught out in the past as someone who's using that as an excuse to cover his own selfish need for power, but FC could be a way to show that maybe on some level Luthor DOES actually believe this--and he's horrified at what's actually happened.

Your observations on Luthor speak to something I've thought about as well. In the DCU's darkest hours, when even Superman seemingly can't save the day, it's often been Lex Luthor who has been the turning point that ultimately saved humanity. That salvation usually doesn't come from a Luthor (in his various Multiversal incarnations) out of pure altruism, but it nevertheless often proves the DCU's saving grace.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Samuraixsithlord]

Your observations on Luthor speak to something I've thought about as well. In the DCU's darkest hours, when even Superman seemingly can't save the day, it's often been Lex Luthor who has been the turning point that ultimately saved humanity. That salvation usually doesn't come from a Luthor (in his various Multiversal incarnations) out of pure altruism, but it nevertheless often proves the DCU's saving grace.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Has it been said that Luther has been taken over by the ALE? I could fully see him leading the resistance against Darkseid. I know some of the Society members got away.

[Samuraixsithlord]

I'm really interested were the Joker is at.

A friend of mine mentioned that The Jokers theorized Super Insanity could allow him to throw off the ALE's control?

It'd be Ironic if the Joker was the one to help lead to the salvation of mankind

[Adam C]

Philosophically its an interesting scenario. How would the world work if evil was the default, if bad was like good and good was like bad, at least in some senses.

Its the actual physical accomplishments that puzzle me. Perhaps this is explained better in New Gods comics I haven't read, but I don't see how evil CAN work as a long-term prospect.

Evil kills. Which means you slowly whittle down your population of slaves. Evil hurts, which means they get weaker and more ineffective... until they die.

Well there's the problem. You're examining Darkseid's evil in terms of real-world physics and science, when he's not real-world evil. He's meant to be a representation of the concept of eeeeevvvvviiillll and duly reflects that. Recall that the character was created by Jack Kirby as part of an attempt to create a modern mythology. What is mythology? It's a collection of stories for a particular culture that interpret the universe and the nature of humanity through supernatural events. In that sense Darkseid isn't so much an alien warlord as he is a powerful embodiment of the concept of evil. So it does not matter that in the real-world evil is a dead-end, because this is fantastical fiction operating according to the logic of myth, which is metaphoric. Apokalips, or Earth under Darkseid in this case, should not be taken as a functioning eco-system, but rather a fictional representation of what a world run by evil would look like. In other words it's less like Arrakis in Dune and more like Hell.

[Buried Alien]

I'm really interested were the Joker is at.

A friend of mine mentioned that The Jokers theorized Super Insanity could allow him to throw off the ALE's control?

It'd be Ironic if the Joker was the one to help lead to the salvation of mankind

Joker was sort of promised a large (heroic) role in INFINITE CRISIS, but in the end, all he got to do was execute Alexander Luthor after Alex had already been defeated. Maybe this time, in FINAL CRISIS, it'll really happen for the Joker.

It'd really be funny if he did it with help from Jason Todd, of all people.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Spiffy]

Has it been said that Luther has been taken over by the ALE? I could fully see him leading the resistance against Darkseid. I know some of the Society members got away.
Luthor was offered a chance to join voluntarily, or as a drone. We didn't get to see his decision, I believe.

In this Crisis, I think Luthor would have to pull hard duty if he's going to be part of the solution. As a voluntary servant of Darkseid, he'd be in place to secretly help a resistance movement. So he wouldn't be a leader, but a spy. A tough road for him if it happens, but it would be a great moment for (when written properly) a character who can be one of DC's most complex.

I'm really interested were the Joker is at.

A friend of mine mentioned that The Jokers theorized Super Insanity could allow him to throw off the ALE's control?

It'd be Ironic if the Joker was the one to help lead to the salvation of mankind
It would indeed be ironic, but (at least to me) it just doesn't fit the Joker.

Luthor, at heart, is a rational if frequently bad man. He's even beholden in a way to a concept that of all of the New Gods, is best represented by one we KNOW is neutral instead of evil (or good)--Metron.

Joker is irrational. It would be hard to craft a story where he gives a prolonged strategic response.

Well there's the problem. You're examining Darkseid's evil in terms of real-world physics and science, when he's not real-world evil. He's meant to be a representation of the concept of eeeeevvvvviiillll and duly reflects that. Recall that the character was created by Jack Kirby as part of an attempt to create a modern mythology. What is mythology? It's a collection of stories for a particular culture that interpret the universe and the nature of humanity through supernatural events. In that sense Darkseid isn't so much an alien warlord as he is a powerful embodiment of the concept of evil. So it does not matter that in the real-world evil is a dead-end, because this is fantastical fiction operating according to the logic of myth, which is metaphoric. Apokalips, or Earth under Darkseid in this case, should not be taken as a functioning eco-system, but rather a fictional representation of what a world run by evil would look like. In other words it's less like Arrakis in Dune and more like Hell.
Understood. And I don't even disagree with you. I just think that there are limits to how far you can take a story about Ultimate Evil. Even if its NOT doomed to long term failure, it still seems at risk at becoming boring. The struggle is the thing, of course, and I think layers of motivation also add more for a reader to react to. In a purely mythological stories, we really don't typically get to SEE Evil win, so the limits of how long it can stay interesting are kind of unexplored territory. But I have a feeling, well at least an opinion, that it wouldn't be that long.

[Adam C]

I have some vague recollection that maybe this was part of Darkseid's motivation at some point. But I'm not sure I'm seeing it in the current story, where he's basically a replacement for The Devil. But even The Devil, in many versions, thinks he can do Gods job better than God and got called out for it (in the versions where he isn't simply another servant of God, who has the most unpleasant job).

Well he's a god, so again it's metaphor. Here's want Grant had to say about Darkseid in the Final Crisis Director's Cut script though:

Dark Side's awful face, emotionless, titled back so that he gazes down his nose at us and begins to remove his little shades. His hatred is without emotion, a cold, utterly inhuman and destructive thing. Nothing is real in his world but Darkseid. He would feel perfect if it weren't for the whole universe hating him, so he obviously has to bring the universe into line with his viewpoint or he'll never feel comfortable. Darkseid has no experience of love, tenderness, or sorrow. He is monstrously, sociopathically at odds with all free, living things. Everything that is not Darkseid is a thorn in his side and must be converted. Only when the whole universe is an expression of Darkseid's will can it ever feel comfortable to him. He does terrible things because...he MUST.

There it is: hatred, envy, raging egomania, selfishness, vanity, etc., etc. all wrapped into one and abstracted to the core. That's evil (in our very modern understanding of it) as an idea. The Devil's a bit different since he grew out of an older idea of evil which involved betraying the community for your own selfish needs and not knowing your place in the world. In terms of modern sensibilities there's a bit of that, but more prominently the desire to control others for not lining up with your views (just look at great Dictators of the twentieth century).

In contrast, we have Lex Luthor. I think that he will wind up horrified by all this because Luthor's evil is human, rather than monstrous. He just wants to destroy superheroes, not the planet he grew up on. And this is why Luthor actually has the capacity to do some good.

Anyways I imagine that Luthor decided to swear allegiance to the Crime Bible, and is now looking for an opening to stab Libra and Darkseid in the back and undo this. (Provided they erect a gold statue in his honour and rename Earth Lexor! :biggrin: )

[Samuraixsithlord]

I like what they're doing with Darkseid. He's almost like one of Lovecraft's great old ones. Grant makes him utterly inhuman. I also like the fact that Darkseid to his own needs

old Darkseid was just a petty despot who got his ass handed to him by Superman alot.

[Spiffy]

In contrast, we have Lex Luthor. I think that he will wind up horrified by all this because Luthor's evil is human, rather than monstrous. He just wants to destroy superheroes, not the planet he grew up on. And this is why Luthor actually has the capacity to do some good.

Anyways I imagine that Luthor decided to swear allegiance to the Crime Bible, and is now looking for an opening to stab Libra and Darkseid in the back and undo this. (Provided they erect a gold statue in his honour and rename Earth Lexor! :biggrin: )
And even if we disagree on the nature of Darkseid, and what might make him most interesting, I think we agree on Luthor. And I could certainly accept that as a substitute, more than accept it actually, because it opens a story hook I find (potentially) particularly poignant and interesting.

If this story simply paves over Luthor and ignores him, I'll feel a real loss. On some level Luthor, as selfish as he's ultimately been revealed to be under his cloak of humanism, IS righteous. I appreciated that Morrison already showed that Luthor had to be strongarmed to fall in line, but I think it needs to be taken a step further and then we'll have something interesting. Many of the other villains in the DCU I could see buckling under, but not Luthor. His ego, although all too human, is too vast. And that's how we "like" him.

[Magneto Rocks]

The above description of Darkseid from Morrison is perhaps the best one I've ever read and so perfectly encapsulates the Darkseid we saw throughout the original Fourth World saga. Morrison.... okay, yeah, I'm certain, he's the second creator ever to work on Kirby's stuff (After Kirby, obviously) and really 'get' it perfectly. (The first being Simonson)

[Ghost of Mars]

FWIW, I remember Darkseid stating in the Martian Manhunter series that everywhere he looks in the universe, he sees chaos and abhors it. In order to eliminate chaos, the universe must be brought under the control of a single will. His will, naturally.

As for the Joker resisting the ALE and leading the resistance, I like it. There are many powerful/resourceful villains in the DCU who would not want to see Darkseid prevail: Joker, Luthor, Sivana, Mongul, Prime. If the heroes were to fail against Darkseid and the villains defeat him it could reasonably be said that "evil" won.

Am I reaching?

[berk]

The bit of Morrison's script directions quoted by Adam -Dark Side's awful face, emotionless, titled back so that he gazes down his nose at us and begins to remove his little shades. His hatred is without emotion, a cold, utterly inhuman and destructive thing. Nothing is real in his world but Darkseid. He would feel perfect if it weren't for the whole universe hating him, so he obviously has to bring the universe into line with his viewpoint or he'll never feel comfortable. Darkseid has no experience of love, tenderness, or sorrow. He is monstrously, sociopathically at odds with all free, living things. Everything that is not Darkseid is a thorn in his side and must be converted. Only when the whole universe is an expression of Darkseid's will can it ever feel comfortable to him. He does terrible things because...he MUST.- reminds me obliquely of a bit of Kirby dialogue from the end of Forever People #5:Sonny Sumo: What's our next move?
Mark Moonrider: To free the others held captive here. ...
DeSaad (viewing the scene on a monitor): Great Darkseid! You saw! You heard!
Darkseid: You know, DeSaad, I must admit they have a point. We MUST be what we are! And of course - that's the pity of it.
Darkseid: It's the very core of our conflict! To fulfill ourselves - we must kill them. Kill them! Kill them!! And take Sonny Sumo! I want the Anti-Life Equation!I always found this self-awareness, this ability of Darkseid's to elevate himself above the drama and view the participants in that drama, including himself, and their actions dispassionately, to be one of the things that made the character so interesting. I don't think I recall anyone ever following up on it, though.

[Paul McEnery]

The bit of Morrison's script directions quoted by Adam -- reminds me obliquely of a bit of Kirby dialogue from the end of Forever People #5:I always found this self-awareness, this ability of Darkseid's to elevate himself above the drama and view the participants in that drama, including himself, and their actions dispassionately, to be one of the things that made the character so interesting. I don't think I recall anyone ever following up on it, though.

Hang on.

So Darkseid needed Sonny Sumo to get the ALE.

And now Sonny's all wonky.

Boy, colour me slow.

[40footwolf]

I think that, based on his character in "Rock of Ages", Darkseid doesn't really care about domination or whatever. He just wants everyone to be as fucked-up and miserable as he is.Hence, his obsession with the Anti-Life Equation.

[Anodyne]

Hang on.

So Darkseid needed Sonny Sumo to get the ALE.

And now Sonny's all wonky.
When I first read this post, I interpreted "ALE" as ale (the beverage) and "wonky" as "drunk." :tongue:

[berk]

Hang on.

So Darkseid needed Sonny Sumo to get the ALE.

And now Sonny's all wonky.

Boy, colour me slow.Yeah, me too.

It would have been interesting to see a Seven Soldiers Sonny Sumo in which Darkseid attempted to exploit (or neutralize?) Sumo's connection with the Anti-Life Equation, just as in SS Mister Miracle we saw him try to pre-emptively eliminate the threat represented by Shilo .

But going by what was done to Shilo in SSMM, and to Sumo and the Forever People in Kirby's Forever People series, I suppose we could speculate that the Omega Effect, which once sent Sumo back in time to feudal Japan, has somehow been employed to send him to a world/timeline in which he remembers nothing of his previous encounters with the New Gods (because they never happened in that timeline?).

I think Morrison has said someplace or other that we eventually will find out why Shilo doesn't remember Barda and Scott Free, and, presumably, why Sonny doesn't recall the Forever People and Darkseid and so on.

[Sean Walsh]

I think Morrison has said someplace or other that we eventually will find out why Shilo doesn't remember Barda and Scott Free, and, presumably, why Sonny doesn't recall the Forever People and Darkseid and so on.

I recall Morrison saying that we'd find out why Sonny was back in the present day, but I think that was it.

Didn't know (or even notice) that he and Shilo don't recall their connections to folks like the Forever People and Scott Free. Interesting.

Also - is it just me or has the subject of Scott & Barda been completely MIA in the Final Crisis planning & sketching that we've seen so far? Lots of New Gods are coming back and getting revamped looks - but nothing regarding the former Mr. Miracle and his bride. I really hope there's something planned, because otherwise we'd have to take DOTNG as their final chapter. :-/

[Magneto Rocks]

I recall Morrison saying that we'd find out why Sonny was back in the present day, but I think that was it.

Didn't know (or even notice) that he and Shilo don't recall their connections to folks like the Forever People and Scott Free. Interesting.

Morrison mentioned both, and that they're connected. To quote him-

"Sonny Sumo, who by all rights, went back in time and lived and died in feudal Japan is suddenly running around with a Shilo Norman, who doesn’t remember being Scott Free’s apprentice. What gives? "

And I'm with you on Scott and Barda. Two of the most interesting characters in the entire Fourth World mythos, completely missing in action? Both characters are FAR too good to go out like this, so even if we don't see them in Final Crisis, I'm sure we'll see them again before too long...

[Rio_de_Janeiro]

is not representable in lucifer... it is something deeper, in the bible, way beyond lucifer and hell.... it's the knowledge by those who are not saved, that there is NO hope at all for salvation, nada, zilch, kaput.

that's what i consider ultimate evil...a life ordinary like ours, but with no hope for anything better, nothing. there is no need to expect because nothing will ever come *shudder*

[Sean Walsh]

And I'm with you on Scott and Barda. Two of the most interesting characters in the entire Fourth World mythos, completely missing in action? Both characters are FAR too good to go out like this, so even if we don't see them in Final Crisis, I'm sure we'll see them again before too long...

I'm hoping (against hope?) that they'll be reborn..................as humans.

It'd make perfect sense (Scott basically gave up on the Fourth World years ago when he turned down the chance to be Highfather; and Barda always stuck with Scott no matter what) and also make for an interesting story, somehow (they're finally happy, but both miss the superheroics and powers in their own ways)

[mdg1]

I'm hoping (against hope?) that they'll be reborn..................as humans.

I could actually see that.

Good one, bro.

[Adam C]

Are we talking about the actual Lucifer or the Entity that most modern christians have made up to represent evil?

Original Lucifer wasn't evil at all. He was created by God to test the faith of Mortals and to question his will. He was considered a "fallen" angel because he walked the earth. He wasn't evil at all, he was called Light Bringer because he revealed the light of truth that is god to mortals.

You may be confusing Lucifer with "Satan" (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=270&letter=S) which was originally simply a word meaning adversary that also applied to an angelic accuser that tested mortals for god. 'Lucifer' is a latin word that was applied to a story of a Babylonian king who fell, which was later transformed into the story of the rebel angel. Eventually he was conflated with the accuser character creating the Devil of Christianity.

[Sean Walsh]

I could actually see that.

Good one, bro.

Let the "letter writing as 7-year old children" campaigns commence! Comic people always listen to those! :biggrin:

[misterbonesy]

I'm really interested were the Joker is at.

A friend of mine mentioned that The Jokers theorized Super Insanity could allow him to throw off the ALE's control?

It'd be Ironic if the Joker was the one to help lead to the salvation of mankind

That would be fun! Therefore, I doubt if Morrison would go in that direction as he does his best to keep "fun" out of his comics. So far, it looks like Shiloh Norman, Sonny Sumo, and the Japanese team are leading the charge...and now Freddy Freeman? Who cares about any of these C and D-listers? FC is making COUNTDOWN look better and better with each issue.

[LtMarvel]

What if Final Crisis is evil wins?

Darseid ruling Earth is the standard quo. New Earth is forever under his rule.

Our comics now come from Earth-1.

How would that ending fly?

[Samuraixsithlord]

What if Final Crisis is evil wins?

Darseid ruling Earth is the standard quo. New Earth is forever under his rule.

Our comics now come from Earth-1.

How would that ending fly?

New Earth is classfied as Earth 1 if i'm correct.

Furthermore thats stupid. DC would never just throw out years of stories like that. It would be a finactial disaster.

[A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.]

That would be fun! Therefore, I doubt if Morrison would go in that direction as he does his best to keep "fun" out of his comics. So far, it looks like Shiloh Norman, Sonny Sumo, and the Japanese team are leading the charge...and now Freddy Freeman? Who cares about any of these C and D-listers? FC is making COUNTDOWN look better and better with each issue.

Are you kidding? I don't know of any writer of superhero comics that's as fun to read as Grant Morrison. As for FC being full of D-list characters, I think that's something that DC is wise to pursue. The reason Marvel is doing so much better than DC is that Marvel has a large and decentralized universe of characters where not every big event has to depend on two or three main characters and books. Marvel has the Avengers in one place, Spider-Man can handle an event on his own, and then you've got the X-Men which is almost a universe of their own and now even the cosmic characters. DC only has Superman, Batman and the JLA. Maybe the GL-corps as an aside, but that's it. That was what was fun with 52, that they managed to sell books and do cool stories with a lot of B-list characters. However, I think they need to further diversify and probably create some new properties instead of endlessly purchasing old washed-up characters (anyone really excited about the Archie heroes?) and revamping old ones (even though that makes for good stories when Morrison's doing it).

Pardon the digression.

[Magneto Rocks]

Let the "letter writing as 7-year old children" campaigns commence! Comic people always listen to those! :biggrin:

Yes! POOR 7 year old children who can afford very few comics and desire only to see them come back as humans! I have experience that this works, all those years of sending in deliberately misspelt "I think it would rock if Darkseid took over the universe" have already paid off!

[Sijo]

New Earth is classfied as Earth 1 if i'm correct.
According to Countdown, the last Earth of the Multiverse was Earth-51. Since there's supposed to be 52 Earths, that means one isn't numbered- and the only one known not to be (so far) is New Earth.

[Dark Master]

I'm wondering where Eclipso is in all of this? You'd think with Darkseid controlling a hell earth, there would be loads of rage and enough evil to make this a virtual paradise for him.

[Spiffy]

I'm wondering where Eclipso is in all of this? You'd think with Darkseid controlling a hell earth, there would be loads of rage and enough evil to make this a virtual paradise for him.
Who knows where Eclipso falls on the Morrison scale? I mean since Morrison does his own thing so stridently, Eclipso might even still be Jean Loring inside his storytelling. No, strike that... Morrison is selective about anything that happened after Seven Soldiers, right? So it might even be Alex Montez. Or most likely, perhaps as a disembodied spirit without a host.

[Paul McEnery]

Who knows where Eclipso falls on the Morrison scale? I mean since Morrison does his own thing so stridently, Eclipso might even still be Jean Loring inside his storytelling. No, strike that... Morrison is selective about anything that happened after Seven Soldiers, right? So it might even be Alex Montez. Or most likely, perhaps as a disembodied spirit without a host.

Stridently?

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

[Paul Newell]

New Earth is classfied as Earth 1 if i'm correct.

Furthermore thats stupid. DC would never just throw out years of stories like that. It would be a finactial disaster.
Nope. The Tangent mini-series labelled it as such in the first issue, but was then changed back to New Earth in the later issues.

[Spiffy]

Nope. The Tangent mini-series labelled it as such in the first issue, but was then changed back to New Earth in the later issues.
Is the issue the "label", or the place it would be in the sequence if it had a number instead of "New" in the label?

To my recollection, people assumed that New Earth was equal to "0" in the sequence initially (which ended at "51"), and not "1" (ending at "52"). But I think DCs tune has changed on that (either that or people just misunderstood at the beginning).

[Sean Walsh]

Who knows where Eclipso falls on the Morrison scale? I mean since Morrison does his own thing so stridently, Eclipso might even still be Jean Loring inside his storytelling. No, strike that... Morrison is selective about anything that happened after Seven Soldiers, right? So it might even be Alex Montez. Or most likely, perhaps as a disembodied spirit without a host.

....isn't Eclipso fused with Bruce Gordon again?

(Someone didn't read all of COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY, obviously... :tongue: )

[Paul Newell]

Is the issue the "label", or the place it would be in the sequence if it had a number instead of "New" in the label?

To my recollection, people assumed that New Earth was equal to "0" in the sequence initially (which ended at "51"), and not "1" (ending at "52"). But I think DCs tune has changed on that (either that or people just misunderstood at the beginning).
The original idea that Earth 1 was separate from New Earth was from a couple of quotes, if I remember correctly...One in an interview with Geoff Johns and another actually in 52. Rip Hunter specifically mentions, when the Multiverse is revealed, something about New Earth and Earths 1 to 51...That would then mean that New Earth was either Earth 0 or 52. It was also mentioned in Countdown that New Earth was the "Prime-Earth" and if it was destroyed, then the Multiverse would be as well...hence the zero label was accepted.

As to the first issue of "Tangent: Superman's Reign", they were labelling which Earth the different characters were from. So you had the "Earth-9 Flash", "Earth-9 Green Lantern", etc.

Wally West and John Stewart were labelled the "Earth-1 Flash" and "Earth-1 Green Lantern". From Issue 2 onwards, the introductory labels changed to the "New Earth Flash" and "New Earth Green Lantern".

EDIT: Hmm...Just saw on Wikipedia that Jamal Igle and Matt Idelson have confirmed that New Earth IS Earth-1....This needs more research. I just asumed it was a mistake that was corrected in later issues...

[Dark Master]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they put an actual 52 earths checklist into the comics during coutdown explaining which was which?

[Dark Master]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DC_Multiverse_worlds#The_52

[celticguy]

If Gog sent Power Girl to the antimatter universe thinking she was from there and she isn't.

what does that say about her, and what does it mean about him?

[Spiffy]

....isn't Eclipso fused with Bruce Gordon again?

(Someone didn't read all of COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY, obviously... :tongue: )
If you are implying I didn't, you'd be wrong. My comments were supposed to be a (admittedly sarcastic) commentary on Mr. Morrison's ability to ignore newer continuity that wasn't created by himself. Under that scenario, Eclipso could be any of the past few hosts--it depends on where Morrison drew the line on "old stuff" he was willing to acknowledge.

[mdg1]

In all fairness, he's really only ignoring continuity that was supposed to lead into his work, and failed miserably. Back when he did JLA, he was pretty good about using things like Electric Superman or Hippolyta WW, even when it impacted the stories he wanted to tell.

(I'm pretty sure he originally pictured the Superman/Asmodel fight with classic Supes)

[Sean Walsh]

If you are implying I didn't, you'd be wrong. My comments were supposed to be a (admittedly sarcastic) commentary on Mr. Morrison's ability to ignore newer continuity that wasn't created by himself. Under that scenario, Eclipso could be any of the past few hosts--it depends on where Morrison drew the line on "old stuff" he was willing to acknowledge.

Oh, I'm certainly not implying that you didn't read it at all. Rather, I was admitting that I hadn't read it. I shoulda taken than instinct of "I think Spiffy's being sarcastic" and run with that. :tongue:

[berk]

Since the concept of evil is such an important piece of the Final Crisis puzzle, I thought it might be fun to look at it in the context of a book I read a few weeks ago, Jean Baudrillard's "The Intelligence of Evil."

At first glance, it doesn't look like a very promising source of insights that might be applicable to Final Crisis:There is no longer any metaphysical presence of evil nowadays, no God or the Devil who fought above our heads and did battle for our souls.

There is no longer any mythological presence of evil, the presence of a Mephisto or a Frankenstein, embodying its principle.

Our evil is faceless and imageless. It is present everywhere in homeopathic doses, in the abstract patterns of technology, but it no longer has any mythic presence.This doesn't sound too good, since FC is all about the mythological imaging of evil in the form of Darkseid and the other Apokoliptan Gods, so evil in FC is far from being 'faceless and imageless'.

However, a few pages earlier, Baudrillard says,Of evil in the pure state it is impossible to speak.

What one can speak of is the distinction between evil and misfortune. ...

It is here, in the idea that man is good, or at least culturally perfectible, that we encounter our deepest imaginary conception, and with it our deepest confusion. For if misfortune is an accident and, ultimately, like sickness and poverty, a reparable accident ..., evil, for its part is not an accident. If misfortune is accidental, evil is fatal [i.e. fated, destined]. It is an original power and, in no sense, a dysfunction, vestige or mere obstacle standing in the way of good.
...
'If the evil in man were eliminated,' says Montaigne, 'you would destroy the fundamental conditions of life.'Here I'd say, we have an opening because as I see it, the fact that we can't speak of 'evil in its pure state' is the very reason artists try to speak of it poetically or mythologically, in the case of the New Gods, who are certainly gods of technology, appropriately enough, if evil exists 'in the abstract patterns of technology.'

And the idea that evil has a positive existence, that it isn't just the absence of good, the failure of some supposed progress towards an idealised goal of perfection, that it is in fact 'fatal', that is necessary, inescapable ('Darkseid is.') will I think be reflected in the later issues of FC as it is in Kirby's FW stuff as demonstrated in various scenes quoted in some of the other threads. The Montaigne quote expresses exactly what Darkseid himself says of himself in one of those Kirby scenes, (the one from the Forever People, where he's talking to Glorious Godfrey: 'You're a revelationist - but I am the Revelation! The tiger-force at the centre of all things.')

This is all related to another idea of Baudrillard's, one that, again, at first glance looks like a contradiction of the whole premise of FC: Above all, we must not confuse the idea of evil with some kind of objective existence of evil. That ... is merely the moral and metaphysical illusion of Manichaeism that it is possible to will evil, to do evil, or, alternatively, to denounce it and combat it.This doesn't sound too good, since the whole idea of FC is to objectify evil in the form of the evil gods of Apokolips and for our representative heroes of earth to fight and (presumably) finally defeat it in that form.

Or is it?

This would certainly the expectation of most DCU readers, but based on some of Morrison's other work (e.g. The Invisibles), I think we might see FC take a few unexpected turns from the usual good vs evil scenario of the superhero genre. We won't know until we see how the series turns out, but even this early, I think we can say that this simplistic idea of fighting and defeating an objectified evil in the form of Darkseid is already in contradiction to certain hints we've been given of the 'fatal'-ness of evil.

But if, according to Baudrillard, evil doesn't have an objective existence, what kind of existence does it have? He does try to give an answer to this question, and I admit that I don't think I've really managed to get my head around everything he's trying to say. But there are a few ideas in that response that I think are pretty interesting in relation to FC, so that'll be the next post.

[berk]

You know, I was about to give this up, because upon looking through the parts of this book I wanted to talk about next, I was struck forcibly with how much I'm oversimplifying even those bits, let alone the much more extensive parts I'm still puzzling over (& that'll probably have to wait for me toi read some of this writer's earlier work before I come back to them). But there are a few things I think are of relevance to FC, so lemme give it a shot anyway.Evil has no objective reality.

Quite the contrary, it consists in the diverting of things from their 'objective' existence, in their reversal, their 'return' (I wonder if we might not even interpret Nietzsche's 'Eternal Return' in this sense - not as an endless cycle, not as a repetition, but as a turning about, as a reversible form of becoming ...)

... evil ... is automatic.

You cannot will it. ... We might even say that those who deliberately practise evil certainly have no insight into it, since their act supposes the intentionality of a subject, whereas this reversibility of evil is the reversibility of a form.

And it is, at bottom, the form itself that is intelligent, insightful: with evil it is not a question of an object to be understood; we are dealing with a form that understands us.

In the 'intelligence of evil' we have to understand that it is evil that is intelligent, that it is it which thinks us - in the sense that it is implied automatically in every one of our acts.
OK - this probably sounds pretty obscure to a lot of people - and it isn't helping that I'm picking bits from here & there. What does he mean by 'form,' just to take an obvious question; how does evil "think us", rather than we thinking (and doing) it? Especially if it doesn't have any objective existence? And what does all this have to do with FC?

To take the second question, any evil we can think (or will, or perform), would have a kind of objective existence, if only in the grammatical sense: 'I did evil.' So we can at least say that there's some consistency in the ideas here, and that Baudrillard must be talking about some other meaning of evil than this. But what meaning? What 'form'?

There are a few hints in the quotes above, but I found this isolated line from a few pages earlier in the book to be a little more explicit:...the apotropaic figures of good ensure the continuation of evil, just as (in Macedonio Fernandez's writings) the vicissitudes of meaning and value keep the Nothing in being.This, I think is exactly what he means when he says "evil is automatic", and that "it is implied automatically in every one of our acts." There is something about the very manner in which human speech (thought, perception) is structured (formed) that automatically entails this reversal of whatever the ostensible subject 'thinks' it is thinking.

Somewhere or other, can't find the page right now, Baudrillard says something like that the world thinks us, not we the world, and I'd say we have to take the "evil thinks us" idea in that context. What I took him to mean by "the world thinks us" was that human beaings are part of the world, of the universe. So, just as we say "I think", when really it's the part of us called the brain that thinks; or we say it's the brain that thinks when really it's the part of the brain called the cerebral cortex that thinks; or we say ... etc, etc. So, when we say "I think," we can also say "the world thinks," we being just one of many components that make up the world, the universe. And for the same reasons, we can also say, "the world thinks (through) us."

Evil thinks us in the sense that it's built in to the structure of human speech/writing, IOW of the way human beings perceive and think about the universe. We inhabit a cognitive space into the structure (form) of which is automatically built this reversal Baudrillard talks about. (This might raise the question, why is the reversal 'evil', but I think the answer to that has already been hinted at in some of the earlier quotes re our cultural dreams of progression towards some vague future perfection).

At this point I suddenly find I want to start quoting pages on end, because everything is so interconnected, once you reach the end of the book (hint for impatient FC readers) that everything serves to illustrate everything else. But there's one section that I found particularly relevant - actually it's the thing that I originally wanted to talk about when I first got the idea of relating Baudrillard's evil to the idea of evil in FC. But as soon as I tried to start I found it necessary to give all this background, so I'll postpone it to yet one more post.

[botch]

= The most interesting villains, to me, aren't moral vacuums, they are deluded and jealous. "I could do it better", they think. "I might have to break a LOT of eggs to get it done, but in the long term they'll thank me for it".


That's not ultimate evil though, this is a chance for ultimate evil, there are plenty of conflicted villains like Ra's Al Ghul, Dr Doom who aren't moral vacuums for you to see but now we get a complete moral vacuum of a villain in Darkseid. I've always been interested in what a being with completely no remorse but with complete awareness of his actions would be like, since most people without remorse are in a cosmic sense not aware of what they do, but Darkseid is.

[Paul McEnery]

snip

Look you bugger, I'd just decided to get back into Baudrillard, and neither of the two books I picked up are that one!

But let's run with the ball, and look at it from a mystical perspective -- is there any other way to approach EEEEEEEEEEEvil?

So Evil is automatic? Check. Good is about being personal, Evil is about being utilitarian. You can't slaughter animals for meat if you think of them as pets, for instance. Utilitarian acts are all achieved by excluding the personal, the compassionate -- ends not the means, sort of thing. So all the world becomes a Flesh Factory -- and I don't think it takes much of an imagination to follow that phrase to its final solution.

So that means that Evil is about treating the world as a machine, which means yourself becoming a machine. It's about letting death claim you even while your heart is still beating.

"Evil thinks us"? That's the point right there. Which software are you running? What kind of personal self-realization can you achieve if it involves casually cutting innocent people in half?

But to go a little deeper into the kabbalistic realm of the qlippoth -- that's a kind of hell populated by pieces of the self sloughed off like dead skin, but that still have a kind of automatic life, the way an old piece of necessary ego defence sticks around to become a personality disorder.

The life of the self is always biological. Some things die, new things are born. As it is in the real world, so it is inside the life of the mind. But repressed things -- things that haven't truly been allowed to die, but have been kept around as brain-eating zombies inside your own head because you can't bear to sever the attachment -- that's the It that will consume the I. The only thing that can defeat a qlippothic shade is treating it personally again, either fully bringing it back to life as part of your identity, or waking it up off the respirator so you can properly say goodbye.

Looking at it that way, we might well regard evil as a natural process, but one that has gotten out of hand.

We need utilitarianism -- I want my steak and eggs, dammit! And that's our nature -- we're killers who eat other lives to sustain our own. Pretending otherwise only does us greater harm with the return of the repressed. And besides, that's what nature's like, all the way down to the quarks. But we need to keep it in balance, or we wind up with global warming -- to pick on one of the simplest consequences.

We need the ego of a Black Adam to compete against other people. But we see where that path leads if you get stuck in willfulness. Willfulness needs to be in harmony with the rest of our psychology; letting it "automatically" "think us" gets us into trouble.

Adolescents need to have a rebellious phase where they assert their individuality and desire; but when you forget that other people are doing the same thing too, we wind up casually cutting other people (and their poor doggies!) in half just because it expresses our own personal power.

So there's your two levels: depersonalizing the universe to act like a machine; paradoxically privileging one's own personal power against everyone else.

[Jim Thompson]

I personally think the whole "evil wins" idea is little more than a plot device to explore a couple of basic themes: what exactly is the nature of good and evil, and how do those answers translate into a character performing "heroic" or "villainous" acts?

[tipo4thesoul]

I'm really interested were the Joker is at.

A friend of mine mentioned that The Jokers theorized Super Insanity could allow him to throw off the ALE's control?

It'd be Ironic if the Joker was the one to help lead to the salvation of mankind

Sorry for the old quote.

This idea makes perfect sense to me. In a world as chaotic as ours, the DC universe that is, the Joker would be incapable of living in an area where everything can be predicted. To elaborate, Darkseid would undoubtedly try to control the entire world, capture life itself and toy with it like it were a puppet. Here is a character who is truly evil, in the purest sense, the fact that he does not care who he hurts. Under Darkseid's control, we risk the chance of a universe devoid of heroic acts and and kindness, love and compassion. Thus, leaving the Joker with no conflict. He wouldn't have a ying to his yang, or vice versa. This would truly drive him insane. If Darkseid is a force for absolute order, going as far as removing free will, Joker is a force for creativity and individuality. At the end of the day, they are complete opposites.

[Jim Thompson]

Sorry for the old quote.

This idea makes perfect sense to me. In a world as chaotic as ours, the DC universe that is, the Joker would be incapable of living in an area where everything can be predicted. To elaborate, Darkseid would undoubtedly try to control the entire world, capture life itself and toy with it like it were a puppet. Here is a character who is truly evil, in the purest sense, the fact that he does not care who he hurts. Under Darkseid's control, we risk the chance of a universe devoid of heroic acts and and kindness, love and compassion. Thus, leaving the Joker with no conflict. He wouldn't have a ying to his yang, or vice versa. This would truly drive him insane. If Darkseid is a force for absolute order, going as far as removing free will, Joker is a force for creativity and individuality. At the end of the day, they are complete opposites.This is a fascinating idea! I wonder if they'll come anywhere close to exploring it?

[Paul McEnery]

This is a fascinating idea! I wonder if they'll come anywhere close to exploring it?

Question is: Has Grant been building the Joker up to this in RIP, or was that the Joker's wadshoot?

[Jim Thompson]

Question is: Has Grant been building the Joker up to this in RIP, or was that the Joker's wadshoot?We'll know soon enough.

(Wadshoot? :confused:)

[Paul McEnery]

We'll know soon enough.

(Wadshoot? :confused:)


Perhaps he'll be so used up by that story that there isn't any juice left in him.

[Jarath]

Evil doesn't mean killing everything and everyone. Surely it is just as evil to sustain your society via the eternal suffering off all those underneath you? I am sure many who have been tortured and enslaved would rather die than live their whole life in this way.

[berk]

...So there's your two levels: depersonalizing the universe to act like a machine; paradoxically privileging one's own personal power against everyone else.You could look at it as two levels of objectification: objectifying the universe as a mechanical artifact upon which you can act, and objectifying other people as mere components of that mechanism, upon whom you are also free to act without compunction. And of course this last level implies a 'subjectification' of yourself as the free-willed subject allowed to play with all these mechanical toys, including animals, and even other human beings, and basically do whatever you can get away with to them. Which is interesting, because it reminds me of another bit from the Baudrillard book I meant to bring up:This representation, this superstition of an objective reality held out to us by the mirror of the commonplace imagination is itself a part of the general illusion of the world, of which we are a part at the same time as we are its mirror.

There is not just the illusion of a real world, there is also that of a real subject of representation - and the two illusions, the objective and the subjective, are correlative.

This is where the mystery lies.

For the world does not exist in order for us to know it

It is not in any way predestined for knowledge. However, knowledge is part of the world...

This is the miracle: that a fragment of the world, human consciousness, arrogates to itself the privilege of being its mirror. But this will never produce an objective proof, since the mirror is part of the object it reflects

The current microsciences have taken cognizance of this definitive illusion, which is not the illusion of an objective non-truth (that would still have the prestige of reality for itself), but of the entangling of two illsuions, objective and subjective,, of their inextricable complicity, which properly prevents any metaphysical reflection of the world by thought.

This is the trap nature sets for us.So when Baudrillard says, 'The world thinks us,' I think it's partly in this sense, that we are part of the world, the part of the world that thinks, therefore the world thinks( through us); but the world, the universe, is by definition everything there is, and it must think everything there is, including us: 'Everything happens in the world of the self. This self, within which everything unfolds, resembles in this regard the cosmos of physics, to which the self also belongs by which that cosmos appeared mentally in our representation. ... So the circle is complete' (Lichtenberg).

A circle which is that of an infinite embedding, in which the subject cannot lay claim to a determinate position anywhere, and in which the object is not localizable as such either.
...
The question of whether there is an objective reality does not even arise: the intelligence of the world is the intelligence of the world that thinks us.

It is the created object which thinks us, and which sometimes thinks better than we do, and quicker than we do: which thinks us before we have thought it.This last sentence I think hints at what Paul was saying outright in his post: 'Which software are you running?', or better, Which software is running you? The 'created object', that which is objectified by us - IOW everything except us, or what we think of as ourselves, (the created subject) - thinks us, runs us, precisely because we try to maintain this illusion that it is not us, one example being the mechanisms of psychological repression Paul mentioned.

I still haven't gotten to the part of the book that first put me in mind of Final Crisis - postponed again!

BTW, I'm really manging Baudrillard's text with all these quotes, so if it appears a little disjointed, don't let that put anyone off trying some of his writing. I'm leaving out lots of really good stuff in the interests of brevity, and trying to stick to the limited, FC-connected points.

[Paul McEnery]

You could look at it as two levels of objectification: objectifying the universe as a mechanical artifact upon which you can act, and objectifying other people as mere components of that mechanism, upon whom you are also free to act without compunction. And of course this last level implies a 'subjectification' of yourself as the free-willed subject allowed to play with all these mechanical toys, including animals, and even other human beings, and basically do whatever you can get away with to them. Which is interesting, because it reminds me of another bit from the Baudrillard book I meant to bring up:So when Baudrillard says, 'The world thinks us,' I think it's partly in this sense, that we are part of the world, the part of the world that thinks, therefore the world thinks( through us); but the world, the universe, is by definition everything there is, and it must think everything there is, including us: This last sentence I think hints at what Paul was saying outright in his post: 'Which software are you running?', or better, Which software is running you? The 'created object', that which is objectified by us - IOW everything except us, or what we think of as ourselves, (the created subject) - thinks us, runs us, precisely because we try to maintain this illusion that it is not us, one example being the mechanisms of psychological repression Paul mentioned.

I still haven't gotten to the part of the book that first put me in mind of Final Crisis - postponed again!

BTW, I'm really manging Baudrillard's text with all these quotes, so if it appears a little disjointed, don't let that put anyone off trying some of his writing. I'm leaving out lots of really good stuff in the interests of brevity, and trying to stick to the limited, FC-connected points.

And if we had any doubts about all this, Superman Beyond is taking us right into the middle of these ideas.

[berk]

I'm still kind of assimilating it. I admit to some - well, a lot - of resistance towards not only the title character, but all this other DCU stuff, the Monitors and so on. Even the name 'Monitors' strikes me as unfortunate. Obviously I have to get over that if I'm to give the series a chance. Some cool stuff in there, though, and yes, the origin of creation, of 'story,' from the first Monitor's encounter with flaw within him(?)self which he proceeds to isolate and 'probe' as if it was some separate entity, does hearken back to the whole problem of object/subject Baudrillard raises. Makes you wonder if that separation is what was really meant with 'Blinded, split in two, the probe withdraws.'

Of course, anytime you see the words 'split in two' in a Fourth World related story, you immediately think of New Genesis and Apokolips, and that first issue of Kirby's New Gods, and that could fit too. For a second I thought "The flaw is sealed, scabbed over. With Divine Metals!" might be a glance towards the Source Wall, but the imagery in that panel seems to point to the Orrery of Worlds - unless there's some connection there I don't see. I'm sort of holding all this in suspense until the next issue of Beyond comes out.

I liked the Overman character, I thought Morrison really wrote his dialogue beautifully; and Captain Adam, who I took to be a riff off Jon, from Watchmen.

The continuing emphasis on the idea that Evil wins in the End does seem to hint at a kind of death and rebirth for the DCU.

[Paul McEnery]

I'm still kind of assimilating it. I admit to some - well, a lot - of resistance towards not only the title character, but all this other DCU stuff, the Monitors and so on. Even the name 'Monitors' strikes me as unfortunate. Obviously I have to get over that if I'm to give the series a chance. Some cool stuff in there, though, and yes, the origin of creation, of 'story,' from the first Monitor's encounter with flaw within him(?)self which he proceeds to isolate and 'probe' as if it was some separate entity, does hearken back to the whole problem of object/subject Baudrillard raises. Makes you wonder if that separation is what was really meant with 'Blinded, split in two, the probe withdraws.'

Of course, anytime you see the words 'split in two' in a Fourth World related story, you immediately think of New Genesis and Apokolips, and that first issue of Kirby's New Gods, and that could fit too. For a second I thought "The flaw is sealed, scabbed over. With Divine Metals!" might be a glance towards the Source Wall, but the imagery in that panel seems to point to the Orrery of Worlds - unless there's some connection there I don't see. I'm sort of holding all this in suspense until the next issue of Beyond comes out.

I liked the Overman character, I thought Morrison really wrote his dialogue beautifully; and Captain Adam, who I took to be a riff off Jon, from Watchmen.

The continuing emphasis on the idea that Evil wins in the End does seem to hint at a kind of death and rebirth for the DCU.

Yeah, Jeff Initalletter's response to Superman Beyond is not too surprising. The Monitor's Creation Myth applies at so many freaking levels without giving us a concrete image as such. So we're left like Allen Adam (hmmm....): too hot too fast and all at once!