Which Final Crisis Aftermath series to preorder...?

[MaxGoof]

All of the Final Crisis Aftermath series sound as if they could potentially, possibly, be interesting, but I'm not too familiar with any of the 4 books' creative teams. Can anyone give me a recommendation as to which, if any, of these books will be worth preordering? :confused:

[FanboyStranger]

Even though I find the Super Young Team incredibly annoying, I think Joe Casey's involvement makes Dance the mini to get. His run on Wildcats v.2-v.3 shows that he gets what makes 'superheroes' tick once they've already saved the universe and G0dland shows that he has the imagination to make a 'Fourth World' type series work.

I suspect Matt Sturges' Run will be good as well. Not sure about the other minis.

[Calvin Government]

Dance has the perfect creative team for it. That'll be the one to get. The others are kind of iffy - I mean, the writers for Ink and Escape are virtual unknowns. Run probably has the second most potential here, as Sturges is consistently a solid writer.

[Zero Hunter]

Honeslty I would wait for the trades. At least that way you can hear waht otehrs have to say about them before buying. I really don't think any of the 4 are strong enough properties to care that long of a mini series without some problems.

[Desaad]

I have to admit, I'll be getting all of them. Here is why.

Conceptually, I think they're all strong, and have a lot of potential, but "Run" and "Ink" most appeal to me. Run is about the creation - the building - of a new villain, sort of a 'villain makeover' in much the same way that Gail Simone rehabilitated "Catman" in her amazing Villains United epic. That kind of character/world building really appeals to me, as I like the feel that we are watching something being...added...to the DCU. So the idea of the Human Flame becoming this jaw-droppingly cool villain (and that's the stated goal...we'll see if it succeeds) really appeals to me, in the way that Catman is one of my favorite DC characters at the moment.

"Ink" feels like the thematic flip side to that, the building of a hero. I'm excited about that, in concept, because I feel there is a lot of potential for powerful character work there...a close, personal examination of one man struggling to do what's right. If you've ever read Astro City, you'll see a similar story there called "Tarnished Angel" that remains my favorite long-form arc of the entire "Astro City" world/publishing history. I just think there is a lot of potential for that.

That said, the success of both of those series' relies on the creative team. "Run" has a great one, but one that is slightly untested in this realm (doing badass villainy) where as one half of the "Ink" creative team is totally unknown (the writer, though I recently did an interview with him that certainly left me with a positive outlook) and the other half is, for me, sub par (the penciller did some work on "Countdown to Adventure" that wasn't bad by any means, but was very generic).

With that said, I'm also really excited for "Escape" because Ivan Brandon is a great, unknown talent, in the vein of Hickman and Fraction IMHO. His "Kobra" one shot effectively revitalized and moved forward the campy, silly organization in a way that Hickman is currently trying to do in "Secret Warriors", but modernized it in a way that makes it much more compelling I think.

The idea of him working with the Global Peace Agency - a Kirby concept - and his dark style is really really appealing to me. We know he can do street level stories, we know he can do brutal, but thoughtful, work. This book doesn't interest me so much in pure concept, but the creative team and the tone greatly does.

Marco Rudy is the artist on that, and his work is phenomenol. He did some pages on "Final Crisis" and "Final Crisis: Resist" and the guy is incredible. His work has elements of Hitch in it, but also Sook and JG Jones. Check out his deviantart page...

http://xiconhoca.deviantart.com/

Finally, "Dance" is probably the bit I'm most conflicted on. On the one hand, I'm not really that interested in the Super Young Team since they didn't become the Forever People. I'm not that interested in the pop culture, heroes-as-celebrities thing that Millar did with the Authority, or Liefeld did with Young Blood.

Now, Joe Casey SEEMS like he would be bankable, but the truth is that he can be surprisingly hit and miss. His work for Wildstorm was uniformly great and different -- even his intimates, which I'm pretty sure no one read, was an incredibly DIFFERENT and technically STRONG piece of work, that employed techniques that I hadn't seen before (like all the extra scrolling info, which has become a staple of Hickman's work but which I first noticed in Casey's). But his "Last Defenders" book was pretty awful, his "Uncanny" run was mediocre and his "Superman" stories were flat and lifeless.

I suspect this is going to give him enough freedom that it will be right up his alley, but you can never be sure.

That said, ChrisCross is a god damn magician. There are very few artists who have two key aspects of storytelling down -- movement, and facial expression. He's really second to none in either of these categories...I don't know of a single artist working today who imbues his figures with the energy that Cross does. It's really something.


So I'll be trying out all of these minis, because all of them have something to draw me out. That said, "Ink" is probably on the shortest leash, and I have the most confidence in "Run!"

[paulski]

I'm not getting any - that's how bad a taste FC #7 left in my mouth - but if I did, it would have been Run. It sounds slightly promising, I'd be interested in getting a sneak preview of Sturges' writing before he starts on JSA, and at the very least it would feature some pretty artwork from Freddie Williams v2. Hmm, I might have to check out the trade...

[I am MODOK]

I'll be passing on all of them. I'm only tempted by Sturges' writing for Run, but I'm not going to follow a book featuring the worst tendencies of the modern day DCU.

I love Joe Casey's work, but not enough to have confidence that DC editorial can pick up Morrison's concepts and make them work for anyone else.

[Betty1978]

I love playing dance version as it has many interresting twists.

[Doc Goblin]

It's all about Escape for me. Ivan Brandon really impressed him with his Faces of Evil oneshot. And while I find the whole Global Peace Agency really dull at the moment, I'm interested in seeing what the future of DC's intelligence agency landscape is going to be like.

The rest... eh. I may check them out but I'm not really interested in them. I found the Super Young Team to be an annoying waste of space in Final Crisis. I thought Morrison kinda ruined a potentially interesting villain that Johns made with Tattoo Man. And the Human Flame... nothing against him. I liked him. I just don't know if I'm interested in reading a limited series with him.