Final Crisis: Past is Prologue...but so what?

[Seraphex]

I just read Mr. Callahan's review of Final Crisis, and how the concept seeds started way back in Morrison's career. Very cool. Particularly how the Mr. Miracle Seven Soldiers mini ties in.

It misses a big problem (and I'm not talking about the marketing snafu around Batman's death). Final Crisis has no emotional centre. It has no main character. All the potential main characters are off doing stuff in their own books, like Superman Beyond. Mr. Terrific or Shiloh Norman would have been great central characters to focus on, allowing the spinoffs to focus on the other characters.

The second problem is that Morrison throws too many ideas at the wall. They are all really fascinating ideas. Wonder Woman alone is crazy cool. But it feels like the writer's equivalent of feeding paint through a barn fan, then calling the splattered canvas art. Of course, he would have been able to get away with this if it was filtered through a central character's reactions.

But as it stands, it's quite fascinating how Morrison weaves thematics and ideas into Final Crisis, but if you don't care about the characters in the story, then there isn't any reason to care at all.

[Adam C]

It misses a big problem (and I'm not talking about the marketing snafu around Batman's death). Final Crisis has no emotional centre. It has no main character. All the potential main characters are off doing stuff in their own books, like Superman Beyond. Mr. Terrific or Shiloh Norman would have been great central characters to focus on, allowing the spinoffs to focus on the other characters.

Well one view is that it has a main character, but that character is the universe itself and the specific heroes of DC comics are akin to organs, each playing a specific functional role within the story. (An approach which really is foreshadowed in The Invisibles.) In that sense I'd say the problem is looking for an emotional centre by expecting the standard approach of conventional fiction, which is to focus on one or a few singular personalities.

[rorshach1982]

I can understand liking Grant Morrison. I have on several occasions (We3, some of The Invisibles, parts of JLA).

But the thing about Callahan's article that I think is remiss and perhaps too fan-ish is that it excuses Grant's poor storytelling as a writer. Even if Seven Soldiers and Mister Miracle were written as sequels/prequels to Final Crisis (and I highly doubt they were, but for the sake of argument let's assume that DC Editorial was planning three years ahead of time to take a framework established in a miniseries crafted by Grant, about low interest C-list characters, and really only using two out of those titles, to concoct a company-wide crossover that has serious implications for all of it's major title characters), even if that were true, doesn't that make him a bad writer, not a mad genius?

Callahan admits that Mister Miracle was incomprehensible: "the fact was that "Mister Miracle" really did not seem to make any kind of sense." And now he claims that in light of Final Crisis, MM now makes perfect sense. So is it good writing to concoct a series, mini or not, that is full of nonsense and poor scripting unless you get the chance to publish a large event book three years later that retroactively corrects the mistakes you made in the first miniseries?

My answer would be "No."

I like Grant Morrison. He established Batman (In JLA) as the one character who can always be counted on to win. In Rock of Ages he re-asserted his personality over that of Desaad's to basically save the day, not to mention warp the minds of every villain he came across while he was chained up in the Injustice Gang's HQ. But I do not for second believe that he had this all planned from the beginning. More than likely, Morrison saw Final Crisis as the opportunity to correct some of his mistakes from earlier writing assignments (like Mister Miracle) and to play around with superheroes again.

I do not think the series gets more complex, unless complexity is measured by the complete lack of plot connectivity from issue to issue. I think Morrison is probably hitting a point of burn out when it comes to comics and that is why he is retreading old ground, going back to his own writings as reference and creating "continuity" or characters when he can't find what he likes in the DCU (hence the ridiculous cast of Japanese heroes that no one likes or cares about).

My problem is DC Editorial. They should know better. And some of them probably do since there are a large amount of books (GL, Green Arrow, Blue Beetle, Titans, etc.) that are barely, or not at all affected by this supposedly universe-spanning crossover.

[Seraphex]

Well one view is that it has a main character, but that character is the universe itself and the specific heroes of DC comics are akin to organs, each playing a specific functional role within the story. (An approach which really is foreshadowed in The Invisibles.) In that sense I'd say the problem is looking for an emotional centre by expecting the standard approach of conventional fiction, which is to focus on one or a few singular personalities.

Good point! In that sense, Final Crisis is metafiction at the finest level. The fans know the DC Universe as a character to itself, and by putting the Universe through the ringer, DC readers care. So the story is written for the fans, based on what they already know about the universe through the other titles they have read.

A problem with that: A good story establishes a "status quo" for the main character at the beginning of a story. What is the "status quo" for the DC Universe? I don't think it was properly laid out at the beginning of the series. What with the Lantern saga and the fresh rumblings of Infinite Crisis, the nature of the universe is constantly in flux.

The stakes themselves are not entirely clear either. Sure, if Darkseid wins, everyone loses, but does that mean the end of the entire universe? Does the anti-life equation kill everyone, or just make them slaves of Darkseid? Or did I miss something...

[Paul McEnery]

I can understand liking Grant Morrison. I have on several occasions (We3, some of The Invisibles, parts of JLA).

But the thing about Callahan's article that I think is remiss and perhaps too fan-ish is that it excuses Grant's poor storytelling as a writer. Even if Seven Soldiers and Mister Miracle were written as sequels/prequels to Final Crisis (and I highly doubt they were, but for the sake of argument let's assume that DC Editorial was planning three years ahead of time to take a framework established in a miniseries crafted by Grant, about low interest C-list characters, and really only using two out of those titles, to concoct a company-wide crossover that has serious implications for all of it's major title characters), even if that were true, doesn't that make him a bad writer, not a mad genius?

They were. 52 was set up for this too. Grant was planning this all along. DC's editorial input had nothing to do with it. Their job was simply to get out of his way and let him do his thing. And they failed at that.

No doubt next year, when Russell Davies wraps up his five year arc on Doctor Who, people will be applauding him for doing set ups that led to the final story. Do this in comics, and the kiddywinks have a fit. It doesn't seem to occur to them that there's more value to following a writer's career than a particular character as their invisible friend.

Callahan admits that Mister Miracle was incomprehensible: "the fact was that "Mister Miracle" really did not seem to make any kind of sense."

No he doesn't. He's talking about the fact that it didn't seem to fit within the Seven Soldiers storyline. Now we see what the point of it was.

Anyone having difficulty following what's going on in Mister Miracle can talk to me -- or follow what they've got to say about it on Barbelith -- because it's perfectly comprehensible.

And now he claims that in light of Final Crisis, MM now makes perfect sense. So is it good writing to concoct a series, mini or not, that is full of nonsense and poor scripting unless you get the chance to publish a large event book three years later that retroactively corrects the mistakes you made in the first miniseries?

There were no mistakes. Just set up for a later story. Which was planned in advance by the writer.

But I do not for second believe that he had this all planned from the beginning.

Strange, but true.

And you know what's even stranger -- his entire body of work in the DC universe hangs together like that of a writer who was paying attention and trying to create a single coherent story!

I think Morrison is probably hitting a point of burn out and that is why he is creating characters

Trimmed to demonstrate the absurdity.

[Paul McEnery]

Good point! In that sense, Final Crisis is metafiction at the finest level. The fans know the DC Universe as a character to itself, and by putting the Universe through the ringer, DC readers care. So the story is written for the fans, based on what they already know about the universe through the other titles they have read.

A problem with that: A good story establishes a "status quo" for the main character at the beginning of a story. What is the "status quo" for the DC Universe? I don't think it was properly laid out at the beginning of the series. What with the Lantern saga and the fresh rumblings of Infinite Crisis, the nature of the universe is constantly in flux.

The stakes themselves are not entirely clear either. Sure, if Darkseid wins, everyone loses, but does that mean the end of the entire universe? Does the anti-life equation kill everyone, or just make them slaves of Darkseid? Or did I miss something...

Superman Beyond part 2, perhaps?

[rorshach1982]

They were. 52 was set up for this too. Grant was planning this all along. DC's editorial input had nothing to do with it. Their job was simply to get out of his way and let him do his thing. And they failed at that.


No doubt next year, when Russell Davies wraps up his five year arc on Doctor Who, people will be applauding him for doing set ups that led to the final story. Do this in comics, and the kiddywinks have a fit. It doesn't seem to occur to them that there's more value to following a writer's career than a particular character as their invisible friend.


No he doesn't. He's talking about the fact that it didn't seem to fit within the Seven Soldiers storyline. Now we see what the point of it was.



Anyone having difficulty following what's going on in Mister Miracle can talk to me -- or follow what they've got to say about it on Barbelith -- because it's perfectly comprehensible.




There were no mistakes. Just set up for a later story. Which was planned in advance by the writer.


Strange, but true.

And you know what's even stranger -- his entire body of work in the DC universe hangs together like that of a writer who was paying attention and trying to create a single coherent story!

Trimmed to demonstrate the absurdity.

Pretty sure Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and Mark Waid were sporting some of the writing duties on 52 so DC's editorial input was probably all over a multi-writer weekly comic book involving all of the major players in the DCU. That means editors. Check the inside splash page of most comics and you'll see a little credit for the editors. You don't get these big crossovers without editorial tracking who and what happens where and when and keeping the main storyline in focus. That happened fairly well in 52. It kind of happened in Countdown (but there's many problems with that one, which is probably why Morrison threw it out when he went to write Final Crisis, besides the fact that he didn't write it and therefore preferred to ignore the established continuity). The reason you keep seeing reviews of FC that say it's slap dash or a seemingly disconnected series of panels is that Morrison was allowed to "do his thing" with little editorial control. This is fine on All Star Superman because it lets Morrison play where his true talents lay; quirky sci-fi/spiritual meta-fiction that uses the characters to comment on the comic book form and storytelling styles. It does not work well on a crossover that is Universe wide where you have to juggle multiple storylines with the hope coming out of it with a sense of completion. And that is the reason I mark this as a failure on editorial's part; they should have kept Morrison to stricter guidelines on form, not his content. Having major events happen off panel or in another book is cheap for everyone except the guy shelling out cash at the comic shop for extraneous titles.

Never watched Dr. Who. Heard some good things though.

As to following a writer's career, I'm quite the advocate for it. A good writer deserves to be read. I've followed Warren Ellis since I came across him on Stormwatch, then Authority, then Global Frequency, Black Summer, etc. I hope someday he will finish Planetary. But I don't give everything he does a pass just because he wrote it. His Thunderbolts run, for instance, had some of his usual tropes (lesser or C list characters given more interesting things to do, Machiavellian characters in power controlling superheroes) and decent writing, but ultimately the entire run was anemic and was really just a way to set up Osborn as a major player in Marvel.

Really? Cause I used an actual quote from his article.

Or trying to tell the same story he told once before, because he is out of ideas when working on conventional superhero projects.

Or maybe he swiped an idea from Marvel's Brand New Day, when we found out that the problems in Batman's life were caused by the devil.

If they have to talk to you for the story to make sense, then the writer kinda failed at his job of making a comprehensible story, didn't he? Unless...was there a note on the back of the miniseries that said to ask you?

[Michael P]

Even if Seven Soldiers and Mister Miracle were written as sequels/prequels to Final Crisis

They weren't, because neither fits the definition of either of those words.

The word you're looking for is "prelude." Or you can cast Final Crisis as a sequel to either/both.

[Paul McEnery]

Pretty sure Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and Mark Waid were sporting some of the writing duties on 52 so DC's editorial input was probably all over a multi-writer weekly comic book involving all of the major players in the DCU. That means editors. Check the inside splash page of most comics and you'll see a little credit for the editors. You don't get these big crossovers without editorial tracking who and what happens where and when and keeping the main storyline in focus.

Which is completely irrelevant to the point at hand. Try again.

It kind of happened in Countdown (but there's many problems with that one, which is probably why Morrison threw it out when he went to write Final Crisis, besides the fact that he didn't write it and therefore preferred to ignore the established continuity).

You appear to have had your head under a rock for the last year.

The reason you keep seeing reviews of FC that say it's slap dash or a seemingly disconnected series of panels is that Morrison was allowed to "do his thing" with little editorial control.

That's funny. I thought it was because there's a lot of illiterate people writing reviews, who can't tell the difference between expressing their own opinion and accurately assessing a work.

Really? Cause I used an actual quote from his article.

And took it out of context to twist his meaning.

If they have to talk to you for the story to make sense, then the writer kinda failed at his job of making a comprehensible story, didn't he? Unless...was there a note on the back of the miniseries that said to ask you?

I find it easy to see what's going on. So perhaps it's not the writer's problem at all.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

I think Tim needs to go get the Deluxe JLA collection.
Howard Porter's art looks a lot better over sized.

That's funny. I thought it was because there's a lot of illiterate people writing reviews, who can't tell the difference between expressing their own opinion and accurately assessing a work.

There's also a lot of literate people singing praises for the guy, who also slam Geoff Johns for doing the same thing, but in a linear fashion.

It may pay off now, but the Mister Miracle mini is still a failure as a serialized piece of entertainment, as a chapter of Seven Soldiers and a piece of commercial art.
Needed a bit more to sell it to people 'as important'.

[rorshach1982]

They were. 52 was set up for this too. Grant was planning this all along. DC's editorial input had nothing to do with it. Their job was simply to get out of his way and let him do his thing. And they failed at that.

Which is completely irrelevant to the point at hand. Try again

Perhaps I misunderstood. Let's look at your original posting above. You say that it is irrelevant for me to point out that Grant Morrison was not the only writer on 52 and that editorial had to keep the multiple writers on track with the main storyline. "Grant was planning this all along." is an entirely possible (though unlikely) statement. "DC's editorial input had nothing to do with it," however, is tougher to verify. If the "this" you're referring to is FC, then editorial, from my point of view, did fail because FC is a directionless piece of drivel, which means the statement is just fine because they had "nothing to do with" FC. That is all Grant being off his game. If "this" is alluding to Grant planning 52 as the base structure of his FC, then no, editorial had plenty to do with it, as keeping those different writers writing the same story had to happen somehow.

And "they failed at that," is interesting. If they failed at letting Grant "do his thing" on 52, perhaps that's why 52 seems like a far more coherent storyline than FC (I bet those other 3 writers have something to with that as well). Grant's thing, if we take All Star Superman as an example, is to take small stories, like those in each issue of that series, and link them thematically (the meaning of heroism being one, the meaning of Superman is another), creating very interesting fiction and commentary about the comic book genre. Like the Invisibles or Doom Patrol. The smaller stories were sometimes one-offs and some were slightly disconnected, but they played with similar themes throughout the series, no matter what characters we were dealing with. FC has similar themes across each issue, but the sense of interconnectedness, of basic plot structure is absent. It is, essentially, a bad story with interesting themes (rebirth and such).

You appear to have had your head under a rock for the last year.

Not sure what part of my statement you're responding to. Hard to tell under the personal slight.

That's funny. I thought it was because there's a lot of illiterate people writing reviews, who can't tell the difference between expressing their own opinion and accurately assessing a work.

Well illiteracy generally means that writing reviews would be extremely difficult but nice hyperbole. And it's interesting that what I was doing was, from my point of view, accurately assessing Callahan's essay, based on my own knowledge of the comics. I found it weighted in Morrison's favor in such a way that seemed incongruous with the printed material. I pointed that out and posited that Callahan may have been reaching and finding meaning in Mister Miracle and Seven Soldiers (even Zenith) that was not intended, or more likely, the result of some quick narrative back pedaling to cover previous sloppy writing.

If anyone is lacking objectivity, it may be the guy who thinks any review panning Final Crisis is written by "illiterate people."

As for Mister Miracle and my accused twisting of text, maybe the following will feel more in kind:

Morrison's "Mister Miracle" just seemed like a misfire, something that had no chance of reinvigorating the character or the Fourth World concept.

But, oh wait. It makes complete sense now that "Final Crisis" is around.

The opposing assumption about MM making sense NOW that FC has been published is that before it was published, it did not make sense. At the time, MM was a misfire according to Callahan. Without FC, it would still make no sense. So the miniseries, by itself, makes no sense. So while you may see what is going on, Callahan did not until FC. So I return to my claim that to write a miniseries in which nothing makes sense without a three-year-removed universal crossover, if that was even his initial intent, is poor writing.

And for Michael P:

They weren't, because neither fits the definition of either of those words.

The word you're looking for is "prelude." Or you can cast Final Crisis as a sequel to either/both.

I used those words for these reasons; Callahan used one and implied another.

It's exceedingly strange to think that Morrison wrote a four-issue miniseries back in 2005 that was the direct and explicit prequel to a comic book series that wouldn't hit the stands until the summer of 2008

see? prequel. And stating that MM is a prequel implies that FC is the sequel. But wait! There's more!

All of which means that when Darkseid fell backwards through time after his defeat at the hands of Orion, he didn't just fall backwards through DC time, he fell backwards in our time as well, landing in a 2005 "Mister Miracle" series that seemed out of place back then. Well, it was indeed out of place, since it was the first part of a story that didn't officially begin until three years in its future.

So if Darkseid falls backward in time in FC, back to 2005, and then participates in events in MM, then FC could conceivably be the prequel to Mister Miracle since that's how (and the only way it could happen) some of the major events in MM take place. And as we learned above, when you call something a prequel, anything that follows can be called a sequel. So both terms could work, though prelude is just as valid since MM introduced its title character, Shiloh Norman. Or maybe we could invent a term and call it a midquel.

And thanks to Funky for this bit of objectivity. It was most welcome.

It may pay off now, but the Mister Miracle mini is still a failure as a serialized piece of entertainment, as a chapter of Seven Soldiers and a piece of commercial art.
Needed a bit more to sell it to people 'as important'.

Great! I think we've all learned something.

[Paul McEnery]

Great! I think we've all learned something.

Not, regrettably, you.

Thing one: MM precedes 52. MM was intended all along as set up for FC. 52 contains various elements that Grant et.al included -- The War in Heaven, Batman and the Thogal Ritual, the Crime Bible, Darkseid working in the background -- that were all intended to lead directly to 52.

None of this is a matter of opinion. It was all reported on at the time. Grant said as much in interviews and on panels. And it's blatantly present in the work itself.

Your inability to square your perception of the work with the facts says nothing about the work, and everything about you.

[TimothyCallahan]

Getting away from the bickering for a moment -- and I'll let my column speak for itself -- how is it that you find Morrison to be "a bad writer," Rorschach?

Offer your specific critique, and I'll respond with my thoughts.

[stealthwise]

Zenith being tossed in there seemed to be a stretch, at best.

I'll admit too that I have no interest in any of Morrison's corporate superhero work at this point, because he tends to hit on the same riffs over and over again, and to be honest, that's not what I'm reading them for. I prefer something that's innovative but ultimately stupid, like Nextwave or the Ultimates (pre-Loeb), or just plain entertaining (Secret Six, Green Lantern). I've read the treatises of meta-fiction before, in various incarnations, through Morrison and others, and I don't care to buy an overpriced mini and a thousand tie-ins to get the same thing again.

It seems like a bit of a waste to have Morrison concentrate the past few years on this kind of stuff when he could have been doing more Seaguy.

[TimothyCallahan]

Why is the Zenith connection a stretch? It's Morrison's first attempt at a Crisis.

And you're reading Secret Six but not Final Crisis? Ignore the metafictional aspects, and everything about FC is better than anything Gail Simone has ever written.