Final Crisis #1

SPOILERS

I felt very little about this comic. I read it and thought, "I'm not sure what that was about." Then i waited a while, read it a second time, and i still didn't know what it was about.

Anthro (who isn't identified, and neither is his setting) is met by Metron. (It's neat that Morrison combines the image of the burning bush from the Old Testament with the Prometheus story from Greek mythology, but it doesn't add to the story.)

Dan Turpin (who isn't identified, and neither is his history with the New Gods) finds the expiring Orion. We get the hint that the New Gods have been reincarnated somehow (as we've seen in Seven Soldiers and Birds of Prey).

John Stewart investigates. The Black Racer is floating in the background. I guess that's the new Black Racer. The New Gods reconstituted themselves really quickly. They're already online before the last of their old forms has completely croaked.

I like Mirror Master's accent.

Why would those supervillains stage a protest march? Aren't they all wanted for multiple felonies? Shouldn't they be hiding out instead of marching down the street in costume? And why is that lone panel in the middle of the "League of Titans" bit?

It's good to see that Luthor, etc. aren't simply accepting Libra as the new boss. And Libra's dig at Vandal Savage was funny.

The cell phone bit confused me. I thought that maybe the Human Flame was watching something he'd recorded earlier. So i thought maybe he was watching the execution of Martian Manhunter on his phone. Something about that scene didn't flow well for me. That might just be me.

I kind of like the New Gods being in human forms. Of course it will depend on what sort of role they play, but it could be cool. I suspect that Darkseid's machinations have somehow fused the New Gods' essence with humanity, which is fitting since all of his plans seemed to involve Earth anyway, and "New Earth" is the "foundation stone of all existence."

Is it me, or are the Leaguers talking about the New Gods as if they don't know them? As if Orion, Lightray, Big Barda and Mister Miracle weren't members of the League? Has that bit of history been changed, or has the reincarnation of the New Gods somehow caused amnesia?

I don't know what the Monitors are here for. Thematically, they're another level of cosmic power and mythology; they're like another pantheon of gods who may be higher than or in competition with the New Gods. How does their story relate to the others? The other stuff all ties to Darkseid's plans, but i don't see how this one does.

Then Anthro meets Kamandi. Apparently Anthro is either transported to another Earth (if this is the Countdown version of Kamandi) or the distant future (if this is the old school Kamandi). Kamandi is not identified, and neither is his setting. But we do learn that Metron set his own plan into motion before he croaked, and this is the good guys' Last Best Hope.

The monitor who was "exiled" wakes up in his new, human form (more gods becoming men, soon to strive towards godhood again; Morrison's working his literary themes) for i guess the first time.

This issue was set up, as you'd presume a #1 to be, but while it put the pieces into place, it didn't give us any indication of what kind of game is about to be played. Any thread between these various plots has to be deduced by the reader. That's not necessarily bad, but it's not Summer Event Series storytelling. The stakes are unclear.

It was odd.

Readers not already familiar with DC's superhero universe will have a lot of questions. Characters and concepts are not introduced in several instances, as i noted. If you haven't read Seven Soldiers, you might scratch your head about the Dark Side Club. This is a big minus for an Event comic, which is intended (or so i always thought) to sell to a lot of people, not just faithful DC fans who follow their "universe" as a whole. Something as simple as caption boxes, or a couple editorial pages, would have helped.

Two Reviews
I'm kinda grumpy this morning.


Green Lantern Corps #20

Last issue was slow, but that was okay, because it was about how the Corps were recovering from the Sinestro War, and the character vignettes were effective. This issue is also slow, but it doesn't work. Guy and Kyle decide that they're moving to Oa for the foreseeable future. That's pretty much the whole issue. They talk about moving, they move, they make Salaak laugh. Oh, and at the end Mongul talks smack to his dead sister's grody corpse. This was a boring issue.

The Spirit #12

It's a good, complete story, with beautiful art as usual. The subject is kinda depressing, though. It's all about Sand Saref, Denny Colt's real true love, who, after childhood trauma, turned evil and so they can never be together. This is a bum deal for Ellen, Denny's fiance, b/c it puts her in an eternal second place in Denny's heart. Then there are all those femme fatales that the Spirit dallies with...Ellen, your devotion is misplaced. Still, it's a better fate than Batman's love interests. Bruce Wayne can't wink at a girl without her being murdered by one of Gotham's many psychos.

The Engineer #1

By Brian Churilla (writer & penciller) and Jeremy Shepherd (writer & colorist), and Sean Glumace (letters)
Published by Archaia Studio Press

Hannibal Tabu, who writes “The Buy Pile” for comicbookresources.com, gave this comic a “WTF award”. I agree with him, except that i liked it, and he didn't (apparently). There is a lot of crazy stuff going on here.

There is a definite “cosmic” element. The hero, as i mentioned in an earlier post, travels between dimensions/worlds searching for parts of a mystical device. Is it mystical? It looks mechanical. It bestows godlike powers upon whoever wields it. You decide.

Actually, now's a decent time to wander into a discussion of what makes a comic cosmic. Does this subgenre even exist outside of comics? IDK. You know when you watch a documentary about the universe, about how stars are born and die, or the age of the cosmos, or how the best scientific minds can't find a huge chunk of the matter in the universe, or anything about quantum mechanics or string theory, and it starts tripping breakers in your brain that are usually tripped by mythology or ghost stories? That's the area that “cosmic” adventure comics inhabit, with superheroes and spacegods thrown in, natch.

Pages one and two set up the “big concept” backstory for the series. Page three drops us into the middle of the Engineer's latest mission. He's running from a huge, stoney spider-ish monster that wants to crush him. He's also running from the antler-crowned humanoids who worship the big stone spidery thing.


The three sisters appear. These are the mysterious beings who set the Engineer on his quest. They look...kinda like dolphins in long, ghosty cloaks? As all strange mystical beings should, they speak cryptically and never give the kind of help you ask for. They do (kinda) tell him that the piece of the konstrukt he's looking for in this world is inside the giant monster that's trying to crush him.

Once that is resolved*, the sisters do something very extreme to, in their minds, deal with the monster. The Engineer is very upset about this. This is not simply a good-guy-quests-against-evil kind of story. The hero's benefactors, while they are trying to save the universe from a force that would destroy it, are alien and uncaring when it comes to individual people or worlds within said universe. So the Engineer has to struggle with not just his enemies, but his allies as well.


The bizarre concepts don't stop. In that way, this comic is akin to Atomic Robo, but the tone is different. The Engineer is decidedly more melancholy, but that imaginative spark, the reckless creativity, is there. I've criticized a lot of comics for being too self-conscious: whether that meant being “cool” or “adult” or “edgy”. These comics blissfully avoid that. That makes me happy.**

I love that music is what powers the transport from world to world. The music/math or music/science connection is one of those phenomena that, while completely logical, always strike me as not quite right. Yes, i understand how math and music relate, but the experience of each is so disparate. (Especially considering that i love music, but am barely on speaking terms with math.)

The art has touches of Kirby and touches of Mignola, as you'd expect given the tone and cosmic-ness.

It's good. Look for it. Bug your comic shop if the didn't order it, because i think they can still get it. I've added it to my subscription list.



*I'm trying to find a synopsis/spoiler balance here; forgive me if it's awkward.

**This is an attitude i bring to all media, i think. Nothing kills a story, a song, or a film quicker than if i think the creators are trying only to look cool, or, even worse, trying to avoid looking uncool.