Final Crisis #2 hit shelves last week and I wasn’t around to report on it. I am actually trying my hardest to play catch up and trying to figure out how I am going to review all these series before next Wednesday rolls out. It is almost futile to try and push out reviews this weekend, but I decided this would be the going away treat. There is no doubt I was disappointed with Grant Morrison’s take on the New Gods and his handling of Final Crisis.



I am still just as disappointed with his take on the Final Crisis and the New Gods as I was with issue #1 as I am with issue #2. Some of you may find some redeeming qualities about the series thus far, I however am not, if I wanted to play a puzzle or have mystery weekend I would not be opening up a comic book. There is a lot of depth layered into the artwork by J.G. Jones and for that I must commend him, but even his visuals are not all that impressive to me. This is just a matter of opinion and taste because his artwork clearly depicts the story at hand, but nothing is dynamic or impactful. There is a page layout of the JLA observing Martian Manhunters burial on the planet Mars and the page is split into three panels, why? I am assuming it is probably some hidden meaning that I am just not willing to go sifting through decades of comic books to figure out.



I have also noticed a lot of sites like CBR, Newsarama and others giving Morrison praise for his work, but in all honesty I just can’t. Reading an interview Morrison gave not too long ago with Newsarama, where he was questioned about some of the elements of the story people were taking issue with he came across as very arrogant and seemed wrapped in his own way of thinking how he is proceeding with things. Even noting the direction he intends on taking the New God characters just does not sit well in my mind. They are still present as Gods of the Fifth World, but more parasitic ghost like gods if you want to envision that. They are the manifestation of emotions. I don’t care if Morrison has been reading Deepak Chopra and learning the way of the force, I don’t need every piece of religiosity that he has experience wrapped into this often failed driven project.



From the start he was at odds with the rest of DC Continuity and almost admits to us the readers that reading Countdown and Death of the New Gods was not worth it, because anything we took as canon there might as well be relinquished to nothing because he began writing his Final Crisis before those were released and didn’t care to revise. Personally, even the way a lot of the major points in the issue are done is just devoid of reason other than Morrison wanting his alternate timeline stuff placed into the DCU. It’s almost sickening and some of you may agree and some will disagree.

Grant Morrison: Trying not to disturb continuity too much, particularly in cases where said continuity is best described as a car wreck. Back in 2006, I requested a moratorium on the New Gods so that I could build up some foreboding and create anticipation for their return in a new form … instead, the characters were passed around like hepatitis B to practically every writer at DC to toy with as they pleased, which, to be honest, makes it very difficult for me to reintroduce them with any sense of novelty, mystery or grandeur. So in cases like this, where fellow creators have overlooked my carefully established additions to DC continuity or ignored my pleas to hold certain characters in reserve, my intention is to follow the through-line I’ve established in my own work so that there’s at least some long-term consistency.

The highlights of this issue were the body snatchers moments. Darkseid now inhabits Detective Turpin which is evident in Jones’ illustration; Granny Goodness has taken over an Alpha Lantern and captured Batman to turn him into some sort of beast, who knows. It is also sort of evident that this is the Bruce Wayne Batman so it almost makes me want to stop reading Batman RIP. Other magical moments were probably the appearance of the Super Young Team and Barry Allen running from the God-Killing bullet and the Black Racer at the end, which also point to some major ramifications for Jay as he was prophesied to see Barry 3 more times in his life and this would be the third. Oh yes and Libra has Clayface plant a bomb at the Daily Planet which explodes and probably kills Lois as a means to get Luthor on board with his Secret Society. You hardly get to soak that moment up though because it is brushed over so quickly and done in one page.



Right now I am just not on board with Morrison vision of the New Gods and their body inhabiting ways. Before I forget even the Forever People inhabit human host as evident by Shiloh Norman’s encounter with Sonny Sumo. I want so badly to be onboard for this ride, but it is losing me. I will definitely follow it to the end hoping that I get Darkseid as Darkseid and not Morrison’s Seventh Soldier Darkside.

Grant Morrison: When we decided to do a book about gods, we felt it was important to do think through what a ‘god’ actually is. Gods aren’t like souls, or ghosts, gods are much bigger and scarier than that.

You know, it’s like every single word culture developed is own pantheon of Gods -which unsurprisingly all share similar traits, like the Greek goddess of Love is Aphrodite, while the Voudon goddess of Love is Erezulie and the Norse goddess of Love is Freya and so on. Now, what you have to understand is this: our primitive forebears weren’t stupid and when they talked about gods what they were describing were ‘eternal qualities’. In a normal human lifetime, we become possessed by ‘gods‘ every day. When we fall in Love, we are possessed by Aphrodite, when we are witty and clever we are possessed by Hermes or Thoth, when angry we‘re possessed by Ogun or Tyr or Ares. We tend to call such possessions ’moods’. but even when we are not personally in love or angry, there is always Love and Anger in the world and those eternal wells of Love and Anger and the other ‘big’ qualities of the human emotional spectrum are what our ancestors personified and called ‘gods’. The ‘god’ in this case, being the timeless quality of ‘Love’ or ‘Anger’ that we can all tap into for a little while.

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