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theohume's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
filmbusterspaul's review
3.0
It all feels incredibly disjointed and centres around characters and stories that have clearly been fleshed out in other books, yet here you are supposed to just kind of guess what’s happening… and I didn’t know what was happening most of the time!
Yet crucially there were many glimmers of greatness throughout. In the fleeting moments when I felt like I had a grip of the story it was tantalising stuff, until it very quickly retreats back to jumbled madness again.
The best segment though was actually the Batman centric story, which was clearly a loose tie-in but nicely explored the history of the caped crusader as Apokolips residents explore his brain.
Overall though there is something great to unpick here, but it is clearly mixed up in confusing threads that need to be unpicked in subsequent re-reads, which time will tell if I can be bothered to actually do.
Yet crucially there were many glimmers of greatness throughout. In the fleeting moments when I felt like I had a grip of the story it was tantalising stuff, until it very quickly retreats back to jumbled madness again.
The best segment though was actually the Batman centric story, which was clearly a loose tie-in but nicely explored the history of the caped crusader as Apokolips residents explore his brain.
Overall though there is something great to unpick here, but it is clearly mixed up in confusing threads that need to be unpicked in subsequent re-reads, which time will tell if I can be bothered to actually do.
nicko3's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
sajie87's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
molena's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
reademandweep's review
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
sisyphus_dreams's review
2.0
...what the &*(# was that?!?
I've enjoyed Grant Morrison's work in the past, but Final Crisis feels like an experiment gone wrong. It's incoherent and lacks even one memorable scene. Call me stupid (you won't be the first), but I couldn't make any real sense of it at all. Reading it felt like work, but there was no payoff. All it did was make me feel that the entire superhero genre is tired and outmoded.
Basically, Grant seemed to feel it necessary to try to amp up the tired old "heroes save the universe" plot into "HEROES save the MULTIVERSE!!!!!!", but ended up creating a confusing mess. Maybe it's time to stop trying to save the universe, and move towards a storyline a little less full of s---. Something that relates a bit more to the human condition.
I mean...it seems to me that Final Crisis is a good example of a real problem with the comics industry, or at least with the Big Two. The stories just don't have any connection to the real world any more. It's just the same old stuPENDOUS, tiTANIC WORLD-SAVING!!! And seriously who gives a f--- any more?
The fantastic is integral to superhero comics, just as sugar is integral to ice cream. But a comic book that consists of nothing BUT the fantastic, with the same old fantastic plot that has been done to death a million times over, is like ice cream made of nothing but sugar.
It'll rot your teeth. And the only people who'll like it are those with very simple tastes. Since TV serves the simple-tastes market cheaper and better than comics can*, this isn't an approach that bodes well for the future of comics. And frankly, Grant Morrison is capable of better.
If there's nothing that connects a story to the reader, if there's no actual human element in the story, only rabid fanboys with undiscriminating tastes will buy your books. And where's the future in that? That's not an audience that's going to grow. It's not like fanboys have a high reproduction rate! And I should know - I was one.
---------------
* See "Minimum Wage and the Prices of Comics" - http://www.vonallan.com/2011/08/minimum-wage-and-prices-of-comics.html
I've enjoyed Grant Morrison's work in the past, but Final Crisis feels like an experiment gone wrong. It's incoherent and lacks even one memorable scene. Call me stupid (you won't be the first), but I couldn't make any real sense of it at all. Reading it felt like work, but there was no payoff. All it did was make me feel that the entire superhero genre is tired and outmoded.
Basically, Grant seemed to feel it necessary to try to amp up the tired old "heroes save the universe" plot into "HEROES save the MULTIVERSE!!!!!!", but ended up creating a confusing mess. Maybe it's time to stop trying to save the universe, and move towards a storyline a little less full of s---. Something that relates a bit more to the human condition.
I mean...it seems to me that Final Crisis is a good example of a real problem with the comics industry, or at least with the Big Two. The stories just don't have any connection to the real world any more. It's just the same old stuPENDOUS, tiTANIC WORLD-SAVING!!! And seriously who gives a f--- any more?
The fantastic is integral to superhero comics, just as sugar is integral to ice cream. But a comic book that consists of nothing BUT the fantastic, with the same old fantastic plot that has been done to death a million times over, is like ice cream made of nothing but sugar.
It'll rot your teeth. And the only people who'll like it are those with very simple tastes. Since TV serves the simple-tastes market cheaper and better than comics can*, this isn't an approach that bodes well for the future of comics. And frankly, Grant Morrison is capable of better.
If there's nothing that connects a story to the reader, if there's no actual human element in the story, only rabid fanboys with undiscriminating tastes will buy your books. And where's the future in that? That's not an audience that's going to grow. It's not like fanboys have a high reproduction rate! And I should know - I was one.
---------------
* See "Minimum Wage and the Prices of Comics" - http://www.vonallan.com/2011/08/minimum-wage-and-prices-of-comics.html
the_graylien's review
5.0
I'd heard many, many talks, interviews, debates, etc. about "Final Crisis" before I'd read it.
I've heard somewhere that it split all of comic book fandom in half.
On one side there were those (who were presumably not fans of Morrison) saying, "This is crap! It's not fair! He's out of his mind and on drugs and he just writes down whatever craziness comes into his head and AAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!"
On the other there were those who said it was pure genius.
This almost made me afraid to read it. I only did so because I've been reading Morrison's entire Batman run lately and most folks listing that run on the ol' interwebs included "Final Crisis" as sort of an apocryphal work. I thought, "Why not? I'll include it."
While I can't really tell you how this ties into or compares to the other big "Crisis" stories of the DCU (having never read any of the rest of them), I can say that from what I've heard about them, it seems to be hinged on the same subject matter: All the heroes of the DCU, multiple Earths, multiple timelines, parallel universes, and the like.
What the book boils down to in a sentence and what is almost a paraphrase of one of the one-liners used to advertise the series is: What if evil won?
Having said that and not wanting to spoil too much, I'll say that I liked this one... a LOT. The book has almost every active character (at that time) in the DC Universe. There are things as simply entertaining as good ol' mash-it-up comic book superpowered fistfights, yet things as complex as, well, MANY parallel universes. The book had AMAZING ART. It at once defines Superman as few other books have and ennobles Batman as NO other book I've ever read has.
This one's a real treat.
If you haven't guessed, I'm on the side that thinks Morrison wove pure genius here. I hope you'll pick this one up and enjoy it as much as I did.
I've heard somewhere that it split all of comic book fandom in half.
On one side there were those (who were presumably not fans of Morrison) saying, "This is crap! It's not fair! He's out of his mind and on drugs and he just writes down whatever craziness comes into his head and AAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!"
On the other there were those who said it was pure genius.
This almost made me afraid to read it. I only did so because I've been reading Morrison's entire Batman run lately and most folks listing that run on the ol' interwebs included "Final Crisis" as sort of an apocryphal work. I thought, "Why not? I'll include it."
While I can't really tell you how this ties into or compares to the other big "Crisis" stories of the DCU (having never read any of the rest of them), I can say that from what I've heard about them, it seems to be hinged on the same subject matter: All the heroes of the DCU, multiple Earths, multiple timelines, parallel universes, and the like.
What the book boils down to in a sentence and what is almost a paraphrase of one of the one-liners used to advertise the series is: What if evil won?
Having said that and not wanting to spoil too much, I'll say that I liked this one... a LOT. The book has almost every active character (at that time) in the DC Universe. There are things as simply entertaining as good ol' mash-it-up comic book superpowered fistfights, yet things as complex as, well, MANY parallel universes. The book had AMAZING ART. It at once defines Superman as few other books have and ennobles Batman as NO other book I've ever read has.
This one's a real treat.
If you haven't guessed, I'm on the side that thinks Morrison wove pure genius here. I hope you'll pick this one up and enjoy it as much as I did.
rabbithero's review
4.0
While definitely a little hard to follow at times, this is an opus really worthy of the attention. A vast superhero epic, so immense in scope and vision that it dwarfs everything before it, Final Crisis succeeds because it looks upon the heroism of the DC Universe as being something pure, transcendent, and vaguely mythological, creating out of this narrative a new pantheon of four-color gods for our modern American society.
That is a feat, I think, worth championing.
That is a feat, I think, worth championing.