Review Final Crisis #6: Batman dies?
Continuing my occasional review of the FINAL CRISIS series, I got my hands on FINAL CRISIS #6. Before you get your hopes up thinking this issue features the death of Batman, Batman only appears in 5 pages in the chaotic comic book. Granted the 5 pages (2 are a giant splash page, so it’s really 4 unique pages) are AWESOME, but this comic doesn’t have 20 pages of The Final Fate of the Dark Knight.
As far as Grant Morrison’s storyline goes and the six people on art: I still have no idea what’s going on because everything still feels compressed, like I’m only reading a few panels of the subplots.
Yes, this issue was the best of all FINAL CRISIS issues (although a few of the spin-off issues were cool- I will do a quick rating of each in another post), but it still was mind-boggling and impossible to follow. For comic book collectors who want to see the final battle between Darkseid and Batman, but never picked up any FINAL CRISIS issues, trust me, none of it will make any sense.
The “climatic” battle between Darkseid (a GOD) and Batman (the most resourceful hero) lasted TWO pages. It felt like The Authority (Midnighter vs. a parody character).
Here are some comments I found on the Net about FINAL CRISIS although I usually mock comments such as these, in this particular case, I share them:
“What am I missing in the story? It just doesn’t grab me.”“I don’t feel this is an event, not even close to the magnitude of Infinite Crisis. So far from me this is utterly disappointing. “
“I acknowledge that Morrison is a great writer and he has a lot of good work out there. The problem is that he is too selfish to write an event. He wanted to put all his characters in this event. I understand and by all means put them in the background, but all of them are not major players.”
“He is trying to do what Miller did in Dark Knight Returns. He wants so hard to change the way people see comics. He wants to make history but this is a second rate story that will not go down as a classic.”
“There is way too much stuff happening in the book.”
“I’ve read DC since the late ’70s with only a brief hiatus in the ’90s but I have to say, FC has totally failed my expectations. The plot structure is fragmented; I have no empathy with most of the characters ; the plot is unappealing; and the continuity between series has been off.”
“Too much of the series has focused on characters that readers have no real interest in. i had never heard of Sonny Sumo and Dan Turpin and I’ve been a DC boy for over 25 years. Wonder Woman’s corruption is a plot point that has gotten very little page time. The return of Barry Allen should have been a mega event but it’s been pretty ho hum so far”
“FC is a failure. I have no interest in the outcome as I don’t care for any of the characters so far. The story is so bland and boring. I just can’t take the whole notion of an evil math equation seriously. we are STILL building up to something? Things STILL don’t gel together and make much sense? “
“FC has everything going against it, disjointed storylines, late releases, boring premise, pretentious writing, stretched plotlines, uninteresting characters and just plain BAD, BAD, BAD COMIC.”
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Damion, did we read the same comic? I thought you had different views on the other boards.I don’t get all the hating. Or why you just cherry picked the negative comments.
I think Final Crisis is a damn fine bit of writing on Morrison’s part. As for the art problems–stuff happens.
I think it’s both entertaining and challenging.
It’s not the original CRISIS that’s for sure, but do we really want a retread of that series? So much complaining about not getting the story you wanted, but where’s the adventure in that?
Huh?
I think you must have me confused with someone else, I never gave FC a positive review anywhere.
As far as my expectations- the “story I wanted” was a simple one, like Infinite Crisis.
Period.
I'm sorry but issue 6 was HORRIBLE.
I always stick up for Morrison and despite the fact that I didn't know all the characters that were appearing in this mini it was still relatively easy for me to follow and then this garbage comes out.
Obviously rushed JG Jones artwork let's you know you've just stepped in dogs&*t followed by a lot of whiny dialogue.
The Flashes doing more of nothing but TALKING ABOUT RUNNING.
Evil Wonder Woman doing all of nothing!
Evil Mary Marvel gets wrapped up in a few soft porn pages.
Montoya is going to do what? and what relevance does it have on the story? Hell by her dialog she's as lost as the reader.
Grant was going to show us the true power of the Gods and then Kalibak gets his stomach "wolverined" by Tawny and…….that's it? That's it? He gets his stomach scratched out. Really? That's the true might of a God? Wow. He was better off as a Kirby god. Thanks Grant.
"Superman Returns" and does what exactly? No really, because looking at the pages he's just raging out and knocks out the Furies. What was the point of that. Though hats off to Mahnke's art at the end for actually caring about this issue when no one else did.
The GLs , whom I couldn't care less about are just….floating…riiiigghhhttt
Batman fights Darkseid with a gun. Again nice testament of the "true power of a God". Can anyone explain to me wth makes these New New Gods tougher than the Kirby ones again….Anyone? And where did Batman even come from? LOL..he just walks on the panel? LOLOLOLOL
Mister Miracle hasn't done anything relevant since Seven Soldiers. Why is he even in this book?
This issue was …it was horrible. This is the worst work of Grants I've ever read and I've read EVERYTHING of his including "Zenith". This is total trash. This is worst than fanfic. What took this book so far off the rails. I really have to read the wrap up interviews on this book becuase…I can't believe how good 4 and 5 was and then we get this turd of an issue. Was it purposely this garbage so we can have our minds shredded by issue 7? I'm at a lost for..I…Can Wonder Woman please do something? PLEASE?
Darkseid forces were taken out by Sivana and Luthor,some second tier heroes on Bludhaven, and Darkseid fights a gun, by no other that the uber-Bat.
Darkseid wasnt a REAL GOD? Contrasting with the “concept of a God” as he claimed and we were led to believe but a rotten corpse ,a remainder of a God who went to “the sewers to die”.
If Superman had been here he could simply have taken out all Bludhaven by flying through it,and we can only wonder why Supergirl or Shazam didnt do the same . New Earth is ruined beyond repair for no given reason?
Come on guys ….I wanted to see Hal and the GLC doing something not just unable to access Earth.
This is SO dissappointing.
wanted to see a lot of things in this issue.
I wanted to see Superman vs Darkseid.
I wanted to see the fight between the heros and Bludhaven evil forces,between them the Furies.
I wanted to see Darkseid true power as a Real God instead of the “concept of a God” superheros had fought until now.
I wanted to see Hal and the GLC enter the fray at full force after the outstanding GLC panels in FC5.
I wanted to see Libra role in all this.
But what we get is some useless Miracle Machine story ,a subplot that no one cares about regarding the JLA watchtower ,Talky Tawny taking all the glory to him in Bludhaven and Shazam beating Mary with the umptenth use of the “I grab you while lighting strikes” trick,Superman just flying through Bludhaven defenses his cousin and most heroes couldnt get through ,Darkseid beat in a single page by Batman with a Radion bullet (WTF?) ,Luthor and Sivana getting rid of Libra in no time ….and some genius plan of Checkmate and the remaining heroes to flee to an alternate Earth and leave New Earth and all its population under Darkseid rule.
DailySkew- Glad to see you have the balls to judge FC and Morrison for what they are: totally overrated!
This WILL go down in history as ALL HYPE.
I cannot WAIT for this shit to be retconned.
I quite liked the first few issues of Final Crisis, but this one just didn’t work for me. I can see what Morrison is trying to do with the narrative structure — making it seem overwhelming, as everything spirals out of control — but at the same time it makes it less engaging to read.
I’ve posted a longer review on my own blog, if you’re interested.
The problem with any of this stuff is – who takes this shit seriously anymore? DC bated everyone with the “Superman Dies” storyline 15 years ago, and even then you knew there was a 0% chance Superman/Clark Kent/Kal El – THE comic book character for all time (with all apologies to Bats) – was staying dead. But it got DC on the national news and it sold a lot of books, and then – surprise! – Kal El returns!
Bruce Wayne will be back – in six months or a year or so – and it will all be like it never happened. Of course it’s not an “event.” I like the regular monthly Batman stories very much. I also like the regular monthly stories of several other DC characters.
But this stuff is just silly – there’s no way, knowing how important Bruce Wayne/Batman is to the existential essence of DC Comics (to say nothing of the character’s importance to DC’s financial bottom line), that this story is anything other than an utterly forgettable blip with absolutely no artistic integrity underwriting it. Why do they do it? Does it really increase sales at this point?
BIG NEWS – Batman DIED!!!!!! And he might even stay dead for like 12 issues!!!!!
Morrison wants this story taken seriously, but its major plotpoint undermines the entire narrative – because the audience knows it’s all 12 months from being undone. Oh, and it’s totally derivative of similar moves made in comics in the 1980s and 1990s, right before the market collapsed under the weight of all these over-printed “collector’s item!” story lines.
Great job, guys. Real creative.
100% agree with you. Similar to Chris Jericho getting “fired” on WWE last week.
Everything in comics is temporary, even “deaths”.
DC has been driving gimmicks events for years now for the small sales blip and mainstream exposure, but this story isn’t even accessible or good.