Also, Greg said…

“It’s just that I AM a bit tired of what seems to be recurring themes in every book he writes, no matter what the situation. I feel this way about writers I like, bands I like, directors I like, actors I like – when they find something they do well, they beat it into the ground.”

It sounds like you have a problem with the concept of the auteur. It’s a perfectly valid problem, but it’s a little unfair to pick on Morrison specifically for it.

Thanks for clearing that up about Crisis. It was bugging me. As I’ve pointed out, the book still works for me pretty well, and I’m very curious to see what’s going to happen. I’ll try to stop nitpicking, I promise!

As to the bullet fired backwards through time…you’re supposed to recognize the concept. It’s a deliberate echo what happened to the character chasing it in the original Crisis, when it was the Anti-Monitor firing a tachyon projectile backwards through time…and the same character worked to stop that one, too.

Slainte Mhath by Marillion

Yea, what do I win?

I was joking a bit when I said if I don’t pick on Morrison, who will, because I think he’s probably the best pure comic book writer we’ve ever seen. It’s just that I AM a bit tired of what seems to be recurring themes in every book he writes, no matter what the situation. I feel this way about writers I like, bands I like, directors I like, actors I like – when they find something they do well, they beat it into the ground. I really, REALLY hope Morrison is getting all his Silver Age Love out of his system with All Star Superman, Batman, and Final Crisis, because I REALLY miss the Morrison who wrote We3 or Seaguy or even “Gothic.” He’s too talented to be aping Kirby all the time.

And I hate to contradict you, but if anyone writes “I don’t like this,” the immediate response is “Why?” I agree to a certain extent with Lynxara’s point – I’m certainly enjoying Final Crisis and the intrigue behind the main story, but there are some parts that just don’t thrill me, and I’m trying (I guess poorly) to articulate why. Maybe I’ll be able to do it when issue #3 comes out!

I didn’t get that impression at all – Clark was looking out the window when he said the line, so presumably he was seeing Jimmy somewhere else in the city and realizing that his wife and extended “family” at the Planet was in deep, deep trouble as a result. He just didn’t have time to do anything with the information.

(My only gripe is that while I’m always fine with the idea that Clark keeps tabs on Lois at all times – that bit Rucka did when she was shot was great – it’s a bit weird that he can just pick out Jimmy instantly like that. Made for a good scene, though, so no real reason to nitpick that.)

After the typically Morrison high-concept-but-not-entertaining stuff in Japan was out of the way, this was a pretty good read. I like how Morrison’s way of building up a threat to the JLA is almost always to neutralise Batman first and foremost, since everyone else (including the animated series writers) always had Superman be the punching bag to build up the bad guys. The way this one happened, you really got a sense that the JLA was in deep trouble, as 2/3rds of the members or their equivalents of Morrison’s league – which I’m sure he still considers the “real” JLA – are now either dead or incapacitated.

Fine by me!

That said, given the levels Morrison’s writing on, if you don’t really like Final Crisis it seems it would have to be on a gut level. So much of the story as it stands is ambiguous or open to interpretation that the main way it could fail is if it failed to make an audience want to engage with it.

Since the core premise of the story is nothing especially compelling– and is, in fact, not terribly clear– it seems to me to be a story that would be rather easy to disengage from. If this wasn’t an “event” book, disengaged readers would probably be more apt to skip over it than to feel a need to keep reading and complain about it.

That said, FC #1 completely failed to engage me while I found myself enjoying the second one, since it had a bit more meat to its narrative. Since it is such an ambiguous book, there may be good reason for people who aren’t engaging to keep going– engagement with the story may happen when just the right piece falls into place and gives some weight to things already read. For me it was the Turpin sequence.

The problem with thinking he’s mocking them, Brian, is that too often in the past he’s done stories where he admires people like that. It’s tough to tell his tone in this comic, and that’s why I think there’s a disconnect (with me, anyway). I didn’t like the “heroes” in the beginning, so I guess he did his job, but again, I think it went on too long.

“Too often in the past”? Forget “often,” I don’t recall when he has EVER done stories where he admires people like this.

Not in Zenith, Doom Patrol, Invisibles, JLA, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, Animal Man, All Star Superman, 52, Batman or Flash.

The closest comparison I can think of is what layne noted, the New X-Men characters who were similar to these characters, and were treated just as negatively. And perhaps the Infinity Inc. characters in 52 (I don’t think they were Morrison creations, but they, too, were portrayed negatively).

And going back to another point – “And that bullet fired from the future. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Has Morrison run out of original ideas?” –

Huh? I am not saying that other writers have not thought of having a bullet fired from the future, as I bet someone has, but it sure is not some standard sci-fi/comic book trope, and certainly not a cause for “has ____ run out of original ideas?” if it is used.

Really, most of the Final Crisis review seemed built around the point that Alan Coil referenced – that there apparently is the belief that there is some dearth of people picking of Morrison on the internet that needed to be addressed. There is no dearth, there is quite a surplus, and after reading all the nitpicks on the various message boards, it’s not fun to see more of the same here.

I often wonder if I should even do this when I’m a bit late, because the ephemeral nature of comics seems to indicate that if reviews don’t get out within a day or two of the books coming out, no one cares any more!

I read ‘em all in trades so you can be months late as far as I’m concerned!

That and “supercool” made me LOL. I loved that whole scene.