The main problems IMHO are as follows:

There is actually two different stories, Darkseid taking over the earth and the superman bleed/meta story arc. They had the same problem with the last crisis, where it mixed the Batman Brother Eye arc in with the Superboy prime/luther story arc.

Key scenes are not shown on camera or explained, such as Wonder Woman being transformed back or the rubic cube is actually a mother box (I think).

Killing Martian Manhunter in one side panel felt very weird. It should of been the climax of issue one or something.

Introduction of go now where side characters like the Japanese super hero team.

Unexplained side things happening that felt more like story notes then part of the main story. Such as Aquaman being reintroduced.

Way to much expectation for the reader to be a Rhodes scholar in DC lore. This would of been fine with more explanation. Morrision is good enough of a writer to introduce exposition information without bogging down the story.

The last issue being done in flash back. This really deflated any tension.

All together, FC felt like a collection of cool ideas and brain storming sessions with no coherence applied afterword.

If not you don't get it.

not everything has to be spoonfed to you.

Ruining comics for you? That's just sad.

Seriously, grow the hell up.

I still really don't like what Morrison did here, but at least you have cleared up a lot of the murk.

Thanks again.

Brian's great job on both the FAQ and the newer summary, I think, supports this sort of argument to a degree - after about the fourth issue or so, you're left twisting in the wind without the supplementals. There's still a plot there to follow, but you are acutely aware of things that are happening off-stage (Or out of issue) that are central to the story that you are not privy to until they are resolved in the book. If I were a stronger man I'd go back over the seven issues and map that out, but instead I would suggest just copying and pasting Brian's summary into notepad and then deleting every line that refers back to a non-FC # 1 - 7 book.

Keep in mind that I'm not pushing any of the "You're wrong and stupid!" "No, you're stupid and wrong!" arguments being flinged over this, I'm just trying to get across how some folks who were left cold by FC aren't necessarily numbskulled knuckle-draggers.

If you pick up any mainstream comic book, you need to have read something else to "fully" appreciate it. You don't need to read Seven Soldiers to understand the plot of Final Crisis. All you need to read is Final Crisis 1 - 7, and Superman Beyond 1 & 2. I agree that Superman Beyond may have been better folded into a 9 or 10 issue Final Crisis, but that was DC's decision, not the creator's.

All you need to understand the story is to read the damn thing.

That's pretty much the way I read it. Although I'd argue there is no need to pin it down to a particular group. It any reader, editor, writer, anybody who monitors comic continuity and 'reality' to the extent that they'd sacrifice story for it.

Really? Have you read Ulysses? Because I sure had trouble understanding it at any level at first. What about something like The Big Sleep? Chandler wasn't even sure what happened. I can only imagine what you'd think of Un Chien Andalou.

You know what, fuck plot. Fuck plot and characters and settings. Fuck the literal, the thematic is what matters. "Every story must have a clear literal meaning." Who made that rule? Why do we need that rule? Have we gone back to Aristotle? Poetics for Comics, the rules that every comic has to follow. Fuck rules.

To say that all comics, all art must have a clear literal seems a ridiculous rule. Welcome to surrealism folks, you're only 70 years late.

It's all of the above. Writers, editors, and readers. Morrison said it's one story with all these other stories in it.

So many ways to sum up FC (no particular order):

-FC is the anti-COIE, Morrison's revenge tale against COIE's ending of the multiverse, explaining why the multiverse never should have ended and why it is here to stay (Infinite Crisis was the radion bullet against COIE, setting up FC for the final kill)
-Morrison's repudiation of dark cynical Alan Moore/Alan Moore-like stories (Mary Marvel= Moore's Kid Miracleman), and other dark cynical post-Crisis-type writers/editors, and readers who wanted dark cynical "realistic" stories and called for the end of the fun multiverse
-the power of comic stories, the power of the medium, what it can do that other mediums can't
-Morrison's repudiation of anal retentive fans and writers (complained about the confusing multiverse and always harping on continuity errors), whose anal retentiveness interfere with their ability to truly enjoy the comic book medium
-etc, etc

(I'm not saying I agree with what Morrison is getting at)

Yeah. Never mind that some of the great classics of literature have entire semester-long courses devoted to dissecting, discussing, and explicating them. Clearly, a work of art that requires some thinking from the reader just sucks.

Don’t ever read a book.

Nothing is wrong with requiring some thinking to appreciate a book. But if you need to read annotations, interviews with Dan Didio and Grant Morrison, if you need earlier miniseries and tie-ins that you didn't know were necessary in order to understand the basic plot, HOW EXACTLY IS IT A "THINKING" ISSUE AT PLAY? You mean if I think long and hard enough when reading Final Crisis #1-7, the events of Seven Soldiers will magically pop into my head? And all the annotations to old referenced comic books too? As well as the events of Batman RIP and the Final Crisis tie-ins? As well as the clarifications given by morrison and Didio in their interviews? A fan can "think" all day until the cows come home while reading Final Crisis #1-7, but all these extra info will not magically pop into his head. It's an independent research issue at play, not a thinking issue. A fan needed to do a fair amount of independent research in the form of outside reading and annotation hunting and interview reading to appreciate and understand everything. A thinking problem would be if everything you needed to understand and appreciate what was happening in the book was right there in the pages of the book but one just still couldn't get it.

Those semester-long courses are geared toward dissecting the symbolism, explaining the metaphors and cultural context and exploring the grand themes of the book. This on the other hand has a lot to do with just explaining what the hell the basic plot was and the order in which events happens...simple plot mechanics.

Those classics you mention? If you read the books, you can understand the book on a very basic level. Those courses are just meant to expand beyond that basic understanding of the plot mechanics, not to actually explain the basic plot mechanics themselves.

Great summary! Really, was that so difficult? I've decided to be done with rant about the relative artistic merits of the book, but I would like to pose a question for discussion.

Who do the Monitors represent? Who is it that has been corrupted by stories to the point they have begun to parasitically feed off them to the point of destroying them forever? Who has enforced strict boundaries to keep one type of story separate from other types of story?

I see in this FAQ both comic writers and editors mentioned, but the way I read it, I believe it's us.

Comic book fans are the biggest threat to comic book stories. Resistant to change, always trying to bottle up our favorite stories and characters, violently angry when they don't turn out the way we want. I've come to view Final Crisis as Grant Morrison's warning to comic fans that we are stifling change in the story, thereby killing it.

But I could just be reading way too much into it.

Now, one thing I wanted to address was this point, made by layne.

Many of the complaints regarding FC and the questions in this FAQ are along the lines of “What was the story?”

Honestly, what was so hard to understand?

Villain attacks Earth, Villain wins, the Heroes fight back.

If what people are asking is, "What happened in all those really fast bits where there's lots of characters doing things," then they're not asking what the story is, they're asking for a detailed plot summary.

All of reality is threatened when the Evil God Darkseid is reborn into a human body; he unleashes the anti-life equation onto the world, converting most of humanity and meta-humanity into slaves. Batman is captured, Superman disappears, Wonder Woman is converted, and Green Lantern is framed for murder.

The remaining heroes attempt to fight back, and the Universe ITSELF resurrects the Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, to protect itself from Darkseid's actions. On the brink of Darkseid's final victory, Batman returns to mortally wound him, the Flash leads the Angel of Death, the Black Racer, to Darkseid, and finally Superman returns to destroy him...with a song.

Darkseid's machinations, however, have weakened the multiverse to the point where a being known as the dark monitor, Mandrakk, attacks, attempting to destroy all reality. With the help of Nix Uotan, exiled Monitor living on Earth, an army of multiversal Supermen, the angelic hosts of Heaven, the Green Lantern Corps, and more, Mandrakk is destroyed, Earth is saved, and reality is once again normal.

The thing about Final Crisis is that it creates a sense of discombobulation -- a very Romantic Literature notion of writing, where the work is actually affecting the reader on a fully engaged level -- but it's important that, to understand the story, we step back and stop getting lost in the fine details.

It's one thing to be confused by the experience, but the story is right there on the page for all to see.