The Good and the Bad

The Good: Lost

Tonight's episode of Lost has to be one of the best episodes the show has ever come out with. There were huge reveals and awesome moments, story progression, more intriguing questions, plus they really focused on the most interesting parts of the current setup (Lost writers - Island folk extremely interesting, Hurley not). Really, this season has started off as well as any, and it's safe to say that Lost is on its way to one of its best seasons yet.

The (very, very, very) Bad: Final Crisis #7

Simply put, one of the most incomprehensible event books I've ever read, if not one of the most impossible to understand comics ever. While issues 3 and 4 were fairly intriguing, this series ended unbelievably poorly. I love Grant Morrison's work in the past (you name it, his JLA run, WE3, All Star Superman, etc.), but this is a virtual lock for worst comic of the year. An absolute mess of a comic book.

One thing I do want to note: it was a very pretty mess with interesting layouts. Doug Mahnke should have been on pencils this whole series. The man is a saint. Love his work, hopefully DC puts him on a bigger book after this.

That's it? Seriously?

Batman and Darkseid plotting each other's demise

Grant Morrison, what is your status?

If you care to read Final Crisis, DC's current mega event, at some point in the future, you probably shouldn't read this. However, you should read this part here: don't read the damn thing.

I think I keep trying to convince myself that I really like it. It is entertaining, and conceptually, it's pretty spectacular. Darkseid and his fellow "new" New Gods take over the Earth as part of the transition into the fifth world, using the anti-life equation which has been spread throughout the Earth submitting the human race to Darkseid's will. Most heroes goes down in the first salvo, Batman is taken out after Batman R.I.P., Superman is in the future, and Wonder Woman has been brainwashed by the anti-life. What are the heroes to do? How can they save New Earth?

Yet, this is not the sum of all of its parts. It's Morrison at his most byzantine, it's rushed JG Jones art (plus middling Carlos Pacheco work over the rest of it), and the 2 page plot beats for seemingly massively important sections. When he does give a topic more than that, it's on the most random things, like two people sized cats fighting each other (okay, oversimplifying an actually pretty sweet fight between Tawky Tawny and Kalibak, but still).

Then, after not appearing for four issues, Batman shows up randomly, all of a sudden free after being captured by Darkseid's confederates. Of course, much posturing proceeds, Batman takes out a gun (even Morrison references the fact that he never uses guns) with a bullet that was used to kill Orion in the first issue (it can do that because it's full of radion...you know those New Gods, they're so silly), points it at Darkseid (who responds by Omega Sanctioning all up in Bats business), and then they kill each other by radion bullet and bendy eye beams respectively.

This all takes place over three pages.

So a fight between cat people gets two more pages than the death of the main villain of the story (possibly) and the most popular character in the DC universe. Of course due to the fact the Omega Sanction is actually something that puts the person into an endless loop of alternative realities that continuously suck worse than the previous one, it probably means Batman will get out (especially considering Mister Miracle did in another Morrison written book).

No less, the point isn't that Batman died. It's that he died in a 3 page section of an issue that cycled through plot elements as fast as I jump through channels while nothing is on (which makes sense as Morrison himself calls this "channel zapping comics."), it's that the entire series is disjointed, frantic, and all over the place, it's that the art is mediocre (besides Doug Mahnke's stellar final five pages - thank god he's drawing issue seven!), it's really a combination of everything.

While I really dug issue 4 and have overall found the series entertaining, it's just too much of the side of Morrison that people do not like. People applaud him for "challenging" the way comic book publishers write these vents, but come on now. Being different isn't always great. This issue is the perfect example of why it isn't.

Check here at the Daily Skew for a nice breakdown of issue #6. I'm glad to see public opinion is turning against Morrison in this regard. It's about damn time!

The Day that Grant Morrison Won (Final Crisis: Reprise)

Secret Invasion vs. Final Crisis

Today was a really big day for comics. Rarely do we see two major events like Marvel's Secret Invasion and DC's Final Crisis have releases coinciding with each other, but today that happened. SI released its penultimate issue with issue #7 of 8, while we crossed the midway point with FC #4 of 7. That kind of timing is guaranteed to do two things: make comic dorks squeal with you (wheeeeee!) and make a person compare the two books.

Of course, going by what I wrote about issue 1 and issue 2 of Final Crisis, one would probably think that it would have no chance of standing up. To anyone who would listen to me, I have been unabashedly ripping Grant Morrison for the complicated mess that he's provided us in both that series and his Batman magnum opus, Batman R.I.P. As per usual, both have provided us with huge concepts, tons of characters, and a near encyclopedic knowledge of everything within that specific universe, however he wasn't letting readers in. Neither made much sense, to be quite honest.

However, just like what happened with the last issue of R.I.P., it's like Morrison pulled back the curtain and everything was revealed. The machinations of the previous three issues of Crisis all congealed to make issue four hit like a hammer, one that gave us an event where the fictional universe truly wouldn't be the same again, where everything seemed to feel deadly and irreversible. In short, Morrison did it again.

Over in Marvel's neck of the woods, Secret Invasion started off strong. The build up was perfect, the issues were fun, the tie-ins were incredibly revealing. However, everything began spinning its wheels about midway through (meaning the series and its' tie-ins), and I came to realize that the series has pretty much been seven straight issues of punching with intermittent discussions along the lines of this:

• Unknown hero A: Are you a Skrull?
• Unknown hero B: No. Are you a Skrull?
• Unknown hero A: No.
• Unknown hero B: Really?

Of course, now we've graduated to having cool character moments featuring all time favorites like Thor, Nick Fury, and Hawkeye plus some cool stuff featuring others like Maria Hill and the Hood, but still, there just isn't a lot of depth to the series and everything feels too stretched. There are too many characters, there are too many issues, there is just too much. It's still really fun in a summer action movie sort of way, but in terms of Earth shattering changes, we're simply not getting that.

So here I am, incredibly surprised by my own thoughts. Against the odds, Crisis has surpassed Invasion as the current leader in event wars with three issues remaining for the former and one for the latter. It's still anyone game, and Morrison has proved he can lose it at any time. However, from where I stand, DC is winning and Marvel can just sit and watch.

Also, one note about why I think this happened: right now, Marvel is spending every waking moment hyping Dark Reign, their post Invasion event. However, DC just keeps focusing on Crisis. While it's great to look forward, doing that removes focus from the present and devalues the package as a whole, and it also tells you "well I guess not a whole lot is going to change." Reading should be perpetually surprising, especially for such a plot oriented medium like comic books. Someone needs to remind Marvel of that before their next big event.

The Pull List

Issue of the week: Final Crisis #2 (Written by Grant Morrison, pencils by JG Jones)

This is the only issue I'm going to write about this week and let me tell you, I use the phrase "issue of the week" in not the most standard way. It'd make more sense with the words "most disappointing" or "convoluted continuty swamp of an" before it, but I decided both of those would just be too long.

Given that I'm a fairly big Morrison and Jones fan and I love the DC Universe as a whole, you'd think I'd be totally amped over this series. I mean come on, it's a crisis! It's DC's major event for the year. It's everything that the ridiculous Countdown series built to.

However, just like Countdown was a huge disappointment, so far Final Crisis has been as well. Sure, it's well written and has great art, plus it's fairly engaging, but we're two issues in and I have no idea what is going on. I still think Morrison will pull this one off, but two issues in and so far all we've gotten is the death of a hero and the appearances of many, many characters who I didn't even know existed before the series (and I know a lot about the DCU). I want development, I want to care, I want to see a point.

Needless to say, so far this series has left me wanting and that is something that should never come out of one of these events. Sorry DC, Marvel is currently wiping the floor with you in the battle of the mega event. There is still time, but come on. Let's get going.

Mmmmm...Pop Culture...

Before I get cracking on my Sasquatch related posts, I wanted to get into details about my thoughts about a few things and then a couple current happenings in my life. This post is about my thoughts, specifically those directly related towards a couple recent pop culture milestones. Check it.

While I was off down in Portland visiting with friends, one of the things we had to do of course was go check out the new Indiana Jones movie, titled Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We're all big Indy junkies, so we were all very, very excited to see it. What'd we think?

I prefer to think that they never made it. To me, the Indy series ended with Last Crusade. Maybe in time I will think this movie was adequate, but as of right now I think it was a travesty and a money grab, as I felt that everyone phoned their roles in besides possibly Shia LaBeouf. Not only that, but the whole movie stunk of George Lucas, as fun stunts and action scenes from the original three were replaced with CGI aplenty. Besides that, blatant ridiculousness and shoddy scripting weighed down the film as well. Also, Russians are not a comparable replacement for Nazis. Seriously. You can't even compare the two.

Needless to say, I didn't like it. If you're a fan of the series, be wary.

On the comics front (I'm thinking of starting up a weekly segment about this - exciting right?), this week featured the arrival of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1. Why is this a big deal? This is the culmination of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's run on the title, spanning 25 absolutely genius issues and capping off what is my all-time favorite run on any X-Men title.

And boy did they go out with a bang. Sure everything that happened was a little predictable (even in its awesomeness), but this issue featured everything - Whedon's trademark wit, great action sequences, saucy innuendo, sad goodbyes, giant action pieces, and most importantly, Cassaday's incomparable art. In my opinion, you just cannot get better than John Cassaday when it comes to pencils - the man is a god with art supplies. It reminded me of February's final issue of Y the Last Man, especially with the way it wrapped up.

If you like comics, it's an absolute crime to not have read this whole series already. In terms of recent runs on iconic heroes, you really cannot do much better.

Well hello there flipside, nice to see you! This week also featured the release of the first issue of DC's mega-event - Final Crisis (I almost put final in quotations - I don't believe that this is really the last crisis). After an entire year of build up in the moderately atrocious and occasionally vaguely readable Countdown, we're treated to an entire issue featuring a dream creative team (as opposed to the trash that was creating Countdown - sorry Paul Dini and Sean McKeever, but downgrade) - Grant Morrison and JG Jones (on interiors! happy day!).

Sadly though, even though we have a dynamic team to read from, all we're left with is a scattered mess that does absolutely nothing for us besides needlessly killing a legendary hero in a far less than heroic way. Great right? Sure, Marvel's Secret Invasion has been less than perfect so far, but first issue to first issue, Marvel has such a commanding lead in summer events it isn't even close.

Hopefully Morrison is going somewhere with this, as I trust he would be because the man rarely doesn't succeed. Count me in as a skeptic for once though. This series scares the crap out of me, and I really hope it doesn't fall short of the mammoth amounts of hype that preceded it. With DC's recent track record, I really am beginning to question it though. Good luck team, you're going to need it.