Earth Two: Futures End #1 – Review

By: Daniel H. Wilson (story), Eddy Barrows (pencils), Eber Ferreira (inks), Pete Pantazis (colors)

The Story: The third-smartest man versus the two smartest men. See the problem?

The Review: I believe the common rationale for tie-ins is to expand and flesh out an already big storyline into one that truly feels all-encompassing. At my most cynical, I see tie-ins as obvious grabs for more cash. Having lived through many, many Big Events, I can tell you that the number of tie-in issues that actually added anything to their source plot is few; even fewer is the number of issues that had any effect on their respective titles. Tie-in stories are treated more like inconveniences than anything else.

That’s been the case for most of the Futures End titles so far, though I had more hope for Earth Two. Since the war and integration of the two Earths have been such an integral part of Futures End, you’d think this title would have more weight than others. Apparently not. The most puzzling thing about this issue is that its protagonist isn’t even a resident of Earth-2, and none of the major Earth-2 characters even feature in supporting roles.

Final Crisis # 7 (of 7) – Review

By Grant Morrison (writer) Doug Mahnke (pencils), Tom Nguyen and Cristian Alamy (inks)

The Story: DC’s Final Crisis concludes with Superman saving all of reality by defeating a resurrected Darkseid and an insidious Mandrakk, the Dark Monitor. All the various plot threads coalesce as time and space are restored through Superman utilizing miracle technology from the future. In addition, the status of Batman, who is perhaps the biggest conversation topic of Final Crisis, is visited and his future narrative is formulated.

What’s Good: The way Grant Morrison wrote this installment reads like a flip book whose pages are out of order. Whether or not this is effective is a subjective assessment. Nevertheless, I find it to be enjoyable and rewarding. Don’t get me wrong: this is highly nontraditional story telling, but I am intrigued with the multi-narrative approach that reflected the “real” representation of the broken time line.

Like a great dessert can retroactively make an average meal good, so too the end of this issue’s ability to sweetened the beginning. The dramatic conclusion of the Monitor saga worked really well, as did the final pages, which will no doubt be the most controversial.

What’s Not So Good: There are way too many sub-plots at play here. I would have liked to see more time allotted to the main thrust of the story, rather than peripheral stories involving marginal characters. There’s so much time spent catching the reader up with what has happened previously in the story, a reader could pick up this issue and get all the information needed for the whole series without reading the ones before it. If you’re confused by this issue, then the previous installments won’t clear anything up for you. And if you get all the heavy DC continuity and meta-narrative stuff, than this issue is all you need.

Additionally, changing art teams for this final issue might have been necessary for practical and editorial reasons, but it is nevertheless jarring. It changes the tone and feeling of this series, and for-better-or-for-worse, wrecks whatever momentum was working for FC. Don’t get me wrong, Doug Mahnke draws very well and tells the story clearly. I just would have liked him to be on from the beginning or not at all.

Conclusion: It is hard to sum up this comic because I don’t really know what it was supposed to do. If this issue is meant to be an exercise in experimental comic book creating, using mainstream superheros as a pallet, than this issue is a success. But if this series is meant to impact the modern DC universe and satiate a reader’s appetite for DC superhero stories, than this issue is slightly above being a failure.

I think the biggest setback of this issue (and this series, for that matter) comes when Morrison focuses to much on cool ideas by sacrificing solid story telling. Perhaps the most damming conclusion I’m forced to say about this comic is that it is un-recommendable.

Final Grade: C+

-Rob G

Final Crisis #6 – Review

By Grant Morrison (writer), JG Jones, Carlos Pacheco, Doug Mahnke, Marco Rudy, Chirstian Alamy, Jesus Merino (artists)

Honestly?  I love Grant Morrison’s work.  I admire his wild imagination and flair for telling chaotic stories that somehow always manage to make a strange kind of sense.  I loved The Invisibles, JLA, We3 and New X-Men, and even picked up his entire run on Seven Soldiers of Victory, a thematic prequel to Final Crisis.  I’m telling you this so you’ll know I’m not coming into this story cold.  I picked up every issue so far and followed the plot.  Sadly, I couldn’t care less for any of it.

And why should I, when DC has had a track record for over twenty years now of hitting the reset button with these massive storylines that promise to dazzle you with the illusion of change, only to be erased a few years later so that everything can be just the way it was before?  While I like the idea of Darkseid and his pantheon of Dark Gods gaining dominion over Earth, allowing the villains to finally win, I know things won’t stay this way long enough to make a difference, and if I know that then why bother reading?  Take this issue for example: do we really think the outcome of Batman’s battle with Darkseid is definitive?  How long before they reverse what they’ve done?

Also, why is it that these DC epics aren’t more friendly to new readers?  Why do they demand you to have a working knowledge of the last seventy years of DC continuity in order to understand them?!  Not only has Final Crisis not been friendly to new readers, it actively works to discourage and drive them away; seeking instead to cater only to those faithful elitists that have been reading DC comics for a long, long time.  The epic bullshit that Bendis writes for Marvel may be slightly shy of moronic, but at least his stories strive to be entertaining and accessible to new readers!

Ultimately, I can’t decide if Morrison is a victim of editorial slavery or an advocate of the bad storytelling DC has been pushing down our throats since Crisis on Infinite Earths. I can say with confidence though that this series was not meant for the casual reader.  It does not like you. In fact, it wants you to go away.

Grade: D-

-Tony Rakittke