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Dare I ask what you all thought?

I genuinely loved it, thought the art in Issue 7 was stellar [man do I wish Mahnke did the whole series], and thought it brought together all the strands Morrison was playing with in a brilliant way. My enthusiasm will be tempered by the likelihood that other DC writers will probably not make use of the things he's done to the DCU, but I can't fault him for what others do after him.

I loved it, as I did the previous six issues. Final Crisis was without question the best modern event comic I've read.

I won't get the book until next week (Tues Feb 3rd) so won't be able to comment until then.

Question: Have you been liking Final Crisis up to this point and #7 was "More goodness", or have you been thinking it is kind of an incomprehensible mess that got tied up in a really nice way with #7???

Did you feel:
1) #7 was "Yet another masterpiece from Grant Morrison"

2) #7 really turned me around. I was not liking FC, but #7 really tied the series together!

3) I enjoyed the first six issues, but the finale let me down

4) I disliked this whole series, and the last issue couldn't turn me around.

PS: Koete falls into "Category #1"

PPS: Extra categories added at Wood's suggestion!

I'm clearly in category 1...

And I know Mario M was in a 3rd category, he loved the first 6 issues, but was unhappy with the ending

OK, added the extra categories.....

(I fell into category 3 for Secret Invasion, Infinite Crisis, and Civil War).....

I have not read it yet, but my question is: Did it have an ending?

HipHopHead wrote:I have not read it yet, but my question is: Did it have an ending?

Like it or hate it, this was as epic as a comic book can get. And virtually every string that was dangling was resolved, at least of the ones I can think of.

The only thing I'll certainly concede is that if you happened to have skipped Superman Beyond or Resist/Submit, there are probably parts that were harder to come to terms with.

I am definitely a catagory 4. I really REALLY tried to like this series. After reading every issue, I just kept falling farther off the horse. I have a decent knowledge of the DCU, but I just couldn't grasp the whole event. I would talk to friends and listen to the issue breakdowns and still just not "get" how this was so important.

I did skip all the extra's like Superman Beyond and Resist/Submit. I've been burnt in the past with extras and didn't think that it would be all that important.

This brings up something that I would like to know. If Superman Beyond and Submit/Resist were so important, why didn't they make this a 12 issue event and release them as actual issues of Final Crisis? I now feel that I didn't get the whole story by not reading those issues.

I know it all comes down to marketing and getting the consumer to buy more books, I completely understand that. But could they give a little better roadmap as to what is really important to read for the story and what is flub. Example is Rage of the Red Lanterns, it was under the Final Crisis banner, but had little to no effect or outcome to the Final Crisis story.

Wood wrote: The only thing I'll certainly concede is that if you happened to have skipped Superman Beyond or Resist/Submit, there are probably parts that were harder to come to terms with.

Uh-oh. Not going to be good for me then.

I skipped issue #2 of the crap-fest which was Superman Beyond, and I also skipped Submit/Resist.

Gotta love a story that is hard to grasp if you don't buy $16 worth of extraneous books from outside the series.

One thing I will say (and I think even the fervent supporters of FC will have to agree):

Final Crisis is a failure as a series. I base this on the fact that (I assume) DC's intent was to actually stir up universal excitement and sales as opposed to having half the fans just be really confused and pissed off by the series. This is regardless of the fact that we all bought it. It was yet another withdrawal from the "bank of fan good will". DC's account is now bankrupt with this fan.

BobBretall wrote: Uh-oh. Not going to be good for me then.

I skipped issue #2 of the crap-fest which was Superman Beyond, and I also skipped Submit/Resist.

Gotta love a story that is hard to grasp if you don't buy $16 worth of extraneous books from outside the series.

One thing I will say (and I think even the fervent supporters of FC will have to agree):

Final Crisis is a failure as a series. I base this on the fact that (I assume) DC's intent was to actually stir up universal excitement and sales as opposed to having half the fans just be really confused and pissed off by the series. This is regardless of the fact that we all bought it. It was yet another withdrawal from the "bank of fan good will". DC's account is now bankrupt with this fan.

One of the negative strikes I do give Final Crisis is that Superman Beyond should have been in the main series. Superman Beyond really was rather important and I think Final Crisis could have used another issue or two. Of course with all the art delays, maybe it's a good thing Superman Beyond was done concurrently.

I can see Final Crisis failing as an event, but not a series. Personally, I felt that each issue was worth the $4 I spent on it and had a lot more depth than the standard event fare. DC actually deposited some good will into my bank, for allowing Morrison to do an event that wasn't just a bunch of heroes and villains punching each other.

Category #3,

I have been a large supporter of the book since issue #1. Loved it up until #7 and then I thought what a huge disappointment. Having said that I will still give it a 3 for #7 on your grading scale. I just did not feel like an Event to me and that we gained anything out of it that we did not already have from some of the previous DC series (two that come to mind). I wish we had spoiler tags on the forum so I could discuss some of it. I tried a white font but that really did not help.

BobBretall wrote:

Wood wrote: The only thing I'll certainly concede is that if you happened to have skipped Superman Beyond or Resist/Submit, there are probably parts that were harder to come to terms with.

Uh-oh. Not going to be good for me then.

I skipped issue #2 of the crap-fest which was Superman Beyond, and I also skipped Submit/Resist.

Gotta love a story that is hard to grasp if you don't buy $16 worth of extraneous books from outside the series.

One thing I will say (and I think even the fervent supporters of FC will have to agree):

Final Crisis is a failure as a series. I base this on the fact that (I assume) DC's intent was to actually stir up universal excitement and sales as opposed to having half the fans just be really confused and pissed off by the series. This is regardless of the fact that we all bought it. It was yet another withdrawal from the "bank of fan good will". DC's account is now bankrupt with this fan.

From the context that things were essential and not included in the main series, I agree that's problematic. Morrison, in his exit interview on Newsarama, explains the intended order:

FINAL CRISIS # 1- 3
SUPERMAN BEYOND # 1- 2
SUBMIT
FINAL CRISIS # 4 – 5
BATMAN #682 – 683
FINAL CRISIS # 6 – 7

Since Beyond came out so late, and, to my knowledge, this order of reading was never articulated in any DC marketing materials, that's a problem that, even though I LOVED Final Crisis, I can't argue against.

Koete wrote:

BobBretall wrote: Uh-oh. Not going to be good for me then.

I skipped issue #2 of the crap-fest which was Superman Beyond, and I also skipped Submit/Resist.

Gotta love a story that is hard to grasp if you don't buy $16 worth of extraneous books from outside the series.

One thing I will say (and I think even the fervent supporters of FC will have to agree):

Final Crisis is a failure as a series. I base this on the fact that (I assume) DC's intent was to actually stir up universal excitement and sales as opposed to having half the fans just be really confused and pissed off by the series. This is regardless of the fact that we all bought it. It was yet another withdrawal from the "bank of fan good will". DC's account is now bankrupt with this fan.

One of the negative strikes I do give Final Crisis is that Superman Beyond should have been in the main series. Superman Beyonds really was rather important and I think Final Crisis could have used another issue or two. Of course with all the art delays, maybe it's a good thing Superman Beyond was done concurrently.

I can see Final Crisis failing as an event, but not a series. Personally, I felt that each issue was worth the $4 I spent on it and had a lot more depth than the standard event fare. DC actually deposited some good will into my bank, for allowing Morrison to do an event that wasn't just a bunch of heroes and villains punching each other.

I just read Final Crisis #7 and agree with what you said about Superman Beyond series. There were elements in #7 that came from Superman Beyond.

I think I fall between category 1 and 3. I don't think this was Morrison's best work and I felt that there were last minute re-writes where the series as whole is a bit choppy. However, I did feel that issue 7 was the best issue of the series and if Morrison had more the elements from Superman Beyond and #7 throughout the series, I would have thought the whole series fantastic.

Overall, Final Crisis is a 3.5 in my book. Since this is a non-spoiler thread, I won't get into the details on what I liked and didn't like.

BTW, DC needs to get Doug Mahnke on a regular high-profile title. He is a fantastic artist and should have been on the book on day 1.

Put me down as
4) I disliked this whole series, and the last issue couldn't turn me around.


I've held my tongue till this series was over. I kept hoping it would get better. I kept telling myself that once all the issues were done it would make sense. I told people that it will read better in a trade ...BOY WAS I WRONG.

Funny thing I can tell you about individual parts and why I like them but the story telling was terrible. I think that if anybody else had written this story we would be praising it.

Someone at my LCS who is a big DC fan said that the story telling reminding him of when a little kid is excited about something that happened to them and is trying to tell you the story. You get bits and pieces but their is no connection between them, much like the scene in LOST were Hurley tries to explain to his mom what happened on the island. This is how FC read to me and to a lot of other people.

In the Newarama interview Morrison said:

"Final Crisis is an attempt to predict how ‘channel-zapping’ techniques might develop as the Fifth World of the Information Age of Obama gets underway and begins to define itself in opposition to the previous generation’s ‘rules’. Another big DC fan at my LCS said "the reason people channel-zapping is that they cannot find anything good on TV.

I have read a lot of people's posts defending FC by saying that it is the subtext that makes this a great story. But the story on the surface needs to be a least good enough for people to want to read it again for pleasure not to read it to try and understand what they just read. Watchmen is a perfect example how this done correctly. If you read Watchmen only once you get a good murder/mystery story, not the best murder/mystery story ever written but a good enough to want to reread. Once you start to reread the story you start to discover the subtext. The more you reread it the more you discover.... but you have to likes the story enough to want to reread it. A lot of people are rereading this not to discover the hidden subtext but to try to understand it.

I can't comment on #7 yet, but Chris Gallo perfectly sums up my feelings on #1-6 in his post above.