WARNING: A spoiler or two follows…

Attending last year’s Wizard World Texas, Ethan Van Sciver appeared annoyed at the room’s frustration with the manner in which Grant Morrison was telling the story of Final Crisis.

Van Sciver seemed a bit peeved at the suggestion that Final Crisis is difficult to “get” and asked: “What doesn’t make sense?”

The guy across from me answered, “I read English. I understand the words on the page. I don’t understand the way in which they are arranged. Superman Beyond was incomprehensible to me.”

I’m right there with you, dude.

Throughout this event, I have held that Final Crisis is one of the most poorly executed and conceived comic events ever. Certainly there has been some beautiful artwork. Mahnke’s pencils on Requiem and Superman Beyond are truly amazing. Tomasi’s writing on Requiem and Rucka’s on Revelations is outstanding. In particular, Tomasi did a masterful job of evoking meaningful sentiment for the loss of the Manhunter. Nicely done.

I am amazed at the number of positive reviews I have seen for Final Crisis. I have seen it both strongly recommended and even hailed as brilliant. Really?

These big event books such as Final Crisis, World War Hulk, and Secret Invasion generally have the same goals: resolve issues that have been building, tell a rocking good story, and leave the reader wanting more while laying the groundwork for a brand new status quo. I fully expect to be asking questions at the end of one of these things leading me into the next story. I don’t expect to ask “What the hell did I just read?!?”

For instance, someone will have to explain to me the point of gathering all those Supermen together. We saw ’em gather. We saw ’em fly around all dramatic. We never saw ’em do anything! Talk about a missed opportunity!

Paul considers that the biggest flaw of issue 7. Just as in the finale to Secret Invasion, we are told about the climactic events in flashback. This device pulls the reader out of the action deflating the risk.

And, hey, how much time passed from Lois nearly dying to being so closely involved with the end of all things?

And why did they have to put the universe in a bottle with freeze dried people?

I don’t get it.

The Wikipedia article on the subject does a much better job of explaining what happened between the covers of Final Crisis than seven issues of floppies did. That is a sad commentary, my friends.

Grant Morrison, a gifted writer, really crapped this one out. It’s rather like he wrote his outline and forgot to include verbs, direct objects, and the occasional prepositional phrase. That smell isn’t last night’s burrito repeating on you. No, it’s Final Crisis.

Sad thing is I love the other “Crisis” books. I wanted to love this one! Crisis on the Infinite Earths, Identity Crisis, and Infinite Crisis all have honored spaces on my bookshelf. Those books all told a cohesive story with genuine character moments (helluva thing when Superboy died), tearing up the status quo and yielding a brand new play ground. Final Crisis didn’t do that.

But it was brilliant at sucking.