Bought/Thought January 28th *spoilers*

[Phaedrus45]

I was thinking about Final Crisis today, and realized that except for the upcoming Batman storyline, Final Crisis really failed to garner my interest in any other DC titles, unlike Secret Invasion, which really made me want to read about 6 titles stemming out of that event.

So, what is a better type of event? One that makes you want to read other books to find out "what happens next," or one that has a more clear ending, like "Final Crisis?"

 

[Manic]

I was familiar with the premise, but I just don't know if I can commit to it. I'm a completist, so I'd feel like I had to watch the entire history of the show.

Yikes. That's about 28 years of the original show, plus the current show's 4 years.

I wouldn't recommend starting from the very beginning. Start at the show's 2005 relaunch, and catch the classic ones later.

 

[Aristotle]

I was thinking about Final Crisis today, and realized that except for the upcoming Batman storyline, Final Crisis really failed to garner my interest in any other DC titles, unlike Secret Invasion, which really made me want to read about 6 titles stemming out of that event.

So, what is a better type of event? One that makes you want to read other books to find out "what happens next," or one that has a more clear ending, like "Final Crisis?"

As a business, what DC needed was a Secret Invasion. As an artistic venture, DC needed a Final Crisis and got exactly that.

I continue to be amazed that Marvel consistently fails to put out anything of an even slightly elevated artistic quality while DC's been doing Sophisticated Horror/Vertigo since like the early 80s. It seems like the company with a comfortable lead in the market should be the one taking risks on creatively credible but commercially less viable products, while the company that's behind should be the one trying to close the gap with commercially successful products.

 

[Manic]

I was thinking about Final Crisis today, and realized that except for the upcoming Batman storyline, Final Crisis really failed to garner my interest in any other DC titles, unlike Secret Invasion, which really made me want to read about 6 titles stemming out of that event.

So, what is a better type of event? One that makes you want to read other books to find out "what happens next," or one that has a more clear ending, like "Final Crisis?"

I like my events self-contained. There's nothing quite as annoying as reading X-Factor, and having it get sidetracked for a few issues by Secret Invasion or Civil War when I'm reading neither event.

 

[Franklin Richards]

Aww Manic. I like the old shows better than the new ones.

 

[Aristotle]

I like my events self-contained. There's nothing quite as annoying as reading X-Factor, and having it get sidetracked for a few issues by Secret Invasion or Civil War when I'm reading neither event.

I think the answer is that, if we're balancing artistic concerns with business concerns, an event needs to be like Infinite Crisis, except with a Final Crisis-caliber story (or a something else-caliber story, for the philistines who don't like FC.) Infinite Crisis got me interested in reading literally every title DC was putting out, was going to put out, and had put out in the last two years. It made every book in the DCU interesting to me. It had a buildup of something like three years, and it almost paid off. The only failure of Infinite Crisis (and it's a glaring one) was that it felt like they'd created this perfect storm of disasters (OMACs/Max Lord, Rann/Thanagar, Spectre/Eclipso/magic, Secret Society/Secret Six), but hadn't given quite enough thought as to how to effectively tie it together. They really should have aimed a bit lower on their big bad and had it just be Max Lord. It would have made more sense.

I think that needs to be the model. Sit down, develop a rough three-year-plan for what the event will be, how to build it up, which titles to seed it in, how to slowly increase the number of titles being affected, until you build the crescendo into this massive project like Countdown to Infinite Crisis, and finally execute with a kick-ass event.

Also, I will say that Peter David does a great job of writing event tie-ins, and he's in a great position to do that as a writer of two somewhat fringe titles. He's on X-Factor and She-Hulk. These are two titles in which he can largely play however he wants with the event, because X-Factor and She-Hulk aren't gonna show up too much in the mainline book, especially if Peter David begs them off. So he does the smart thing, maximizes the potential of the crossover aspect of the event, and crosses both his books over, at the same time as he crosses them both over with the event.

 

[Franklin Richards]

I thought Secret Wars did the perfect job of an "Event". It was over as soon as it began. The heroes stepped out of the portal and then we were left to figure out what happened. Why is She-Hulk in the FF? How did Spider-Man get the new suit? Why are Colossus and Kitty not together?

It was non-linear without being pretentious. It had lasting effects. The buildup was quick. We couldn't wait to find out what had already happened.


Then Secret Wars II came out.

 

[Aristotle]

I thought Secret Wars did the perfect job of an "Event". It was over as soon as it began. The heroes stepped out of the portal and then we were left to figure out what happened. Why is She-Hulk in the FF? How did Spider-Man get the new suit? Why are Colossus and Kitty not together?

It was non-linear without being pretentious. It had lasting effects. The buildup was quick. We couldn't wait to find out what had already happened.


Then Secret Wars II came out.

But Secret Wars is so contrived. It is, sorry for being a one-note person, typical Marvel gimmickry. Just manufacturing a scenario with seemingly no thought into how to make it remotely less hacky. It's such a barely-concealed way of saying, "Yeah, we just want to throw a bunch of characters together and have 'em fight." Shouldn't there be some semblance of a story?

 

[Blader5489]

I'm changing the subject back to Doctor Who.

I really want to like Doctor Who, because I've heard nothing but goods things about it, but I started watching the 2005 series with Eccleston and...it just doesn't seem that good. I'm only about halfway though, but it has been a chore to watch. I like the characters, but the stories themselves are just kind of meh at best. But I know that they change doctors after this one, does it get any better then?

 

[Phaedrus45]

As a business, what DC needed was a Secret Invasion. As an artistic venture, DC needed a Final Crisis and got exactly that.

I continue to be amazed that Marvel consistently fails to put out anything of an even slightly elevated artistic quality while DC's been doing Sophisticated Horror/Vertigo since like the early 80s. It seems like the company with a comfortable lead in the market should be the one taking risks on creatively credible but commercially less viable products, while the company that's behind should be the one trying to close the gap with commercially successful products.

You fail to realize that Marvel HAS been putting out stuff that can be considered sophisticated and of an artistic quality. First, they did the venture with Dabel Bros., which even though it failed, still has a lasting impact with Marvel today. (That would be Anita Blake series, and stuff like Red Prophet Tales of Alvin Maker and The Hedge Knight.) From that, we have Marvel Illustrated, with some excellent retellings of classic literature, like The Illiad, The Odessey, The Picture Of Dorian Grey, and The Three Musketters. (These are not easy reads, BTW. With a great number of characters, politics, and such, you have to pay close attention many times to the details.)

And, lets not forget Marvel has been doing a great job with the two Stephen King franchises: The Dark Tower and The Stand. While The Stand is much more straight forward retelling of that classic King novel, The Dark Tower has really given us some new stories that stemmed from all the novels written by King. Plus, the art in that book is just as important as the dialogue.

Marvel also has the Icon line, which while not producing a lot, still has done some interesting stories. Add in Criminal, Incognito, Kick Ass, Marvel is starting to branch out beyond the usual Superhero business.

 

[Franklin Richards]

But Secret Wars is so contrived. It is, sorry for being a one-note person, typical Marvel gimmickry. Just manufacturing a scenario with seemingly no thought into how to make it remotely less hacky. It's such a barely-concealed way of saying, "Yeah, we just want to throw a bunch of characters together and have 'em fight." Shouldn't there be some semblance of a story?

Hey. I'm not saying it wasn't simplistic and a bit gimmicky but I think in the end it worked. And it was a good starting point for what I think is a good "event" formula.

Keep it contained. Don't worry about the timeline right away. Have some lasting effects.


Now if they can get a more sophisticated story in there... Win. Win.

 

[Phaedrus45]

But Secret Wars is so contrived. It is, sorry for being a one-note person, typical Marvel gimmickry. Just manufacturing a scenario with seemingly no thought into how to make it remotely less hacky. It's such a barely-concealed way of saying, "Yeah, we just want to throw a bunch of characters together and have 'em fight." Shouldn't there be some semblance of a story?

You cannot look at Secret Wars and hold it to today's standards. At the time, everyone was jacked and excited about this maxi-series. This was Marvel taking a chance and using their main titles to spur interest in this story. I remember when the main titles came out, and the changes were pretty big to me. As Franklin Richards points out, the new Black Costume for Spidey, She-Hulk joining the Fantastic Four, Thing off in his own new series, and the heartbreak of Kitty Pryde over Colossus. (OMG! Peter was such a IDIOT I thought back then, and probably is why I've never liked his character much after that.) This WAS big stuff back in the 80's!

DC had some good stuff to at the time. I remember LOVING Camelot 3000. That book was so dang good, and I loved all things dealing with King Arthur when I was in a young kid. Then, of course, the first Crisis was a classic. (It's hard to believe DC took so long to finally put that in TPB.) DC had some crappy stuff, too, though. Amethyst, reading it today, is pretty bad stuff.

 

[Manic]

I'm changing the subject back to Doctor Who.

I really want to like Doctor Who, because I've heard nothing but goods things about it, but I started watching the 2005 series with Eccleston and...it just doesn't seem that good. I'm only about halfway though, but it has been a chore to watch. I like the characters, but the stories themselves are just kind of meh at best. But I know that they change doctors after this one, does it get any better then?

How far along are you in the 2005 episodes? The episodes that really won me over were "Father's Day" and the 2-parter "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances." The finale is pretty good, but mostly toward the end of its first part all the way through its second part.

And I gotta be real. The 2006 episodes were pretty bad. There were only a couple of episodes I liked. I like the 3rd and 4th series/seasons better. Especially the 4th series, which has the fewest number of weak episodes.

If Corp comes around again, he can give you a second opinion. JustABill, too. Plus anyone else who frequents these forums and the Who thread.

 

[Blader5489]

How far along are you in the 2005 episodes? The episodes that really won me over were "Father's Day" and the 2-parter "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances." The finale is pretty good, but mostly toward the end of its first part all the way through its second part.

And I gotta be real. The 2006 episodes were pretty bad. There were only a couple of episodes I liked. I like the 3rd and 4th series/seasons better. Especially the 4th series, which has the fewest number of weak episodes.

The one I'm on now is episode 7, "The Long Game." So I guess I can pretty much force my way through the rest of the series, especially since most of the ones left are the ones you named.

But for the 2006 series, if it's mostly bad, am I going to miss out on understanding a larger story arc by skipping episodes?

 

[Phaedrus45]

Hey. I'm not saying it wasn't simplistic and a bit gimmicky but I think in the end it worked. And it was a good starting point for what I think is a good "event" formula.

Keep it contained. Don't worry about the timeline right away. Have some lasting effects.


Now if they can get a more sophisticated story in there... Win. Win.

Marvel has had more sophisticated events with the two Annihilation stories. Before this, Marvel cosmic adventures were pretty dead in the water.

Also, one of my complaints with Final Crisis is that Darkseid is one of the baddest of the bad in the DCU...yet, I was not impressed with his characterization in the story. Is it just me, or did he not seem that bad-ass? Final Crisis had so much going on, with so many different bad guys, that Darkseid almost took a back seat. Compare this with The Infinity Gauntlet and Thanos...Thanos was bigger than life! (Heck, I remember the first time I read a Darkseid tale in the 80's, and it BLEW ME AWAY! That was in Legion Of Superheroes...and, is one of the classic 80's DC tales, imo.)

 

[fifthfiend]

You fail to realize that Marvel HAS been putting out stuff that can be considered sophisticated and of an artistic quality. First, they did the venture with Dabel Bros., which even though it failed, still has a lasting impact with Marvel today. (That would be Anita Blake series, and stuff like Red Prophet Tales of Alvin Maker and The Hedge Knight.) From that, we have Marvel Illustrated, with some excellent retellings of classic literature, like The Illiad, The Odessey, The Picture Of Dorian Grey, and The Three Musketters. (These are not easy reads, BTW. With a great number of characters, politics, and such, you have to pay close attention many times to the details.)

And, lets not forget Marvel has been doing a great job with the two Stephen King franchises: The Dark Tower and The Stand. While The Stand is much more straight forward retelling of that classic King novel, The Dark Tower has really given us some new stories that stemmed from all the novels written by King. Plus, the art in that book is just as important as the dialogue.

Marvel also has the Icon line, which while not producing a lot, still has done some interesting stories. Add in Criminal, Incognito, Kick Ass, Marvel is starting to branch out beyond the usual Superhero business.

Did you actually put Anita Blake and 'sophisticated artistic quality' in the same sentence?

Oh man, that was awesome.

 

[Manic]

The one I'm on now is episode 7, "The Long Game." So I guess I can pretty much force my way through the rest of the series, especially since most of the ones left are the ones you named.

But for the 2006 series, if it's mostly bad, am I going to miss out on understanding a larger story arc by skipping episodes?

Only 3 important things happen during the 2006 series. 1 of them just sets up a spin-off show. The 2nd sets up another spin-off and the 2006 finale. The 3rd is the finale itself, where something important happens to a character. There are a few episodes in the 2007 that call back to the 2006 series, though.

Let me give you a list of episodes you should skip for the sake of bad quality and irrelevance:
-The Girl in the Fireplace (though some people like this one)
-The Idiot's Lantern
-Fear Her
-Love & Monsters (some people like this episode for reasons I'm not sure of)


Oh, and make sure you watch the 2005 "Children in Need" short before watching the Christmas special. God only knows why that clip wasn't included in the Christmas episode itself.

 

[Aristotle]

Y First, they did the venture with Dabel Bros., which even though it failed, still has a lasting impact with Marvel today. (That would be Anita Blake series, and stuff like Red Prophet Tales of Alvin Maker and The Hedge Knight.) From that, we have Marvel Illustrated, with some excellent retellings of classic literature, like The Illiad, The Odessey, The Picture Of Dorian Grey, and The Three Musketters. (These are not easy reads, BTW. With a great number of characters, politics, and such, you have to pay close attention many times to the details.)

And, lets not forget Marvel has been doing a great job with the two Stephen King franchises: The Dark Tower and The Stand. While The Stand is much more straight forward retelling of that classic King novel, The Dark Tower has really given us some new stories that stemmed from all the novels written by King. Plus, the art in that book is just as important as the dialogue.

Marvel also has the Icon line, which while not producing a lot, still has done some interesting stories. Add in Criminal, Incognito, Kick Ass, Marvel is starting to branch out beyond the usual Superhero business.

I'm not sure I was quite clear. By "artistic," I don't mean "not superheroes." I'd actually like to ditch that self-loathing attitude that so many of us seem to have. There's nothing inherently ****** about superheroes.

Criminal and Incognito (I won't even bother with Kick Ass, which is just terrible) are on approximately a par with 100 Bullets: good solid fiction, but nothing groundbreaking, nothing substantially better than Jack Kirby used to do in his prime, or Denny O'Neil on Batman. It's not a Promethea, or a Seven Soldiers of Victory, or a V for Vendetta, or a Watchmen, or a Y The Last Man, or a Swamp Thing, or even a Hellblazer.

And your use of Stephen King comics doesn't do much to persuade me either; I think Stephen King is a really hack writer. The first book of the Dark Tower is the only book by him that I think really stands up; I haven't read the rest of the series, because I didn't like the beginning of the second book and never got back to it. I'm sure the whole Dark Tower series is awesome, and I've been told that he's kind of like the Tarantino of books in that series. But his more mainstream and well-known output is horribly mediocre. He's so technically proficient that he ends up just being boring and uninteresting. The guy has something to say, but it's all in his riffing and relevance and style, not in the substance of his art.

And I don't see all that much that's impressive about doing comic book adaptations of literary classics. Those aren't comic books. I would venture to say there's nothing that comics can do for those books that the books can't do for themselves, or that movies couldn't do better (and in some cases, already have done better.) I always wonder what the audience is for those books, and they've always made me uneasy to think of the original works going unread because kids picked up the comic book version and liked it. I feel like those adaptations could very well be the kinds of comic books that actually cause deterioration of literacy.

Alvin Maker is the Orson Scott Card franchise, right? Never been a particular fan of Card because of his objectivist/conservative leanings and the way they just soak his writing, but he is pretty damn good at exploring the themes he wants to explore. If I liked what he was driving at, I'd like his work. So there you go, there's an exception, but I think it only proves the rule.

 

[Aristotle]

Hey. I'm not saying it wasn't simplistic and a bit gimmicky but I think in the end it worked. And it was a good starting point for what I think is a good "event" formula.

Keep it contained. Don't worry about the timeline right away. Have some lasting effects.


Now if they can get a more sophisticated story in there... Win. Win.

I said nothing about sophistication. I liked DC One Million. I liked Messiah Complex until the end. I liked Infinite Crisis. I liked Zero Hour. I liked Final Night. No need for sophistication, especially because it doesn't quite seem to be what the readers want in the Big Two universes. I'm just saying have a story that makes sense and is fun.

You cannot look at Secret Wars and hold it to today's standards.

I can and do. Maybe it was influential then or whatever, but it's terrible storytelling now. I think this is why the superhero fan orthodoxy and I will never agree about Stan Lee: that guy was so unadulteratedly horrible by today's standards. His plotting, his scripting, his character names and ideas, everything about him was horrific. I hope Marvel fans realize how fortunate they are to have had Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby to ground that lunatic in some semblance of quality.

But somehow, because his crappy writing happened in the 60s, he gets forgiven? Hell no! Same with Secret Wars. The entire premise of the story is just Godawful and contrived and I find it hard to imagine people enjoying it.

 

[Aristotle]

Marvel has had more sophisticated events with the two Annihilation stories. Before this, Marvel cosmic adventures were pretty dead in the water.

"Good" does not equal "sophistication." Geoff Johns on Action Comics is good but it is not sophisticated. I think an error people often make in all areas of entertainment is to confuse the existence of a "message" or a theme in a work, and conflate that with some measure of the validity of importance of that message. For example, Brian Bendis has gotten some congratulatory back-slapping on the internet for having Secret Invasion be an allegory to the US invasion of Iraq. But there's nothing especially revelatory about doing that in 2008. If he'd done it in 2003, when it was risky, when David Cross was getting blackballed from venues for talking **** on the President, then maybe he could say he did something.

The existence of a message or a theme does not equal quality, or the validity of that message. That's why Radio is always going to be a ******, maudlin, sappy movie and Sin City is a great one.

Also, one of my complaints with Final Crisis is that Darkseid is one of the baddest of the bad in the DCU...yet, I was not impressed with his characterization in the story. Is it just me, or did he not seem that bad-ass? Final Crisis had so much going on, with so many different bad guys, that Darkseid almost took a back seat. Compare this with The Infinity Gauntlet and Thanos...Thanos was bigger than life!

I don't know how I can say this without being a dick, but this is what I'm talking about when I say that comic book fans are rejecting narrative complexity in favor of boring, bland, sameness.

Darkseid's characterization (what you call mischaracterization) was part of the story of Final Crisis. He was meant to represent (among probably dozens of other ideas) the persistence of old, outmoded ideas that hinder the progress of comics, of art, and of humanity. On a much more visceral, gut level, his sickliness was meant to represent the decaying, withering evil that he had brought.

But comics fans just want a slugfest and the Infinity Gauntlet.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I was familiar with the premise, but I just don't know if I can commit to it. I'm a completist, so I'd feel like I had to watch the entire history of the show.

I felt the same way when I started watching, but it's just too much. Not only are the older episodes visually bland by today's standards, they're also hit-or-miss as pure sci fi entertainment. Especially around the First Doctor's stuff, when the show was still finding its footing. There were more historical pieces where the Doctor merely interacted with another era in human civilization rather than having any compelling hook. I personally lost interest in the First Doctor's material, then I watched a couple Second Doctor serials and got into it again (mostly for how much fun the Second Doctor's personality is), watched through what I could get of the Third Doctor's serials, and now I'm on a break before I get into the Fourth Doctor's serials.

Also, the older shows were shown in serial format, meaning one full narrative comprises anywhere from 3 to 8 or more individual half-hour episodes. So that's about a minimum of 90 minutes just to watch one "episode" today. It's a big time investment.

Oh, and a bunch of First and Second Doctor serials are only partially available because the BBC tossed the original recordings of some of the episodes while the show was still relatively young. So that might rub your completionist tendencies the wrong way. Some are reconstructed through audio plays or shoddily animated versions, but I never bother with those.

But if, after all that, you're still interested in watching it from the beginning, I'd still recommend it. There's a lot of great material in the earlier series, and several of the Doctor's incarnations are a lot of fun, particularly the Third, who's about as close to a sci fi James Bond as you're ever likely to find.

How far along are you in the 2005 episodes? The episodes that really won me over were "Father's Day" and the 2-parter "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances." The finale is pretty good, but mostly toward the end of its first part all the way through its second part.

And I gotta be real. The 2006 episodes were pretty bad. There were only a couple of episodes I liked. I like the 3rd and 4th series/seasons better. Especially the 4th series, which has the fewest number of weak episodes.

If Corp comes around again, he can give you a second opinion. JustABill, too. Plus anyone else who frequents these forums and the Who thread.

Yeah, thinking back on it, series 2 was pretty lame. I liked that we got a mix of companions instead of all Rose all the time, but the episodes were pretty underwhelming. Basically, series 1 has a lot of hit-or-miss episodes with a good Doctor and a decent companion; series 2 has mostly s*** episodes with a hit-or-miss Doctor and the same companion but with a lot of annoying romantic subtext this time; series 3 finds Tennant's Doctor more sure-footed and confident in his portrayal, which becomes more fun, and a majority of really solid episodes, brought down only by a new companion who's mostly good except for some more annoying romantic subtext; and series 4 has Tennant's Doctor in top form with a purely platonic and super-fun companion in about 2/3rds great episodes with 1/3rd stinkers or overly fanwankish episodes.

 

[Franklin Richards]

I said nothing about sophistication. I liked DC One Million. I liked Messiah Complex until the end. I liked Infinite Crisis. I liked Zero Hour. I liked Final Night. No need for sophistication, especially because it doesn't quite seem to be what the readers want in the Big Two universes. I'm just saying have a story that makes sense and is fun.

I can and do. Maybe it was influential then or whatever, but it's terrible storytelling now. I think this is why the superhero fan orthodoxy and I will never agree about Stan Lee: that guy was so unadulteratedly horrible by today's standards. His plotting, his scripting, his character names and ideas, everything about him was horrific. I hope Marvel fans realize how fortunate they are to have had Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby to ground that lunatic in some semblance of quality.

But somehow, because his crappy writing happened in the 60s, he gets forgiven? Hell no! Same with Secret Wars. The entire premise of the story is just Godawful and contrived and I find it hard to imagine people enjoying it.

Contrived. As opossed to having a giant event just so you can reset the continuity? Both mags are guilty of that. And these are comic books. They may have evolved a bit but Stan's stuff was crazy, out there and that's what saved comics. We'd be reading about cowboys or zombies if it weren't for Stan. And even though he was "out there" he also seemed to bring a humanity to the characters unlike the bougeoirs DC characters of the era.

But I digress. I really don't want to get into the Stan convo again.

 

[Phaedrus45]

I can and do. Maybe it was influential then or whatever, but it's terrible storytelling now. I think this is why the superhero fan orthodoxy and I will never agree about Stan Lee: that guy was so unadulteratedly horrible by today's standards. His plotting, his scripting, his character names and ideas, everything about him was horrific. I hope Marvel fans realize how fortunate they are to have had Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby to ground that lunatic in some semblance of quality.

But somehow, because his crappy writing happened in the 60s, he gets forgiven? Hell no! Same with Secret Wars. The entire premise of the story is just Godawful and contrived and I find it hard to imagine people enjoying it.

You cannot have the advancement in comic storytelling without what came before. And, to dismiss all that shows how you are simply going to put your feet in the sand and say, "I'm not budging in my stance, no matter what anyone else says." By movie standards, the classic films of the 80's, especially horror and sci-fi, also don't hold up. The visuals are almost horrendous to look at. But, without ET you don't have A.I..

When I was a kid in the 80's, comics HAD to be written more to kids. I did not see a bunch of adults in the comic stores, unlike today where the opposite is true. Secret Wars HAD to be told the way it was. In retrospect, when I was buying Watchmen in '86 and '87, there was not a lot of people picking up this comic. It wasn't being embraced for the groundbreaking storytelling at the time.

Marvel had a Vertigo imprint type of line, too. Remember Epic? Sadly, sales equals success, and Marvel is going to embrace those things that makes them successful. That's just smart business, especially after their financial crisis in the 90s. I'm sure if you ask the higher-ups at DC what they'd rather have, Final Crisis or Secret Invasion, they would grab up Secret Invasion in a second. (And, really...I do think you are overhyping what you think is "Watchmen-worthy" storytelling. Final Crisis isn't difficult to read because it's presenting such grandious ideas...it's difficult to read because it's very choppy in it's storytelling, and Morrison is trying to throw in everything he can into a single issue.)

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I just read this on Savage Critic (by way of a CBR article that linked to it), and I found it pretty interesting. I don't have an opinion either way on FC, but Lester seems to address some of the anti-FC (for lack of a better term) camp's views with greater clarity than some of our own... ahem... distinguished posters () have done.

 

[Darthphere]

Can we stop calling Final Crisis art please? I mean Jesus, you like it, that's cool, but it's not ****ing art.