Bought/Thought January 28th *spoilers*

[Blader5489]

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.

1960s comic book writing, period, doesn't hold up well today. That isn't something exclusive to Stan Lee or Marvel.

 

[moraldeficiency]

I love how I started this with a POSITIVE review for FC, but apparently finding any fault is unacceptable to some people.

 

[Darthphere]

I love how I started this with a POSITIVE review for FC, but apparently finding any fault is unacceptable to some people.

It was a good review too. At least you're not calling it an art masterpiece.

 

[Phaedrus45]

"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.

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.

I will agree with you...you cannot say what you say without sounding like a "dick." You haven't read any of the Marvel Illustrated, Dabel Bros or Stephen King comics that have come out, I'm guessing; yet, you try and tell everyone your opinion of it. I'll remind you that from your quote, you said, "I continue to be amazed that Marvel consistently fails to put out anything of an even slightly elevated artistic quality." So, I give you something of "an even slightly elevated artistic quality," and you (which I knew you would) shot it down without even being somewhat familiar with the product.

BTW, I've read Watchmen. Sir, Final Crisis is no Watchmen.

 

[Franklin Richards]

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.

Why I oughta...!!!


I'm NOT distinquished.



Great review. I especially like his reference to McCloud's "blood in the gutters". Makes me think that if you leave the conclusions up to the mind of the reader and they don't like what they came up with then you really can't blame anyone but yourself.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The main point of the review seemed to be that while FC is great as a formal and technical masterpiece, the actual content of the story just isn't that strong because it lacks an emotional core. It's too cerebral.

Honestly, I have no idea how I'm gonna read FC without some bias at this point. Hopefully, I'll have forgotten all this by June, when the hardcover comes out.

 

[moraldeficiency]

It was a good review too. At least you're not calling it an art masterpiece.

well I'm not a pretentious *******, and ******* yes, but not pretentious.

 

[Aristotle]

Contrived. As opossed to having a giant event just so you can reset the continuity? Both mags are guilty of that.

Yes, all comic books are contrived. But some of them are less obvious. For example, Secret Wars is more contrived than Onslaught is more contrived than World War Hulk is more contrived is more contrived than Civil War is more contrived than Secret Invasion is more contrived than Crisis on Infinite Earth is more contrived than Infinite Crisis is more contrived than Armageddon 2001 is more contrived than DC One Million is more contrived than every other event in history.

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.

That is just not true. Superheroes had already made their comeback with Barry Allen and Hal Jordan.

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.

Stan Lee wasn't "out there." I have no problem with "out there." Arnold Drake's Doom Patrol was "out there" (maybe that's why Stan Lee shamelessly ripped it off for X-Men.) Stan Lee was just BAD at writing.

Great review. I especially like his reference to McCloud's "blood in the gutters". Makes me think that if you leave the conclusions up to the mind of the reader and they don't like what they came up with then you really can't blame anyone but yourself.

Again, to me, this entire kind of attitude represents why superhero comics are so behind as an art form. In every other art form, ambiguity and the ability of the audience to interpret the work as they prefer to is considered a strength, something that makes art better, because it makes art more accessible and meaningful to the common viewer. In mainstream superhero comics, however, we demand finite stories with obvious ends and definite closure, we want nothing left to interpretation. We don't want a symbolic Darkseid, we want a badass Thanos and a slugfest and the Infinity Gauntlet.

 

[Aristotle]

I will agree with you...you cannot say what you say without sounding like a "dick." You haven't read any of the Marvel Illustrated, Dabel Bros or Stephen King comics that have come out, I'm guessing; yet, you try and tell everyone your opinion of it.

Hey, that's funny, because I actually did read them. When I first started venturing into the broader world of comics (i.e., not Star Wars, Batman, Green Lantern, and Flash), I really had no idea what I liked, so I would read anything. I got really into Action Philosophers, and I got into Love and Capes (bad idea, apparently). I tried Usagi Yojimbo (hated it), I tried that weird Rush City comic that DC was doing (didn't love it, didn't hate it). And I tried those Marvel Illustrated books. I didn't like them, they seemed to present an obvious chilling effect on literacy, and they didn't seem like they made sense. And the bottom line is, for purposes of this discussion, adaptations do not very often make classics. There are exceptions (To Kill A Mockingbird film, Apocalypse Now film), but in comics, I don't think I know of any. And I just hate everything the Dabels do, not because of how terrible they are as people, but because I did try out that Anita Blake thing. I still have a few issues of it somewhere. It blew. And there was nothing artistic about it.

So, I give you something of "an even slightly elevated artistic quality," and you (which I knew you would) shot it down without even being somewhat familiar with the product.

See, I don't think you did present me with that. I did not "shoot it down," I'm not "unfamiliar with the product." I told you why I didn't consider those things to be of "an even slightly elevated artistic quality." Sorry, that's not what Anita Blake is to me, that's not what the Illustrated Classics are to me, that's not what the MAX comics are to me, that's not what the Dabels are to me.

BTW, I've read Watchmen. Sir, Final Crisis is no Watchmen.

I've watched the 1988 Vice-Presidential debate. I watched the debate; the debate is a favorite of mine. You, Phaedrus, do not have the proper context or even the proper structure of that reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator,_you_are_no_Jack_Kennedy

You cannot have the advancement in comic storytelling without what came before.

I'm saying, I think some of the least desirable qualities of modern comics are owed to Stan Lee, and I wish that we didn't have what we have now: the institutionalization, the sterilization and stagnation of the form, story decompression (which comes about because of the soap opera-fication of the form, which is down to Stan Lee), all these things are owed to Stan Lee. Everything good about modern superhero comics has come from people either consciously or unconsciously moving away from Stan Lee's contributions: Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Mark Waid. Everything bad comes from his imitators: Brian Bendis, Brian Bendis, Geoff Johns (even though I do love most of Johns' work), and Brian Bendis.

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..

Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and ET hold up just fine today. I've watched them again. You could maybe argue that the original Star Wars film doesn't quite hold up as well--there are some holes in the visuals--but that's only in the effects department. The basic quality of the film is still very high, even by today's standards. Certainly better than most modern sci-fi films (including the first two Star Wars prequels, and maybe even Revenge of the Sith.) Whereas the opposite is true of Stan Lee's comics: the visuals and effects are astonishingly good, and the actual quality of the writing could almost not possibly be worse.

When I was a kid in the 80's, comics HAD to be written more to kids.

Stan wasn't writing a lot in the 80s.

Secret Wars HAD to be told the way it was.

No it did not. Children are not stupid. I mean, they are, but they're smarter than people think. Children bought DC's Legends, for example, which was really one of the smartest and best events ever. Children bought DC's Invasion!, probably one of the top three comic book events ever, in terms of execution and quality. Children don't have to be written down to, at least not to the degree which Secret Wars was written down. It was just some cosmic being grabbing up a bunch of top-selling characters and making them fight! That kind of contrivance is only allowable for JLA/Avengers or other DC/Marvel crossovers, events which by their very nature have to be contrived and whimsical with no long-term effects.

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.

Groundbreaking art never is. Let's make a bet. If in 20 years, people aren't having this same exchange over Final Crisis, I'll PayPal you five bucks. If they are, you PayPal me five bucks. Or five of the currency of whatever nation has finally ended our imperialistic reign and conquered us.

Marvel had a Vertigo imprint type of line, too. Remember Epic?

Not really, no. What great art did Epic produce?

Sadly, sales equals success

Vertigo doesn't sell well. It remains critically successful.

That's just smart business, especially after their financial crisis in the 90s.

In other publishing businesses, the successful company will often keep a struggling but artistically credible title alive longer than it has a right to be, because it gives them artistic credibility, or it appeals to a certain demographic that would otherwise buy nothing, or someone high up in the company likes it. (For example, LIFE magazine survived much longer than it should have for this reason.) But in comics, Marvel doesn't exercise its market power in that way.

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.

Yes, business people are scum. Every one of them. At the point where dollars and influence and power and progress and material/socioeconomic success become your measure of worth, then you've failed as a human being.

(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.)

One of its grandiose ideas is to experiment with that kind of storytelling. Do you really think Grant Morrison couldn't have told this story in a more traditional way? Do you really think that this was Morrison being forced from a preferred 12 issues into a mandated seven? Nonsense. He already wrote this story in a more traditional way. It's called JLA: Rock of Ages (and even that was apparently too much for the fanboys, I've been told). He decided to retell that idea in a more important, artistically meaningful way.

 

[Aristotle]

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

Why isn't it art? The formal and technical innovation, the experimentation, the lack of closure and open interpretative position, these are what make it art while a Civil War or a Captain America or a Superman Birthright are not.

The main point of the review seemed to be that while FC is great as a formal and technical masterpiece, the actual content of the story just isn't that strong because it lacks an emotional core. It's too cerebral.

Oh, so he's saying it's art? Someone let Darthphere know, so Darth can make sure and call the guy a pretentious *****e or whatever.

1960s comic book writing, period, doesn't hold up well today. That isn't something exclusive to Stan Lee or Marvel.

I love Arnold Drake's Doom Patrol. Not everybody sucked.

I love how I started this with a POSITIVE review for FC, but apparently finding any fault is unacceptable to some people.

You attacked me. All I was actually doing up to that point was asking for someone to answer my simple "why" question. You decided to shove your middle finger up my ass.

As to the idea that finding any fault is unacceptable to me, I realize it's easy to form an opinion of someone based on one or two threads, and I realize that it's easy to call someone single-minded when you're asking them to find fault with something they just finished and enjoyed, and haven't fully processed yet, but if you actually cared, you'd find me criticizing the inconsistent art of the entire Final Crisis project.

But you don't care. You just want someone to crucify so you can make yourself look like the fair-minded comic book fan who liked Final Crisis to your DC friends and hated it to your Marvel friends.

 

[moraldeficiency]

You attacked me. All I was actually doing up to that point was asking for someone to answer my simple "why" question. You decided to shove your middle finger up my ass.

As to the idea that finding any fault is unacceptable to me, I realize it's easy to form an opinion of someone based on one or two threads, and I realize that it's easy to call someone single-minded when you're asking them to find fault with something they just finished and enjoyed, and haven't fully processed yet, but if you actually cared, you'd find me criticizing the inconsistent art of the entire Final Crisis project.

But you don't care. You just want someone to crucify so you can make yourself look like the fair-minded comic book fan who liked Final Crisis to your DC friends and hated it to your Marvel friends.

No I didn't actually. I stated my feelings on the issue and you just couldn't let any negative comment go without fighting me about it. Then you got more and more myopic and rantfilled (which was adorable). You couldn't stand someone writing against your high priestess and you just kinda went off the deep end. Though to clarify I never attacked you, I attacked your stubborn inability to recognize other points besides the ones you've branded into your brain, and you're high and mighty attitude as if you know better than others. But you? Nah, you're far too entertaining to ever personally attack.

I like how you try and interject that last thing explaining my motivations. Here's a quick reality check for you, I don't have just marvel or just dc friends. I have friends that like comics, most of which get there's good and bad all over. I don't think I could be friends with someone that close minded, it would be like being friends with a racist. Sure maybe their cool in some ways but they'd always have that stupid view hanging over them like a cloud.

You criticized the art? That was so obvous a flaw I didn't even bring it up.

One last thing, even if I was gay and the cure for cancer along with a million dollars was up your ass, I still wouldn't go near it with any digits. Please don't project creepy hope.

 

[Aristotle]

No I didn't actually. I stated my feelings on the issue and you just couldn't let any negative comment go without fighting me about it.

I wasn't "fighting" until you called me a dense fanboy. I was discussing.

Then you got more and more myopic and rantfilled (which was adorable).

You must think that you didn't?

Though to clarify I never attacked you, I attacked your stubborn inability to recognize other points besides the ones you've branded into your brain, and you're high and mighty attitude as if you know better than others. But you? Nah, you're far too entertaining to ever personally attack.

All of which is a personal attack. If that's not a personal attack, what is?

One last thing, even if I was gay and the cure for cancer along with a million dollars was up your ass, I still wouldn't go near it with any digits. Please don't project creepy hope.

Wow, apparently literalism is still funny to some actual adults. I thought we all outgrew that when we got tired of people saying "no thanks" as a response to "**** you" in seventh grade.

 

[moraldeficiency]

I wasn't "fighting" until you called me a dense fanboy. I was discussing.

I wasn't calling you that as much as stating a fact.

You must think that you didn't?

No, I liked FC but found flaws in it all the same. Saw the whole picture if you will, so that's kinda the opposite of what you were doing.

All of which is a personal attack. If that's not a personal attack, what is?

Uh, I've rarely attacked anyone here in a personal manner, if I did it wouldn't be that subtle. Giving you **** isn't a personal attack and neither is calling out your crazy opinion. If anything I was staging an intervention for you, giving you a little of the tough love, before you completely moved into crazy town.

Wow, apparently literalism is still funny to some actual adults. I thought we all outgrew that when we got tired of people saying "no thanks" as a response to "**** you" in seventh grade.

It amused me, though I was disturbed by your want of me putting things in your butt.

 

[Aristotle]

Here, MD, let's just trace back the conversation and see who attacked who first. I had so much fun doing it the last time that I want to do it again.

You expect a readership that's too dense to get Final Crisis to be able to enjoy something that slightly high-concept?

Not addressed to you, but you did respond to it, because you had something to say about it.

Be fair, Morrison isn't exactely an easy read plus if you didn't read every tie in and Batman RIP you couldn't understand everything in it. Go hand that book to the smartest noncomic reader you know, without the tieins and see if they can understand what's going on besides the absolute basics.

If they're as smart as I think they are, they'll recognize that the story isn't about events, and is more about artistic/literary experimentation and revolution. It's not just another journalistic recap of events in a fictional world, it's a piece of genuine art.

Ok, so it's about experimentation, it still means they don't know what the **** actually is going on without the tie ins and such, which means while they like myself get that they're seeing a fine piece of art, revolutionary if you will, they're not really being told a story and that kinda takes away from the event as a whole.

I don't mind abstract stories and concepts, I'm a fan of Burroughs, but I still shouldn't have to buy a bunch of extra material just to read a story fully. Research is fine, but he went past that. I had to ask some friends reading the tie ins so I could get the complete picture. Also showing the aftermath before hand robs the story of the impact just like it did in SI 8. Morrison's great and all, but without proper editting and oversight he's kinda like the antiBendis and that's not a good thing either.

And I think this is 100% because it's a DCU story. Take it out of that context and you'd have no problems with it. So ask yourself: why are we that insular that true artistry and experimentation can only happen outside of our Big Two universes?

I don't see why. The only tie-ins that would have really enhanced your understanding were the Superman Beyond issues. Batman Last Rites would have been good to read as well, and then after that Submit/Resist. After that, the rest of them served to organically add new layers to the work, but they didn't expand or explicate it.

Except Rage of the Red Lanterns, which was good, but had nothing to do with Final Crisis. Not even thematically. It was just an issue of Green Lantern. They should have just put it out as an extra issue of Green Lantern.

Nah, confusing is confusing, and missing plot points are missing plot points no matter who does it. Don't get me wrong, I liked FC, but I needed to borrow books to get the actual story and that's messed up.



No, revelations and RIP was also needed to understand some of the events. You probably didn't notice cause you probably read it, but if you didn't read it you would have been confused, trust me. When every single review you read mentions just how confusing it is there's something wrong. This was not a good book for anyone without advanced knowledge of the DCU so it limited it's readership potential as well. Not saying I want everything dumbed down, but there's nothing wrong with making the thing accessable.

I keep hearing about these "missing plot points" and no one can tell me why they damaged the story in any way by not being there.

What was in Revelations that you needed to know about for Final Crisis? And I realize that maybe you wanted to know where Batman was for all those issues, but you didn't need to know what he was doing. You didn't need to know any of this stuff. You wanted to know, because you, like me and everyone else here, are a trained comic book reader who has been conditioned to think that any story in the Big Two universes has to be a complete. recitation. of facts.

I hate to say it, but there's more wrong with comic book readers than there is with Final Crisis.

Again, why? What did you need to know about the DCU to enjoy Final Crisis?

So far, so good. Has anything happened to this point that could possibly be construed as a fight?

No one can? Well allow me. If you can't understand some of what's going on in the story because you didn't read tie ins you didn't get the whole story and that's a crappy thing to do.



You're being dense and you know it.



Ok, so what's you're point? You dismiss problems by saying there are bigger problems else where? One has nothing to do with the other and it's a dodge. Is it lonely up there on your pedistal?



A lot.

As far as I can tell, that's the first time this is anything but a conversation. Before that, it's not a fight. It's barely even an argument. It's two people talking about differences of opinion on a comic book. And now, I'm described as dense and high-and-mighty, and in a few posts, I'll be described as a raving DC fanboy.

If you feel that way about Final Crisis, you're wrong. The tie-ins were inessential. There was nothing in Final Crisis that was explained by a tie-in. You didn't get it because you just didn't get it. Admit it.

No, I'm not. There is nothing essential to the story about where Batman was for four issues. There is nothing essential to the story about where Superman was for four issues. There is nothing essential to the story about what the Spectre and Renee Montoya and the Huntress and Vandal Savage happened to be doing while all the **** went down. There is nothing essential to the story about how the Rogues were feeling the night before Evil won. There is nothing essential to the story about the rage of Red Lanterns. There is nothing essential to the story about the origin of Libra. There is nothing essential to the story in those tie-ins. They enrich it and they flesh it out, but the story of Final Crisis was published in Final Crisis, issues 1-7.

The problem with comic book readers is that they're too Goddamned damn to get Final Crisis. The only "problem" with Final Crisis is that Grant Morrison dared to believe in comic book fans as more than hive-mind journalism-addicts, and he shouldn't have been so foolish as to think so highly of them.

Give me the panel and the page and the issue. Show me what was just too impossible to conceive of without grabbing a copy of your Wikipedia.

And for that matter, tell me what the **** is so horrible about asking someone for input on a piece of art? Isn't art supposed to be enjoyed and enriched by multiple interpretations? And what is so horrible about looking up the obscure references? That's what makes things like Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Fashion SWAT so fun. It's fun to see which references you get, and which ones you have to look up, and what the references are. No one ****ing *****ed about this with Sandman, or Animal Man, or Watchmen. With all three of those works, there were layers upon layers upon layers of references, just as with Final Crisis, and just as with Final Crisis, those references enhanced the story without being essential to it.

But with Final Crisis it's just too damned hard to ask someone who the hell Dan Turpin is.

At this point, I've started to get testy as well. It probably has something to with being called dense and high-and-mighty. Somehow, that felt like you were placing yourself in a position against me, when you called me dense and high-and-mighty.

No. For the love of god, I actually liked FC but apparently any critism beyond "DC is the greatest thing ever and gives me a woody" is fighting words with you. You're purposefully dense and blind to any level of objectivity and while I'm happy that works for you it means your opinions don't amount to much more than raving fanboy fanaticism. Good luck with that. It's people like you and the ones on the marvel zombie side that make comic fans look bad, please stop, get some help and just for giggles try and look at life from more than one direct and myopic angle, there's a whole lot of pretty out there if you do.

And now that. That's not a personal attack? Even up to that point, it might have been an argument, it might have even gotten to the point of a fight, but it wasn't really personal yet. And then you decided that it wasn't enough fun to just discuss our differences over Final Crisis. So what did I respond with? This relatively tame little gem:

All I'm doing is asking people to give me examples of the complaints that they make. So far, F***ING NOTHING. I guess that makes me a raving fanboy, wanting people to "justify their criticisms."

This isn't about a DC vs. Marvel thing. You want to hear me talk **** on DC? Go to the DC boards where that belongs.

Wow, I didn't even call you any names! I didn't blame the problems of the comics industry on you, or say that your worldview is myopic, or anything! So surely you realized that you'd been a little too harsh and toned it down a bit in the next post?

No what you're doing is putting your fingers in your ears, stomping up and down and saying "no, no, no, no" like a small child throwing a temper tantrum. It's one thing to ask people to prove some stuff, but with you every single word has to be proven in eight was and notarized by Dido before you'll look at it and even then you won't accept it. It's the worst form of subjectism.

I don't collect comics, I read then give them to the kids in the neighborhood so I'm unable to scan **** or give you page by page reference (people that do have far too much time on their hands) but here I'll give you some evidence which you can then causally dismiss and continue your tantrum: [links deleted because they're not important to this, but they were interesting reviews of FC, about 50-50 positive and negative, but the positive ones were more negative than I'd been.]

Now I'm sure no one has your level of insight or understanding in literature and we small peons can barely scratch our name in the sand, but when so many people agree to some of the flaws in a book (especially when their praising it) how do you dismiss everyone so easily?

You'd think I'd start to lose my temper now, wouldn't you? You'd think I'd start to fire back at you, right?

First of all, those writers give actual examples of what they don't like about the book: small appearances. I still take issue with that, because I think they're missing the point that the story is about themes and characters as avatars of larger concepts. They're still looking at the story through the wrong frame. It's like judging a Monty Python episode as if it were a Martin Scorsese film. This is not a typical superhero comic book. It is something different. It requires a different methodology.

And while they mention the "need" to read Superman Beyond and Batman Last Rites, what they don't do is say why. No one has been able to tell me why those were necessary. In my opinion, the only reason people want to know where Batman was for the middle section of the story is because he's Batman, and they expect him to be a dominant player in a story like Final Crisis. And the only reason they feel like they need Superman Beyond is because Mandrakk's appearance at the end is too brief, or not expected and not fleshed out. But Mandrakk is a concept. And he is a concept that is suggested very strongly by the previous issues.

My challenge stands: somebody provide me with a concrete place where the story suffers without tie-ins to explain it.

Also, someone explain this: the people who are *****ing about this are the types who only read it because they were hoping for a BIG! EVENT! COMIC! where THINGS! HAPPEN!. If that's your reason for reading Final Crisis, wouldn't it make sense to buy the tie-ins?

Gosh, I didn't even say a single thing about you! I barely even said anything to you! So were you prepared to calm down yet?

You are priceless in your ability to pervert reality. Here let me ask you something: what were the problems in final crisis? Surely you don't think it was perfect, right? So what in your opinion were the faults therein.

Nope. You weren't ready to calm down at all.

If I did think it was perfect, that would be because I'm a DC ****e with no brain, right? It couldn't just be that this story happened to blow me away?

No, I don't think it's perfect. I don't even know what I think about it yet. I know I consider it an incredible piece of fiction on a par with Watchmen, and I know that fans of Watchmen never get this kind of grilling about what they don't like about Watchmen.

I'm not finished with Final Crisis. There are layers upon layers that I still plan to work through for a long time. One thing I can think of is that it would have been nice (not essential; nice) to see a brief recap of Batman's escape from the lab. But even that is just me saying, "Well, I would have written it this way." This is literature; you wouldn't read 100 Years of Solitude, or Blindness, and then say "Well, I think he should have showed this character doing this or that instead of just implying it." The decision to not show that was a conscious narrative choice. Discussing what you don't like about a work of art has more to do with what you think of the themes and concepts discussed, and how they're discussed, not the simple events of the story.

I answered your question by taking great pains to explain why I wasn't ready to answer it yet. I didn't dodge it. I didn't say Final Crisis was flawless. I didn't do anything like that. I said I wasn't ready to answer that question yet. I was barely ready to say what I liked about it. I must have been drunk, to expect you to embrace that kind of complexity.

Yep, you really summed it up nicely there, a bit harsh on yourself but maybe you have to be as an important first step to recovery. (Referring to the first sentence of my previous post.)

Nothing is perfect, anyone that thinks something has no flaws is a fool. Cormac McCarthy and Mark Twain are my two favorite writers, probably the greatest writers in US history, but as much as I love the work those guys do, I can always find flaws and missteps in every book they've done. The moment you can't do that anymore, you've crossed a line and now you're just a zombie.

So it's not perfect, but it has no flaws? That's so precious. I have the feeling if you said anything negative your brain might explode, so maybe better you just continue to duck that question like I knew you would.

No, it was shown, it was just shown in another comic. I like how your criticism isn't a criticism, well played and you get to keep your raving DC fanboy points.

What if what you don't like are the events in the story or the way they were presented?

I didn't say it had no flaws. I said I wasn't finished evaluating the work yet. You clearly have made up your mind up about me, and there's no way I can possibly change it. Which is the problem with this whole discussion. Everyone comes into it with a set opinion and refuses to acknowledge any possibility of difference, except for WompuM, and honestly, except for me. I have honestly tried to figure out what was not included in Final Crisis that was included in a tie-in that needed to be in Final Crisis to understand the story, and I haven't gotten it yet. That, to me, is not a flaw of the story. I'm sure there are flaws, and I haven't gotten to them yet. But no, go ahead and keep painting me as the DC-zombie devil, because you need someone to rhetorically crucify.

It wasn't supposed to be a criticism! [At this point in the post, there was a personal attack included, which Corp deleted. He didn't, of course, delete any of the places where you called me "dense" and "raving," where you agreed that I was a "DC ****e with no brain," where you claimed that if I said anything negative about FC my "brain would explode," you said I was having a "tantrum," you implied that I considered other people as barely able to scratch their names in the sand, you referred to me as the problem with comics, and you even claimed that I was sexually attracted to DC comics.]

I don't like that Chewbacca is dead now, but I love the story, because craft and skill are more important than whether one fanboy thinks he didn't get enough information on what exactly Batman was doing for each specific moment during the Final Crisis.

At this point the conversation diverged. For 94 posts and the better part of 4 pages, this exchange was dead. Naturally, you decided it needed to be brought back.

I love how I started this with a POSITIVE review for FC, but apparently finding any fault is unacceptable to some people.

It's interesting that you make a connection to your review of Final Crisis; your review of Final Crisis isn't what set this off. It was somebody asking why no one's reading Trinity, and me saying that it was too high-concept for a readership that was too dense for Final Crisis. I don't even remember your review of Final Crisis. I'm sure it was great.

 

[Themanofbat]

I'm saying, I think some of the least desirable qualities of modern comics are owed to Stan Lee, and I wish that we didn't have what we have now: the institutionalization, the sterilization and stagnation of the form, story decompression (which comes about because of the soap opera-fication of the form, which is down to Stan Lee), all these things are owed to Stan Lee. Everything good about modern superhero comics has come from people either consciously or unconsciously moving away from Stan Lee's contributions: Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Mark Waid. Everything bad comes from his imitators: Brian Bendis, Brian Bendis, Geoff Johns (even though I do love most of Johns' work), and Brian Bendis.

Maybe I have no idea as to what I'm saying here, but the soap-opera style of 70's comic book storytelling is the sole reason why I'm still reading comics in 2009... rather than a bland beginning/middle/end format, the soap opera style gave me reasons to keep coming back... and it's a style a sorely miss in this day and age.

No it did not. Children are not stupid. I mean, they are, but they're smarter than people think. Children bought DC's Legends, for example, which was really one of the smartest and best events ever. Children bought DC's Invasion!, probably one of the top three comic book events ever, in terms of execution and quality. Children don't have to be written down to, at least not to the degree which Secret Wars was written down. It was just some cosmic being grabbing up a bunch of top-selling characters and making them fight! That kind of contrivance is only allowable for JLA/Avengers or other DC/Marvel crossovers, events which by their very nature have to be contrived and whimsical with no long-term effects.

In my opinion, DC was pretty bang-on with the execution of its big summer events up until Invasion... so again, I'm probably missing something here, because I thought Invasion was a poorly handled "event", though it was a good idea at the time...

Vertigo doesn't sell well. It remains critically successful.

Vertigo doesn't sell well, but it remains afloat to apease a small niche of comic book readers, and DC has the financial backing to keep these books in circulation... something that Marvel lacks.

If WB didn't own DC, HellBlazer would have barely made it to it's first centennial issue, much less issue #250.

In other publishing businesses, the successful company will often keep a struggling but artistically credible title alive longer than it has a right to be, because it gives them artistic credibility, or it appeals to a certain demographic that would otherwise buy nothing, or someone high up in the company likes it. (For example, LIFE magazine survived much longer than it should have for this reason.) But in comics, Marvel doesn't exercise its market power in that way.

See above...

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Ari and MD: Get back to the actual comic-related issues at hand and drop the back-and-forth one-upmanship and finger-pointing, or take it to PMs if you're really that anxious to continue being catty with each other for post after excruciating post.

 

[Phaedrus45]

I've watched the 1988 Vice-Presidential debate. I watched the debate; the debate is a favorite of mine. You, Phaedrus, do not have the proper context or even the proper structure of that reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator,_you_are_no_Jack_Kennedy

This response to a small quip just shows the point that you will argue and debate anything just to try and appear superior in some fashion. Like I said, you've put your feet in the sand. You asked for anything of an even slightly elevated artistic quality, and you got my response.

I got your response, and it basically tells me that you will dismiss anything someone says that doesn't align with your point of view. Hence why people don't want to bother to give their points on why they didn't like Final Crisis.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Okay, Phaedrus, my previous post goes for you, too. Debate the comics all you want, but this has devolved into each of you just barking at each other. If all of you dislike how the others debate so much, that's what the ignore list is for.

 

[Phaedrus45]

Just as long as you recognize me, Corp!

Barking over

 

[Aristotle]

Maybe I have no idea as to what I'm saying here, but the soap-opera style of 70's comic book storytelling is the sole reason why I'm still reading comics in 2009... rather than a bland beginning/middle/end format, the soap opera style gave me reasons to keep coming back... and it's a style a sorely miss in this day and age.

I think that soap opera style is still around, and I don't mind that, but what I do mind is what it led to: decompression. That's a direct descendant of the soap-operatic nature of modern superhero comics.

In my opinion, DC was pretty bang-on with the execution of its big summer events up until Invasion... so again, I'm probably missing something here, because I thought Invasion was a poorly handled "event", though it was a good idea at the time...

It was executed in just the way that Frank and I were talking about would make a "good" event: it had tightly controlled tie-ins that were relevant to the story and coherent unto their home books, but were anything but necessary. They had a nice little Daily Planet insert in all the books to keep you abreast of the few tie-ins that were recommended reading (but not essential reading) by virtue of being more closely linked spinoffs than some others. And while Invasion! did seem to foist itself on titles that maybe it shouldn't have, those titles dealt with it pretty well: the Animal Man tie-in is actually one of the best issues of the series. The mainline Invasion! book was also pretty solid, a nice straightforward war story. I guess I'm not sure why you felt it was poorly handled.

Vertigo doesn't sell well, but it remains afloat to apease a small niche of comic book readers, and DC has the financial backing to keep these books in circulation... something that Marvel lacks.

Marvel owns the market. They own their movie properties outright (or some of them, at any rate.) They've got the money to do things like Swamp Thing or Pride of Baghdad or Y The Last Man or Promethea or Planetary.

If WB didn't own DC, HellBlazer would have barely made it to it's first centennial issue, much less issue #250.

Definitely true. But why doesn't that theory hold just as true for Marvel? I expect a publisher like Boom! or Dynamite to be less able to do some of the more high-concept stuff, but why is Marvel dragging its feet?

 

[Aristotle]

Ari and MD: Get back to the actual comic-related issues at hand and drop the back-and-forth one-upmanship and finger-pointing, or take it to PMs if you're really that anxious to continue being catty with each other for post after excruciating post.

Hey, any time he wants to tell me what was so necessary about Final Crisis Revelations, I'm still waiting.

 

[Aristotle]

This response to a small quip just shows the point that you will argue and debate anything just to try and appear superior in some fashion.

What I get for trying to keep things light, I guess. I just think that's an overused meme and thought I could comment on that, with some levity.

Like I said, you've put your feet in the sand. You asked for anything of an even slightly elevated artistic quality, and you got my response.

And you got mine! I don't think the comics you mentioned are of an even slightly elevated artistic quality. So we disagree! What's the problem?

I got your response, and it basically tells me that you will dismiss anything someone says that doesn't align with your point of view.

How did I go from despising the X-Men to being a devotee of the X-Men? If you guessed "because somebody convinced me to give them a try," you guessed right!

 

[Mr. Green]

I thought FC was pretty cool and I'm not exactly a DC expert. I think it's one of those things where you understand more and more of it the more you read it because the beginning of the story is when everything is the most "cerebral". I look forward to eventually reading it again.

 

[Themanofbat]

I think that soap opera style is still around, and I don't mind that, but what I do mind is what it led to: decompression. That's a direct descendant of the soap-operatic nature of modern superhero comics.

I fail to see the connection, because I hate the decompression made for trade-paperbacks type of storytelling, and I really don't see how one led to the other.

It was executed in just the way that Frank and I were talking about would make a "good" event: it had tightly controlled tie-ins that were relevant to the story and coherent unto their home books, but were anything but necessary. They had a nice little Daily Planet insert in all the books to keep you abreast of the few tie-ins that were recommended reading (but not essential reading) by virtue of being more closely linked spinoffs than some others. And while Invasion! did seem to foist itself on titles that maybe it shouldn't have, those titles dealt with it pretty well: the Animal Man tie-in is actually one of the best issues of the series. The mainline Invasion! book was also pretty solid, a nice straightforward war story. I guess I'm not sure why you felt it was poorly handled.

You know... as I typed my original post at work, I had time to think about "why" I didn't like Invasion inasmuch as the other previous DC "big event" books (which were Legends and Crisis), and truth be told, the art was terrible (at least in the 3 issues of the main book) in my opinion, which is somewhat shocking when you think of Bart Sears, Todd McFarlane & Keith Giffen, and when compared to Legends & Crisis, the story was really lacking... I was only 21 at the time, but I thought that DC really struck out with this one, and with the following year's Armageddon 2001 flop, the DC "big event" abyss was on its way.

Marvel owns the market. They own their movie properties outright (or some of them, at any rate.) They've got the money to do things like Swamp Thing or Pride of Baghdad or Y The Last Man or Promethea or Planetary.

Marvel may own the market, but it still doesn't make nearly as much money from comic book sales when compared to WB's very deep pockets.

Now, with the successes of the Spider-Man & X-Men movies, we've seen Marvel put that money into Marvel Studios and then we get a more cohesive Marvel Movie-Verse with Iron Man & the Hulk... and if their movies continue to make good money, let's hope we can see these profits return in the form of continual publishing of lesser selling on-going titles...

Definitely true. But why doesn't that theory hold just as true for Marvel? I expect a publisher like Boom! or Dynamite to be less able to do some of the more high-concept stuff, but why is Marvel dragging its feet?

I think Marvel is a victim of its own success, and when they need to do something like continuing the publishing of lower selling titles, it needs to be ok'ed by majority stockholders and whatnots whereas the lesser know publishers fly by the seat of their pants by the whims of their owners who are not bottlenecked by shareholders.

Nonetheless, lower selling titles like Ghost Rider & Moon Knight, cult favorites in their own right, are continuing to be published in spite of what would have been "cancellation numbers" in the past... so maybe it's already happening.

 

[Spider-ManHero12]

Avengers The Initiative #21

Ramos's art is getting better, I actually think his style fits pretty well in ATI. We get to see some Cadets graduate and find out which teams they'll be part of, Ultra Girl gets legally stripped of her Ms. Marvel Uniform, Thor Girl and Trauma battle Ragnorak, and the New Warriors show up on the last page. I personally think this was a great issue, including the art, the fight secnes and charcters looke great.

I really agree with you, tbh.