Final Crisis: An Appreciation

Late last month, DC published the long-awaited first issue of Grant Morrison’s The Multiversity, an interconnected, psychedelic, meta-crazy event series that promises to finally explore* the 52 Earths of the DC Multiverse. It’s pleasantly surprising to see so much hype for this comic - surprising because it’s effectively a sequel to Final Crisis, one of the most controversial and oft-maligned stories published by DC Comics in the past decade.

Let me start by getting the negatives out of the way: yes, Final Crisis is a flawed work. It’s so dense and plot-driven that there’s little breathing room left for characterization. And particularly in the final issue, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Morrison has bitten off more than he could chew, with a number of plot points being resolved in a hasty, unsatisfying manner and a few more never really being explained satisfactorily.

Other criticisms I find to be less founded in reality, such as the notion that the series is “impenetrable” or requires an encyclopedic knowledge of DC continuity. Certainly, Morrison’s style of writing and the story’s heavily metatextual approach (see below) to the DC Universe is not for everyone, but even given the sheer number of characters involved, nearly everything essential to understand the plot is explained therein.

Final Crisis, like its sequel, is goddamn brilliant. So in honor of the newer comic that gives us Captain Carrot defeating a blue, diapered Hulk analogue, I give you some of my top reasons why Final Crisis, for all its flaws, remains one of my favorite DC Universe stories of all time.

It’s a Tribute to Jack Kirby

It’s well-known that Jack Kirby created (or co-created, depending on who you ask) much of what we now know of as the Marvel Universe. But his contributions to the DC Universe have played their own huge role in shaping the company’s history. While his best-known DC creations by far remain the Fourth World characters - the New Gods, Forever People, Orion, Mister Miracle, and Final Crisis’ own primary villain, Darkseid - other Kirby characters like Kamandi - the “last boy on earth” living in a post-apocalyptic world populated by beast-men, and OMAC (One Man Army Corps), a futuristic super-soldier empowered by a sentient satellite, are still recurring guest stars throughout DC books.

Final Crisis, interestingly enough, does not pay tribute to Kirby in the obvious way, by featuring prominent appearances by all of his DC creations; while Darkseid is the primary villain and the plot cleverly incorporates Kirby characters like Dan Turpin and the Evil Factory, the traditional versions of the New Gods are already dead by the time the story begins, with their new, resurrected counterparts barely appearing in the final issue. No, instead, Morrison adopts Kirby’s stylized, oft-portentous dialogue and narration throughout the book, both with Kirby’s own creations and for Morrison’s reimagined Monitors, a godlike race of multiversal beings inspired by a single character from a previous DC crossover.

And god, how I love it. Especially what may be the single best Darkseid speech ever written:

First Exploration of the Multiverse

An alternate Earth where a black Superman is President of the United States. A world where the Metal Men are the Justice League. Glimpses at some of the realities we’d later see in Multiversity, including a Marvel-analogue Earth and a universe of pulp-style superheroes. A world where Superman won World War II for the Nazis and lives his days in shame and guilt.

And while the last issue may not have needed a pre-Multiversity cameo by Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, we’re all better off for it.

It's Meta as Fuck

While not as explicitly fourth-wall-breaking as Morrison works like Animal Man and Flex Mentallo, Final Crisis is very much a story about stories - specifically, superhero comics and shared universes in general, and about his opposition to the “loathing and greed” displayed by the editors and writers working in the genre - and even their fans.

When a villain-possessed Mary Marvel dons a skimpy, cleavage-baring costume and goes on a murderous rampage, another character sees “a leering old man in her eyes,” a subtle reference to how female characters are all too frequently written in comics.

The Superman Beyond tie-in tells the story of the godlike Monitors, seemingly created by a vast, omniscient intelligence to police the multiverse (and whose names are mostly based on those of various writer gods throughout world culture), yet who are ultimately revealed to be vampires “drinking it dry,” a grand metaphor for a mindset that views characters as intellectual properties to be exploited.

And the final villain, Mandrakk, the dark Monitor who waits “at the end of all stories?” He’s heavily implied to be a corrupted version of the original, heroic Monitor from 1980s crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths. Or as Superman refers to him, “the part of Monitor that felt contaminated by the multiverse.” The ultimate villain of Final Crisis is DC’s writers, editors, and fans - those who look at a sprawling, messy, multiverse full of heroes, villains, funny animals, lost cities, and more, and want to impose a system of rigid order, where every possibility is defined and limited. Sadly prophetic, looking at 2011’s New 52 relaunch.

This is barely subtext. After Mandrakk’s defeat, the Monitors conclude that their interference is harming the multiverse, “this beautiful living thing in our midst,” giving up their individuality and physical forms so the multiverse (superhero shared universes) can thrive on their own. Yes, this kind of metatext does in itself presuppose a general familiarity with superhero comics as a whole (not to be confused with the intricacies of DC’s continuity), and some might consider that self-indulgent. But Morrison can pull off metatextuality like few other writers can.

Let’s be clear: Final Crisis is not for everyone. It is by no means a perfect work.  But, perhaps more than any other superhero story I’ve ever read, it encapsulates and embodies the appeal of superhero fiction. That our imagination can have real power; that there is a bigger, grander world out there, beyond our perception, where gods, monsters, and aliens clash; where superpowered beings can inspire the best in humanity; that there are worlds within worlds, layers of meaning beyond what we can detect with our own perception.

And that's why I love it.

*No, 2007’s godawful Countdown Arena, which used numerous alternate superheroes as mere cannon fodder, doesn’t count.