Comic Character New Years Resolutions--Mary Marvel

A pledge from Mary Marvel:

"I resolve to stop being such a goodie-two-shoes."

Mission accomplished, Mary.

The REAL Anti-Life Equation

We all know that Grant Morrison came up with a really, really lame explanation of what the famous "Anti-Life Equation" is (your mileage, of course, may vary).

Fortunately, I have stumbled across the real Anti-Life Equation, and it's far, far deadlier:

Uncle Sam battles whatsit, now?

Careful, don't say it aloud...

You see, prior to Pearl Harbor, the biggest threat our shores faced was, apparently, evil poets bent on taking over the country:

Now, read this, and tell me it doesn't behave exactly like the Anti-Life Equation:


OK, Will Eisner's poetry isn't going to win any awards, I'll grant you. But the net effect...well, it's even more effective than Darkseid sending out evil emails:


Even the president is afflicted, with FDR giving one of the more chilling Fire(Dark)side Chats ever:

So, it's that easy: come up with a nonsense phrase (or Anti-Life Equation), and you've taken over the country.

But our mad poet must learn a devastating lesson: you don't #$%^ with Uncle Sam!!


The good news is, the cure is relatively simple, as Uncle Sam just has to pull a Zatanna and read the bloody phrase backwards over the radio to save everybody. Really, it's that easy:

And the final fate of our villain:

Sam locked him in a room with a parrot trained to repeat the phrase ad infinitum (hopefully, they trained the parrot one word at a time)...and the poet kills himself. Again, do not #$%^ with Uncle Sam.

Final Crisis, done in only 4 pages, by Will Eisner (script, & art on the splash page) and Dave Berg (yes, the Mad Magazine Dave Berg) in Uncle Sam Quarterly #1 (1941).

...And It Was All A Dream...

...continuing the walkback of Final Crisis to "Elseworlds" status, here's Dan DiDio interviewed by Newsarama:

16. A quick clarification on the status of the Hawks – the seemed to have died in Final Crisis, but in Blackest Night #0, they’re alive and well...

DD: What happened was that during the whole integration of the Multiverse in Final Crisis where we saw a version of Aquaman appearing from another Earth, so was the case with the Hawkman and Hawkgirl that met their fate in Final Crisis. That said, the Hawks are very prominently featured in Blackest Night #1, and are very much alive at the start of that book.

So, have you got your checklists handy? Inserted a two-page epilogue into the last issue of Final Crisis so we would know that Batman wasn't really dead? Check. Insist that it wasn't really the "real" Aquaman we saw in FC #7? Check. Inform us that it wasn't "our" Hawkman and Hawkgirl who died? Check. Made sure that not a single continuing DC series so much as mentions the events of Final Crisis (uh, the Daily Planet building blew up? Lois in a coma? Alpha Lanterns infiltrated by Granny Goodness? Martian Manhunter's death not even mentioned in an issue of JLA? Anybody?? Anything???) CHECK.

For whatever reason, DiDio seems intent on turning "The Day Evil Won" into "The Day That Had Absolutely Zero Impact On The DC Universe."

So, everybody out there who thought that Secret Invasion would have far more impact on its universe than Final Crisis, raise your hand...

Rapturous Joy

From Dan DiDio's interview at Newsarama today:

The big question is where Geoff Johns and Gary Frank are going. They will be doing Superman: Secret Origin as a miniseries coming up later in the year...They’ll be doing the definitive origin of Superman as we’ve seen it all take place, and incorporating the changes that we’ve seen or suggested since Infinite Crisis.

Because the world hasn't had enough origin and early life of Superman stories yet...especially "secret" ones.

But if Johns ties in the various colors of kryptonite into his "emotional spectrum" theories, I might be on board.

On a conspiratorial note: interesting that DiDio calls out the changes "since Infinite Crisis." Hmmm, no mention of Final Crisis, eh? Should we infer that means there are no continuity changes coming as a result of FC?

Final Crisis: Submit--The Corrected Version

After yesterday's stunning announcement, I thought that I would get the jump on the trade and make the correction for Grant Morrison:

You're welcome.

Now excuse me, I have to go re-alphabetize all my Beyoncé albums...

The Secret Ending To Final Crisis--Revealed!!

Not a dream--not a hoax--not an imaginary story!! The final resolution of Final Crisis:



That's right...Barry Allen will simply run around the world and kiss every human being, freeing them from the anti-life equation!!

C'mon, he's the freakin' Flash...like he's not fast enough to do that?

(Of course, since Grant Morrison has already re-used this own time travel cliché of having the Flashes accidentally overrun their own time and end up in the future after the bad guys have won, there can be little doubt that the real resolution will be yet another time travel cliché: Since the bullet that killed Orion and precipitated everything was fired from the future, in issue #7 they'll find out who fired it and use the mystery Metron/Anthro/Tattooed Man glyph to prevent it from being fired...so everything will be reset, except for those continuity changes Morrison and DC want to make.

All in all, I'd prefer to have Barry Allen running around kissing everybody...)

Question: Why don't the Flashes hop back in the timestream to before "the day evil won," and, like, warn everybody and help?? Uhh...

Question: If the anti-life equation is "a mathematical proof that Darkseid is the rightful master of everything in existence," shouldn't it include, you know, math?? "Loneliness+alienation+fear+despair"? That's a Cure song, not an equation...

F-less January

The January solicits are out for both Marvel and DC. And there's something missing.

First up, we note that on the Marvel side, for the second month in a row the Fantastic Four is absent from the solicitations. Nothing for December, nothing for January. So much for Millar & Hitch's promise to never miss a month. Guess since you can't sell that idea off for yet another "SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE," it doesn't get your full attention, eh Mark? (For the record, there was something for December called the Fantastic Four Cosmic Special, with no creators or plot listed, so there was some thought that there was going to be some tie-in to Skrullapalooza that Marvel wouldn't reveal yet. Nope, they just announced, it's a one-off special by Carey Bates and Bing Cansino).

The Fantastic Four. The World's Greatest Comics Magazine. No issues in December or January. My soul hurts.

Meanwhile, on the DC side, January features no issue of the Flash. Apparently, December's "conclusion" to the "This Was Your Life, Wally West" story is also the conclusion to this run of the Flash...if Final Crisis ever finishes, then Geoff Johns will start his Flash: Rebirth series (and since Final Crisis #7 is solicited for January 28th, one million quatloos says it's gonna slip at least until February...remember when these summer crossover events happened, well, during the summer?!?).

So, no Flash in January. No Fantastic Four. I'm not sure when (if ever) was the last time both those mags were missing in the same month...January's gonna be a long, cold month...

Strangely Enough, No Flashdance Reference Is Made In This Post

On the off chance DC ever gets around to actually publishing another issue of Final Crisis, I really hope Grant Morrison can find the time to work this in:

What in the world could this be??

Yes, the Maniaks. Back in the goddamn crazy hippie days of 1967, DC actually tried their own Monkees, by giving three issues of Showcase (interrupted by an issue starring Binky!!) to a (presumably) wacky band that went around having (presumably) crazy adventures while presenting the world with some (doubtfully) authentic hip teen culture.

How hip? Check this out:

Yes, Woody Allen had a cover appearance on a DC comic book (incidentally, the very same DC title that Barry Allen debuted in...coincidence? I THINK NOT!!).

The capstone? All 9 Maniaks stories (3 per issue) were written by E. Nelson Bridwell.

There, your mind just exploded, didn't it??

So, I've never actually read any of these (presumably) insane stories, but given my affinity for faux comic book rock bands, I really really want Morrison to have them show up at the end of Final Crisis, singing the Final Crisis Theme Song while getting on Darkseid's nerves with their swinging melodies. With Woody Allen along for the wackiness.

Because man, that would so much more interesting than Sonny Sumo...

House ad swiped from Green Lantern #54 (1967), which features Green Lantern getting his ass kicked by a man in an iron lung. Seriously. I'll tell you about it someday...

Now He Tells Us

From the December solicit for Final Crisis: Secret Files #1, written by Grant Morrison and Peter Tomasi:

Finally, the secrets of this year’s most talked about event can be revealed! Witness how Darkseid's death shattered the Multiverse, creating continuity ripples throughout the DC Universe!

Because, of course, you wouldn't want to put stuff like that into the actual story, would you...?

Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

Thank you, Greg Rucka, for using issue #2 of Final Crisis: Revelations to remind us that Grant Morrison actually told us, back in the Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle mini-series, what the Anti-Life Equation was.

That's right, the mystical MacGuffin that Darkseid spent centuries looking for goes:

loneliness + alienation + fear + despair + self-worth ÷ mockery ÷ condemnation ÷ misunderstanding x guilt x shame x failure x judgment n=y where y=hope and n=folly, love=lies, life=death, self=dark side

Yup, after all the decades of hullabaloo, after all those comics where Darkseid just couldn't ferret out the intricacies of the Anti-Life Equation, it turns out to be just some lyrics from a Morrissey album, or a word salad from a depressed 7th grader's journal (probably accompanied by drawing of heavy metal skateboarders fighting tanks, or some such).

Some writers need to be reminded that they're really not doing Jack Kirby's work any favors with lame attempts to take mystery out of what was meant to be inherently undefined and, well, mysterious. Next thing you know, they'll try to destroy whatever subtlety was left from his Fourth World by doing something stupid like, oh, I don't know, renaming Darkseid "Dark Side" or something.

Oh, wait...

Little Known Facts About the DC Universe

#1 (as presented in Final Crisis #3):


#2 So, I guess instead of sitting around using his heat vision "to keep her heart beating," or going of with the Monitor Lady for a tour of the multiverse, Superman just could have had Wally run faster than the speed of light with Lois, and voila, she's saved?

#3 In the future, when mankind has faster-than-light travel, no more death!! Hyper-drive=immortality!!

#4 Of course, Wally can travel faster than the speed of light, but he couldn't travel faster than the mysterious time bullet...so he can outrun death, but not the thing that causes death??

The moral? Just have Zatanna says some magic spell and bring him back next time...it's a lot easier and doesn't reduce everything in the universe to the anti-sense equation.

Me Am Too Stupid...

...to appreciate Final Crisis.

At least, that seems to be the meme floating around of the blogs this weekend, where daring to disagree with the hagiography of Grant Morrison's latest opus will get you labeled as stupid.

Sims suggests that, if you aren't all jazzed by Final Crisis, "then comics just might not be for you."

Church opines, "I honestly wonder if these people bitching about the pacing in Final Crisis have ever read a non-tie-in novel or seen a film that didn’t feature talking robots."

Sterling dismisses those who question the storytelling and pacing of FC as "the usual suspects," a non-flattering reference to those who don't "get" Grant Morrison.

Can we call bullshit on this, please?

There's a lot of people who have legitimate gripes about FC, and to dismiss the people making them as somehow intellectually unworthy to scale the intellectual heights that Morrison aspires to is childish elitism. It's bad for everybody...it's bad for the blogs, it's bad for the comics, bad for my blood pressure, and probably bad for Grant Morrison, too.

For the record, I'm not thrilled with FC. And before the cult of Morrison comes out with their pithy one-liner attacks on the size of my brain or my appreciation of comics, let me point out they're idiots, too.

Sims says that FC is "the antithesis of decompression," which has got to be the silliest damn thing I've ever read. FC #2 starts with an 8-page sequence, the point of which is to have Shlioh Norman recruit Sonny Sumo. 8 pages, over 1/4 of the book. That's not the antithesis of decompression, that's decompression pure and simple. Sure, he fills it up with pretty, shiny details to distract us, but none of those have a thing to do with what's going on. We're stuck reading about characters we'll never see again, while he hammers us with a trite point ("heroes today ain't like they was back in my day, you punks") that could have been made in 5 panels, not five pages. Ask yourself this--would Jack Kirby have wasted 8 pages doing the same set-up?

It's extra-ironic, because we spend far more time with our oh-so-subtle parody of those crazy Japanese than we do with, say, mourning J'onn J'onzz. But say what you will about Grant Morrison, he's never been comfortable with portraying actual characters and actual emotions. The last few years of his output has become more and more like scholarly treatises from Vulcan about superheroes. The Martian Manhunter is one of the founding fathers of the modern DC universe, and it's treated like just another crime statistic in the local paper. It's an emotionless shrug. And it's damned hard to get us to care about this colossal impending war, when the creators can't even muster up more than a shrug when a hero dies. Hell, DC even admits that, by having to publish Final Crisis: Requiem separately...isn't that an acknowledgement that Morrison's ignoring the very real, human (or Martian) facet of the story? That they have to do damage control and publish a stand-alone to show that people actually cared about J'onn? But Morrison couldn't be bothered with that, because it might get in the way of 8 pages of an irrelevant Japanese superhero club, or 3 dialogue-less pages of a meaningless caveman fight.

So when we complain about the pacing, we're called unsophisticated morons. When we complain that it's drier than the driest emotionless police procedural, we just "don't get it." When some of the storytelling borders on the incomprehensible (page 18 in FC #2, anybody?), well, that's our fault.

So here's the deal...stop the name-calling. Either answer the specific critiques, or just say "I disagree" without the name-calling and derision. And in return, I won't call anyone stupid for like a plodding, padded out. passionless exercise in name-dropping.

Damn It, I Was Right, Wasn't I?

A little while back I wrote a post commenting on the impending return of Barry Allen. This is part of what I had to say:

And if they want to bring back Barry Allen? I don't agree with that, but I can be one board for that without too much crying. But I fear that said resurrection, under the current regime, just means they're just going to flush away 20 years of character growth and supporting cast of Wally. He will lose his mag, lose his JLA position, lose his supporting cast, and be relegated to appearing in the Titans and an occasional Mark Waid written Brave and the Bold.

Check back in a year and tell me I was wrong.

Well, it's substantially less than a year, but let's see what Dan DiDio had to say at Wizard World Chicago this weekend:

Question from the audience: With Barry Allen back, does DC have a better plan for what to do with Barry than "what you had for Wally?"

Ethan Van Sciver: "Oh of course."

DiDio: "Wally will be around. He's part of the Titans team right now, and he'll be part of that team for the foreseeable future."

Oooh. Foreseeable future. Part of the Titans team. No mention of his own mag, or his supporting characters, or his spot in the JLA. That's reassuring.

Sure sounds like I was right, doesn't it?

Maybe Wally and Kyle Rayner can go off and form their own team, The I Used To Be A Headliner Until DC Revived the Originals and Bumped Us to Second Banana Status.

10 Questions...

...you provide your own answers. You won't be graded. Except maybe in heaven.

1) We were assured again and again that Final Crisis wouldn't be crossing over into any ongoing series.

So what, exactly, do you call all those books with the "Dark Side Club" banner at the top, featuring pointless appearances by the evil New New Gods?

2) How stupid, exactly, are all the inhabitants of the DC Universe, when characters named Dark Side and Granny Goodness show up, and they don't have an inkling that something is up?

3) Issue #1 of the Fantastic Four was set in Central City. Yes, Central City.

Did the Flash drive them out, or did the FF decide that they were movin' on up to the big city?

4) If you're a super-powered villain, why the hell are you robbing banks in cities with heroes?? Why not knock off a bank in Kalamazoo, or Hoboken, or Springfield??

5) Spoiler if you haven't seen Hulk yet--At the end of the movie, Tony Stark tells General Ross that "the super soldier program was put on ice for a reason." "ON ICE." Get it?!?!? GET IT?!?!

Given that Stark has the shield in his lab...hmmm...

6) OK, spoilers done. What is the likelihood that the Thor movie is going to come over fire for promoting paganism?

7) Scene we need to see filmed: General Ross and J. Jonah Jameson getting massively drunk in a bar and arguing over who's got the worse menace...OK, that's not a question. But still...

8) Whatever happened to Lobo? "The Main Man" just sorta dropped off the face of the DC Universe. Don't get me wrong, I HATED Lobo, so I'm glad, but for a while the guy was as hot as Wolverine. Wha happened?

9) Since the DC Universe has all of the "real" American cities in addition to all their fictional ones, does that mean they have really, really big sports leagues?

10) Why don't people talk more about Jonathan Hickman's books??

The Great and Powerful Morrison

My impression of Grant Morrison answering the questions from the Newsarama interviewer regarding why Final Crisis #1 didn't sync up at all with Countdown or Death of the New Gods:

Newsarama: So. So in essence, you were handed a plate where between Death of the New Gods and Countdown, Orion appeared to have died twice. Picking up with him here, did he wander to the docks from the battle in Countdown #1, or are his terminal injuries from something else?

Morrison:



Newsarama: And so you were left with a handful of continuity issues as result - – why didn’t the Guardians call a 1011 when all the other New Gods died? Why didn’t Superman recount his experiences in Death of the New Gods when he was talking about the New Gods to the JLA? How did the villains capture J’onn? Obviously, if you dealt in all the minutia of every storyline since Identity Crisis or earlier, you’d go nuts – so what was your personal line in the sand that you used in writing Final Crisis in regards to what “mattered” and what didn’t?

Morrison:

I'm just sayin'.

Bait and Switch

Well, there's a lot that's been written about Final Crisis #1 already. And given that there's 6 more issues and about a billion spin-offs yet to go, it would be very premature of me to comment too much on where the story is going. Because frankly, I haven't the foggiest.

Oh, and I do mean a billion spin-offs. In this week's DC Nation column, Final Crisis editor Eddie Beganza lists 8 of them, and he doesn't even mention Brad Meltzer's DC Universe: Last Will and Testament. He does include 2 I hadn't seen mentioned before, Final Crisis: Submit, and Final Crisis: Submit. So they're still coming up with new ones, and probably more will come to light in the next few months.

But I digress. What I wanted to opine about today was one thing that became abundantly clear while reading FC #1: Grant Morrison either didn't read Countdown and Death of the New Gods, or he doesn't give a flying fig about what happened in there.

If the former, well, lucky him. Countdown was execrable, and DoNG was at best underwhelming (hell, its story didn't even finish in #8, but continued into Countdown).

But we were told, time and time again, how important and vital events in those two series were, how they would be the lynch pin of what would happen in FC, how they were laying the foundation for what would come later.

Uhhh...not so much. Morrison not only contradicts what happened in those two series, but also what happened during his much-lauded run on JLA.

Case in point #1: The Monitor flitting about the "celestial fountain of interlocking universes" says that Universe 51 no longer exists. The Monitors exile 51's Monitor Nix Utoan for that.

Except, of course, 51 wasn't destroyed. Or, rather, it was recreated by Nix Utoan in Countdown #9. Yeah, the Earth-51 was ravaged by the Morticoccus virus, experiencing the "Great Disaster," and became the universe that Kamandi takes place in. Countdown spent an interminable 3 issues setting this up and explaining it. But Earth-51 still exists. The Universe 51 was not lost. Morrison either didn't know or didn't care.

Case in point #2: The New Gods. Let's start with Hal Jordan and John Stewart playing CSI: Green Lantern.

Does Jon Stewart seriously believe that Hal Jordan doesn't know about Darkseid? Really? THE ultimate baddy in the DC Universe forever, and Jon acts like he's talking to a rookie GL. Patronizing much?

How about Superman? He's always been closely linked to the Forth World. What does he have to say on the topic?

Look, Kal-El just spent 8 issues hanging around with ALL of the New Gods. During Countdown #2, Superman and the entire JLA sat on the sidelines and watched as Orion and Darkseid battled to the death. Orion and Barda were actually MEMBERS of the JLA during Morrison's run. Mister Miracle was a member during the JLI days. So why, exactly, is the Man of Steel acting like no one has heard of these guys before? "Guardian archives describe?!?!" How about "Remember that fight we just watched a couple of weeks ago?" or "Remember when Orion was a member?"

Now, I'll grant the need for some exposition dump in this launch of the new mega-series. But why pretend that these New Gods are strangers? Just very clumsily done, unless Morrison has already re-written continuity before the series has even begun.

And maybe he has. From a Q&A with Dan DiDio at Wizard World Philly this week:

Q: Was Death of the New Gods essentially, immediately retconned in that many of the gods were shown alive, albeit in a different form, in Final Crisis #1?

DD: “Death of the New Gods was a celebration of Kirby. A chance to say goodbye, and give them a proper send off. But it all makes sense as Final Crisis unfolds. Both the New Gods and Seven Soldiers will factor in to the events of Final Crisis.”

DiDio back in October sold us DoNG as "a story that we at DC have been building to for some time" and the series where "all your questions will be answered, and you will not be disappointed." And it's resolution was really the only point of the entire 52 (ahem 51) issues of Countdown. But now, it was just a "celebration of Kirby," apparently no more in continuity than "Whatever Happened To the Man of Tommorow."

Yeah, this all might be explained away in the upcoming 95 issues of Final Crisis. But you and I know it won't. Morrison's so powerful right now, he doesn't even have to be consistent with book that he's already written., let alone something written by Jim Starlin or Paul Dini.

Again, not that those storues were any great shakes. It's DC's right to do it that way, but it's disrespectful the the readers who bought and read the earlier mags, and disrespectful to the creators of those other mags.

Who's Not There?

Yesterday my pal Siskoid, as part of his Encyclopedia Week, took a look at JLA Secret Files and Origins #1 (1997).

Just by coincidence, I had read this exact comic on Sunday, having recently purchased it out of the quarter bin. He posted before I got to say what I wanted...but I promise I'm not ripping him off or riding his coattails.

He showed you Phil Jimenez's two-page spread of all of the official Justice Leaguers over the years. Me, I wanted to show you the spread with all the villains:

And, because I love you guys, here's the legend (click for readable size):


I really didn't have any huge point to make here. I just wanted to point out that, here at the height of the Grant Morrison/Mark Millar run on JLA, we have a huge spread featuring pretty much anyone the Justice League has ever fought...Irwin Teasdale? Seriously? Uberbot?!?!

Yet despite that, no trace of Libra in there.

Again, no point, I just found that interesting...

Dan DiDio--Fool Me Once, Shame On You...

OK, it wasn't too long ago that I reviewed what the the first issue, or at least the cover of that issue, of Countdown had promised us, as compared to what the series actually delivered. And I was forced to call "Liar, liar, pants on fire" on Dan DiDio (amongst others).

Well, some people can't keep from fibbing, I guess. Let's look at an interview he gave Newsarama back in December:

NRAMA: When we’re talking about Final Crisis are we looking at another Countdown style event with multiple spin offs and plot threads going into other series?

DD: No - Final Crisis is seven issues over eight months. It has a natural break built in between two of the issues. During that natural break, there will be a series of specials dealing with Final Crisis and the events of that natural break in the story.

There will also be two other supporting series for Final Crisis, one of them is a five part story, one of them is a six part story. That is the full extent of Final Crisis. So we will not see Final Crisis crossing over in any appreciable manner with the rest of the line. All of the other monthly books will continue on the stories they’re telling, with their established creative teams for those series.

If we go any further or any wider…wait – you know what? I don’t want to be called a liar seven months from now when we add one more special or something, let me couch that – at this point, there are no plans to extend Final Crisis past that initial conceit, because we feel that what we have planned covers all the major story elements for that storyline. If we have to go any wider, when we will create a special, but we will not incorporate any of the Final Crisis storyline beats in any of the monthly series.

OK, so let's recap: Just 2 supporting series,. A single-issue special or two. And "7 months from now," if there's a change or two, well, it won't be much of a change.

So, 5 months later, let's look at what's actually solicited by DC for August:

Final Crisis: Revelations (1 of 5)
Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds (1 of 5)
Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge (2 of 3)
Final Crisis: Superman Beyond (1 of 2)
Final Crisis: Last Will and Testament (1 of 1)

Ahem.

"There will also be two other supporting series for Final Crisis...That is the full extent of Final Crisis." (emphasis added)

"I don’t want to be called a liar seven months from now when we add one more special or something..."

Five months later, we've already climbed from 2 "supporting series" to 4. Anybody wanna take any bets that the number doesn't grow again before too long? And the "series on specials" during the one-month break in Final Crisis proper is...one. They actually subtracted.

Congratulations, Dan. You've earned another coveted "Liar, liar, pants on fire" award. Keep up the good work.

Krusty of the Week Award--Brad Meltzer!!

Pretty much nothing makes my day more than seeing someone in a position of acclaim hired very specifically to create something (and usually to much publicity and fanfare), and when it turns out that people hate it, they proceed to blame somebody else. "Don't look at me--I didn't do it!!"

From JMS, who has publicly stated that every controversial Spider-Man story he did was really Marvel ediors' faults; to Bendis, who said it was the artist's fault that anyone might perceive the multiple violent S&M-tinged beatdowns of Tigra as misogynist; to the apologists for Will Pfeiffer, who excuse the dreck that was Amazons Attack as not damning becuase it was "editorially mandated." Everyone's got an excuse.

Well, this week, we've got another fine candidate. After ravishing the foundations of the DC Universe in Identity Crisis, author Brad Meltzer is coming back to script a one-shot tie-in to Final Crisis. And, 3 years later, this is what he had to say about Identity Crisis:

"Identity Crisis, for whatever it became and whatever it turned into - so much of it out of my control – is something that I think Dan ran well with it, and I’m still very proud of."

Yup, Brad...it was all DiDio's fault that the DC Universe became a hotbed for rape, brainwashing, spousal murder, etc. It was "out of your control" when you made DC heroes stop being heroes. "Dan ran well with it," you had no impact at all. Hell, you were merely standing around the DC offices one day, and they slapped your name on someone else's script. Yup.

So, for valor above and beyond in avoiding responsibility for what you've created, Brad Meltzer is the winner of this week's Krusty Award!!

Tune in next week, when he blames someone else for that JLA run...

FINAL Final Crisis Preview--Another Tricky Day

Well, the time is almost upon us, when we get yet another DC crisis, this time THE FINAL CRISIS!!

This is no final crisis

This is DC having fun

Even though I've run many, many helpful previews of what I thought might be upcoming in the latest DC cash suck, I can with confidence say that we will not see the Gay Ghost, Jerry Lewis, Gabby Hayes, AAU Superstar, Prez, or Superbaby. Unless, of course, Grant Morrison secretly reads this blog and takes notes. Yeah, I know, bloody unlikely.

No crisis

Getting burned once again

So, what are we getting from the Final Crisis (aka the series that Paul Dini had no idea what it was going to be about so Countdown meandered like a drunken lemur for 52 (ahem 51) weeks)?

Sadly, a strong clue came from DC Universe #0 last week:

Oops. I did that on purpose. Really. Why?

The world seems in a spiral

Life seems such a worthless title

One of the problems with Infinite Crisis (aside from its title being one of the most blatant cases of false advertising since the Neverending Story) was that, to paraphrase my man Winston Churchill, the pudding had no theme.

That it, it was a disparate collection of story threads that really had not a thing to do with each other OR the central story line. Instead of being built from the top down, it felt as if it were built from the bottom up (hence my upside cover--dude, it's a metaphor!!). Let's not start with a the main story and pick out some subplots that tie in well. No, let's throw out all these plot lines--villains teaming up, the Spectre's war on magic, the Rann-Thanagar war, OMAC's--and try to connect them to the main story. Seriously, what the hell did the bloody magic war have to do with anything? NADA.

Just because there's space

In your life it's a waste

And that's what DCU #0 showed us. A bunch of stories that, even if you think they're interesting individually, seem to have no possible relationship to each other, let alone whatever the main thrust of Final Crisis may be. If there is one.

So our big FINAL Final Crisis Preview question: does this pudding have a theme?? or is it one big gloppy mess thrown at the wall to see what sticks? We'll find out soon...

This is no Final Crisis

Just another tricky day for DC

Lyrics adapted from Pete Townshend.

Best reason to bring back Superbaby?