Book of the Week 5/29/08 Final Crisis #1

Written by Grant Morrison
Art by JG Jones
Colors by Alex Sinclair














Okay, I admit this one is mainly for the DC nation out there. Someone looking to jump onto the story right here will really have a hard time. But...too bad. Final Crisis rears its head this week with a continuation of many stories we've been seeing in JLA, DCU #0, and several other recent titles. For those following the majority of those stories, FC answers some questions and raises many more. Personally, I was very entertained and intrigued with this book, knowing a few things that will arise and trying to understand what I was seeing.


Many people criticize Morrison for off the wall stories that are hard to follow. I feel that FC appears like that on the outside however DC has been very careful to release specials and books that give the history of all the characters we see in this issue. Someone shouldn't expect to jump into Back to the Future 3 without watching the previous 2 and understand what's happening. The same goes for FC as it's the third part of the Crisis Trilogy. To that end, FC#1 provides continuations to stories seen in JLA which culminates in the death of a major character as well as an interesting twist to the new gods story. It appears that death will truly be a revolving door in this book. I'm not greatly happy about that but I'm interested to see where it will lead us.


Jones' art is clean and crisp in this comic. Small touches such as John's ring illuminating his costume to large themes such as the lightening "flashing" against the red sky are great moments. The look of the characters is realistic and well defined.


While this book had several things leaving me scratching my head (why are Anthro and Kamandi together) I'm sure these will be explained soon. Overall I was very entertained with this comic and I'm excited for a finale to a story that began 23 years ago. Being a DC boy that's collected for most of that time, I almost feel like I have a personal stake in this story. Hopefully it will deliver on the promise of this issue.