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For Those Of You Just Joining Us...

So, this is taken from a mindless ramble I posted at the Cort and Fatboy Message Boards. Folks suggested I re-post here on the award winning Geek in the City. Always wanting to do right by my readers... Here now is the Final Crisis re-cap, from the mind of one highly confused DC fan... Your friendly neighborhood Geek.

Okay, so I've sat down and re-read Final Crisis from the "beginning" to prep myself for the "month evil won"... This will have spoilers, so click away if you don't want to know....

1st - Disregard all books leading up to Final Crisis (i.e., Countdown, Death of the New Gods, etc.)

Yes, some events in Countdown are acknowledged in Final Crisis. But, not many. In fact, only the Evil Mary Marvel seems to fit in...And even that is a stretch when you compare Countdown Mary Marvel to Final Crisis Mary Marvel. (Although, would it KILL DC to have at least one or two innocent characters... I take that back... Can we have a couple of female heroes that aren't driven by revenge, abuse and/or rape? Thanks).

2nd - You pretty much have to ignore all other DC books. While there are a grip of Final Crisis tie-in books. (Like FC: Requiem and FC: Revelations, the DC titles proper appear immune... This is why Batman is captured and incapacitated by Darkseid's minions in FC, but is the Batman of Am-Myn-Ranma-A-Go-Go over in the core Batman titles).

3rd - Morrison appears to have carte blanch when it comes to characters living or dying, as well as editors having or not having input.

4th - Morrison is an insane Scottish peyote smoker and likes to take readers on Carlos Castaneda’s trips through the Superhero world. (Opinion only, don’t sue me).

5th - He is trying to incorporate The Bleed and other elements of the Wildstorm Universe... Please see point the 3rd for reasons why.

6th - Morrison loves Jack Kirby more than the most ardent Silver Surfer fan. (This will make sense in a minute).

Okay, with all that out of the way... Here we go:

Darkseid is sick and tired of the good guys winning and puts into motion a plan to wipe out all the pesky New Gods (see point 6) while slipping into the fabric of humanity. See, all of Darkseid's past attacks upon the New Gods and Earth used blunt force trauma. The Lord of Apokalipis is not known for subtly.

Until Final Crisis.

Using his own minions, Darkseid spreads his "anti-life" into the very fabric of humanity and according to Final Crisis and Morrison, has been doing so for years!

However, he isn't content with just our Universe. No, Darkseid wants them all to bow to his will... For Darkseid Is! With all 52 Universes (down to 49 now I think) having their own Monitor, Darkseid knows he can't just stomp on one galaxy and move to another.
Hence, the slow boil.

First, using an old school villain from the Silver Age (Libra), he forms a creepy order of bad guys. Using the "Crime Bible" (See DC's first weekly series, 52 for details). Anyway, the first hero they kill is Martian Manhunter, as he is the only hero that EVERYONE in the DCU trusts and with a thought, he can warn EVERYONE with a cape. In Final Crisis #1, he dies like a little bitch.

So, go out and read Final Crisis: Requiem. It is a one-shot and shows our favorite Martian did indeed put up one hell of a fight and damn near survived. A fitting death from such a pillar of DC's history.

Okay, he's taken out. Next, you gotta' remove the Big 3 without warning anyone... Batman gets tricked into something and it overwhelmed by Parademons possessed humans. He is quickly plugged into an Anti-Life machine by a reincarnated Desaad and removed from the picture.

Oh shit, I forgot... ALL the New Gods, save the Black Rider are dead. That does include Darkseid. However, this was all part of his plan. Remember "Darkseid Is". He can't truly die unless sent into the Source Wall. (I know, Superman put him there once, don't ask).

Oh yea, Barry Allen is also back. Taking notes from Marv Wolfman himself, Grant Morrison explained the only way to bring Barry back. When the multiverse shattered and collapsed into 1 universe after Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hero, the cosmic threads that bound all the previous worlds into one still existed. Those threads were the shattered soul of Barry Allen!

So, when the multiverse came back in 52, Barry Allen slowly reformed. With Final Crisis, the worlds are coming into contact more and more and The Flash was able to return to Earth... Long enough to warn the other speedsters that death was coming. (Literally. By the way, The Black Racer can't out-ski The Flash bitches).

Anyway, Barry Allen isn't fast enough to catch a temporal bullet that fired back in time to kill Orion: The Harbinger of War (and Darkseid's "good" son). Hence, preventing Orion from truly ending Darkseid's life in the present and ruining all his plans. (Oh yea, Darkseid CAN be killed by Orion due to a bizarre line Kirby wrote in the 60s "And so the son doth become the father").

This all-making sense? Didn't think so... Well, we press on.

Wonder Woman is taken out of the picture by... Hell, I don't know how. Morrison doesn't really touch on that one. It doesn't help that every ones favorite Amazon is still public enemy number 1 in the eyes of US Government. What with Maxwell Lord’s public execution a few years back and that whole "Amazons Attack" debacle.

Finally, a minion of Darkseid LEVELS the Daily Planet with a terrorist attack. Clark is fine, but guess who isn't? Yup, Lois Lane is in a coma and only Clark's heat vision is keeping her heart beating. (Don't ask, readers are just as confused as you).

Anyway, the only heroes with any real clue are The Question (Yea, Renee Montoya bitches), um Batwoman (kinda), and some lame-ass Japanese characters Morrison created but no one gives two fraks for.

Then, somehow, Wonder Woman is able to convince the JSA that some serious crap is going down and needs to activate all heroes in the world to fight back. People don't know what she is talking about, but she's friggen Wonder Woman, so they listen.

So... The JSA activates every hero in the world. Most of who are still oblivious to events... Green Arrow and Black Canary are too busy humping it out, Supergirl is too busy diddling herself while trying on new costumes... etc.

Oh snap. I forgot. Darkseid created this super-global-uber-bad internet virus that can infect EVERYTHING plugged in. So, Barbara Gordon tries to unplug the Internet. (No, not joking). She fails because the latest issue of Final Crisis ends with...

"The Day Evil Won"!!!!

That pretty much brings us to now. This is the month when Final Crisis goes on hiatus for a month and EVERY BOOK in DC has the "Month of Evil" issue.

Oh yea, there is Final Crisis: The Legion of Three Worlds. I'm told it is a damn fine read. It does pair up Geoff Johns with the legendary George Perez... But, I just don't have the scratch.

So, what do I think Grant Morrison is doing? Well, as always he is aiming for the fences and I gotta' give him props for that one.

He is trying something different. Instead of the WHAM-BANG event crossovers of the past... He is showing what happens when evil truly does work up to a slow boil. The problem is that his story is so massive, it takes 3 issues to build to a punch.

It is also terribly crippling that all the titles we DC readers were told were going to "matter" as the lead into Final Crisis don't matter one hill of beans. Hell, not even the currently running titles are impacted by Final Crisis.

Hell, I'm not a big fan of Secret Invasion, but I gotta' give kudos to Marvel editorial. There are keeping a FANTASTIC leash on all the titles. You don't have to buy all the tie-ins, but at least each book's tie-in fits with the over arcing story.

Please fill in anything I missed or got horribly wrong. In fact, I'm willing to bet I did. However, that is the problem. I think you could ask 10 DC fans what is happening with Final Crisis and you'd get 10 answers.

Finally, please pop on over the Legion of Doom and thank them for their fantastic Final Crisis "posters". Good site!