Biff Bam Pow Comics

Damn. This is going to seem just like one big ‘I love Marvel and hate DC’ column isn’t it. I’m sorry - I tried, but I just wasn’t impressed with how Final Crisis issue 1 came together.

***MAJOR SPOILER ALERT***

All the ingredients were there. ‘Dead’ New Gods popping up left right and centre, time travel, two big superhero deaths, and enough riddles to make Batman blow his brains out - but still ‘lacking something’.

Now - I’m starting to think that someone has it in for the classic JLI heroes. First Blue Beetle, then Maxwell Lord, and now the Martian Manhunter and Orion have both checked into the huge Watchtower in the heavens.

And they didn’t go out with heroic deaths - J’onn J’onzz was off-ed like a second rate character, brutally and without any shred of dignity - and Orion was felled before the book began (although he did have a few dying words).

Both of these should be very powerful deaths, especially as they didn’t go down in ways the fans would like or expect. So - good in theory. But sadly not in execution.

Grant Morrison’s script is incredibly emotive - but J. G Jones’ artwork just doesn’t deliver the punch needed for such magnitude. Which is probably what’s at the heart of the problem here.

A great story - very interesting - but it’d be even more so if there weren’t any of those damn pictures in there.

I’m sorry - I can’t be anything but blunt over this one. The script and the art just doesn’t work well together - and I’m very much afraid that what could easily have been a powerhouse book for DC may very well go down in memory as being a great example of mismatched talents.

Pete’s Score: 3 out of 5
(brutal but honest - you will however still enjoy this book if you are a DC fan) 

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