Final Crisis

I re-read Final Crisis, as I threatened I'd do after reading The Seven Soldiers of Victory. This is my third round with the series - once as it came out, again when it was complete to get a perspective on the whole thing - and I think i got much more out of it. Some of this is certainly due to context provided by the Seven Soldiers series, inparticular it gave me a better understanding of what was up with the New Gods. As I have previously mentioned, I don't keep up with DC continuity.

Additionally, after an online discussion about it a few months ago, I had a much better handle on what was goin on in the last couple of issues. The break downs of time and narrative causality are easier to deal with when you're ready for them!

I was struck this time around by the influence of Alan Moore's Supreme on the Superman sub plot, this time around. At the beginning of issue six there's a scene between Superman and Braniac 5 of the Legion of Superheroes where they are descending a spiral staircase that was amazingly similar to that featured in the Legion analogue in Supreme, and the army of multiple versions of Superman also seemed like a development of the ideas in Supreme (themselves, of course, following various ideas established in Superman during from the fifties to the seventies through to their logical conclusion).

On the whole, I was once again really impressed by Morrison's work here. DC tends to take a more high brow and serious approach than Marvel, and while that can be incredibly pretentious and pompous, when it's done right it really is quite something!