Final Crisis #3: On the Way to a Destructive Masterpiece

Written by: Joey Esposito, Special to CC2K

Final Crisis, only three issues in, has already proved that it is going to be a noteworthy closing chapter to the Crisis legacy, as well as proving that massive hugely-giant event comics don't need to be filled with pages upon pages of senseless action. Granted, nothing will ever truly please those annoying, pesky fanboys, but CC2K Comics Editor Joey Esposito takes a look inside the pages of Final Crisis #3, as we see why Grant Morrison, JG Jones, and DC Comics might just change the formulaic summer event comic forever. 

Writer – Grant Morrison
Artist and cover – JG Jones
Colors – Alex Sinclair
Letters – Rob Leigh

For all the naysayers of Final Crisis, consistently claiming that there is nothing happening, you need look no further than issue #3. The Anti-Life Equation is out, and the DCU is going straight to hell in a hand basket. It's strange seeing a major event like a Crisis in the acute hands of Grant Morrison; there would usually be a lot more things blowing up and a lot more battles being ravaged on panel. Instead, Morrison brings a literary quality to this series, not unlike Alan Moore's superhero works of old. This, I think, is the problem that many "fans" are having with this series thus far. If there isn't a standard Judd Winick crap fed structure to an issue that "satisfies" with a formulaic (in both action and wit) battle, then it's deemed "boring". Well, these people are idiots.

What Morrison has done with Final Crisis is take the usually epic scale of a Crisis and drag it down to the street level. We've got all the usual characters, but with the New Gods now in human this time around, and the heroes employing guerilla style tactics – rounding up every hapless hero in the DCU via  a superhero draft – things are going to get ugly. Along the way we get first class character moments between Clark and Lois, the Flashes, Marvel family and more. Speaking of the Marvels, Morrison manages Mary Marvel's fall from grace in just a few panels that Countdown couldn't do in 52 issues.

I hate that I'm going to have to wait two months for the next installment, being tided over in the meantime by various tie in series. But I'm sure then when I return to post Anti-Life DCU, it's not going to be a pretty sight.

Ironically, in the fourth dimension, everything about this book is a pretty sight. Every page is glory, as JG Jones contributes panel after panel of high quality goodness. The street scenes with The Question are shadowy and strange, and the scenes in the destroyed Bludhaven reek of abandonment and fear. Jones' style for this book is such that, accompanied by Morrison's superb storytelling and subtle pace, page after page just fills that spot in you that causes your stomach to lurch lower and lower until you have a complete wave of uneasiness eating away at you. Masterfully, just as the storytellers get this feeling combing over you, they hit you at just the right moment with the utter destruction contained in this book.

It may not have huge, sweeping splash pages every other page turn, or Skrulls blasting the holy hell out of people left and right, but Morrison and Jones have perfect the art of pacing. The success of this issue comes not in the balls to the wall cliche action that we have come to accept in most big event books, but rather in the subtleties of successful character defining moments and a pace that builds towards something decidedly sinister, but undoubtedly epic.

5.0 out of 5.