Final Crisis #1

Can I just say reading this makes me feel like I didn't completely waste my money on Countdown? That's right, Countdown did have somethings in it worth knowing. Maybe I only waste about $100 bucks.

I think I'll just be brief. The happenings in this issue involve the Dark Side Club, Orion, Metron, the death of a major character and stuff involving the Monitors.

I wish DC would have advertised that some comics coming out will be marked as having some relation to this Dark Side club thing. Seems Darkseid has, in fact, cheated death. The New Gods of New Genesis? No. The New Gods of Apokolips? Very much so. They seemed to find a way around all this.

What I find peculiar is that the issue involved Detective Turpin examining the body of Orion in a shipping container. When we see the JLA talking about this and the rest of the New Gods, they seem to act like they've never had much contact with them. Just...what? Dude, Orion and Big Barda were on the JLA for quite a while! What is up with that? Is this how Morrison tackles his revamp of the DCU? Act like it already basically happened? Interesting.

Major character death? Spoiler alert! Libra follows through on granting the wish of one of his disciples and has the Martian Manhunter killed. Set on fire and run through his heart with that Libra's sceptre/spear thing. Okay! That's a way to start this off!

Oh, can't have a Crisis without a red sky. Gotta have the red skies.

Also some goings on with a caveman, Metron, and Kamandi. Oh, and all something with Metron's chair on that world that the villains in Salvation Run are stuck on.

Given that, surprisingly little actually happens. We get some shock and a whole lot of set up but that's about it. I want to see where things are going, but it's painfully clear that, in typical Grant Morrison fashion, anything with "Final Crisis" stamped on the cover is going to be necessary. A lot of stories are kicked off, some we've already been introduced to in DCU #0 or Justice League or Action Comics, but a lot is going to occur. It's not gonna be easy to judge this story based on this one issue...hell, probably even this one series! We'll just see where it goes.

Recommended for the obsessive collector.