Final Crisis: Revelations #1 review

Revelations part one

The Spectre. Exacts vengeance. And Crispus Allen hates every last minute of it. Doctor Light? Yeah, he's fucked. Effigy? Totally fucked. Libra? Oh shit, wait a second! What is it about Libra that makes him untouchable and leaves the Spectre unable to exact God's vengeance? Hhmmmm...However, he does manage to take out the Hangmen, who were previously asking Libra's help in taking out the Titans. But then there is also Renee Montoya...let me review. Montoya has been running around with a group called The Order of The Stone in England. She's spying on a little boat in order to stow away. Something is going on involving a dive to retrieve some glowing red artifact attached to the end of a spear with "the power to kill a false god or to raise a new one..." Montoya goes on thee attack after this group brings this thing up, but this thing is too powerful. Some of this group is killed by the power of this thing, and Montoya and the weilder are facing each other down when the Spectre comes out to exact vengeance on...Renee Montoya!

Uh...I'm completely lost! The Spectre's part of the story is easy to follow along, and he gets some kick ass scenes totally fucking up villains, but the stuff with Montoya just loses me. I've not read Day of Vengeance, most of 52 or the Five Books of Blood mini and I'm just severely lost. Apparently all of this stuff really leads into this series in a major way. Even reading it, I could just tell that I'm missing out on all sorts of back story. What is this glowing red spear? What is the Order of the Stone? Who are these people Montoya is trying to stop? Clueless. Spectre? Hey, doing nothing but enacting vengeance, especially after having to kill your own son, will fuck a guy up. His motivations are simple to nail down, the Montoya stuff is leaving me with nothing. My problem, yes, and I'm going to have to research the backstory, but for that this issue isn't what I would call reader friendly.

Let me comment on Phillip Tan's art. Fuck yes. It's tight, looks good and flows wonderfully well. The more I look at it, the more awesome it is. So far, with all these Final Crisis books, you really can't say a bad thing about the art. DC is really pulling out all the stops in that department.

Overall.....well, confused as all hell about where the story is going. Supposedly this one and Legion of Three Worlds are going to be the two Final Crisis tie-ins that matter most. I can recommend it for the art alone, but unless you know the backstory leading into this series, I have to warn you that it's very confusing.