Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1 review

Morrison is an excellent writer. Years hence, he'll be lauded as one of the all time greats. Right now, I kinda want him to disappear into obscurity.

For Superman Beyond, I was hoping that maybe...maybe...he'd be able to put something together that would really tighten up Final Crisis, maybe make sense of what's going on. Nothing. Except for the fact that a subplot (if you wanna call it that) of Final Crisis is getting it's own two part treatment, I can't say that it really does anything for the series so far. What does it do for the story of our now half-dead Lois Lane? Very little. So Superman goes on an adventure that will possibly save Lois's life, but the story seriously diverges from that point on. We get backstory on the Monitors and some cool psuedo-sciencey mumbo jumbo, but nothing else that makes this issue feel really significant. There's mention of a Monitor (I think a Monitor) called Mandrakk (and the only reason I know he's a Monitor is cause of the Final Crisis #6 solicitation from the latest Previews...lame!).

Final Crisis is really starting to feel like it was foisted on Grant Morrison. Kind sorta the sequel to Seven Soldiers, but with a lot of other ideas thrown in for the sake of a massive DC event series. Morrison just feels like he's pumping out anything to keep the suits happy and packed with enough bullshit to divide the fans enough to keep anyone from noticing that maybe this whole thing is turning into an unmitigated disaster.

Really, the only reason to pick this book up is because of Doug Mahnke's art. Tight, tight stuff. The book is also in 3D, but honestly I wish it weren't. So gimmicky. Plus, being an old time collector, I'm loathe to remove the 3d glasses.

Supposedly, Superman Beyond is one of the few Final Crisis spinoffs that are necessary to the main story. Sure, if DC says so, but honestly it didn't feel like that at all. Maybe the next issue will end on a really kick ass note, but until then it just felt like a waste of $4.50. I can't really recommend this issue.