Final Crisis #4 (of 7)

It's amazing to realize that the writer who worked such magic in the All-Star Superman series - Grant Morrison - is the same guy who is serving up the virtually impenetrable Final Crisis series.

You can tell it's impenetrable because it's almost impossible to summarize the story so far. Here, just for fun, let's try: first the New God Orion got killed by some kind of magic bullet that was fired through time. The bullet was being chased by the Flash (Barry Allen), who wasn't able to stop it - but he and Wally West ran so fast in trying that they ended up in the future, in which (surprise!) Darkseid has conquered the world. Other than the cover of this issue, we really haven't seen much of Darkseid, because he's now showing up in human form and is apparently burning through human bodies. Oh, and Metron traveled back to the dawn of humanity to give some kind of information to Anthro, who somehow met Kamandi in some kind of dream sequence. After Orion was killed, the Alpha Lanterns arrived on Earth, accused Hal Jordan of murder and whisked him off to Oa to stand trial. Oh, and Granny Goodness captured Batman and shipped him off... somewhere. Superman failed to stop an explosion at the Daily Planet, and Lois is in a hospital, clinging to life. And Darkseid somehow released the Anti-Life Equation, which gives him control over everyone on Earth - except for the heroes hiding out at several Watchtowers - though how they escaped the whole mind-control thing is a bit hazy.

I'm sure I'm leaving out lots of stuff, and I realize that was a snarky way to recap the first three issues. I'm all for big stories and pushing the boundaries, but I've been reading DC's comics for decades now, so if I'm feeling lost through most of the story, I can only imagine the reaction of a new reader.

And what's up with changing Kalibak into a tiger? It's one of the many "What the?" moments in the series.

The original Crisis tried to fix DC's tangled continuity and partially succeeded, the Infinite Crisis series tried to.. well, sell comics, I guess, and it managed that - but it certainly didn't do anything to organize DC's Universe, other than giving the hated Superboy-Prime the ability to punch holes in existing continuity.

Now here's the Final Crisis, and once again the intent seems to be to bring some clarity and modernization to DC's line, with the focus being on the New Gods. But there are so many characters involved, so many plotlines spinning around, and so many scenes and events that barely seem connected, it makes for a story that's really difficult to follow.

Perhaps it'll make more sense when it's collected into one book - but I'm doubtful.

Look, the art by J.G. Jones is terrific, and the pages done by Carlos Pacheco are solid, and there are some really good scenes in here. I especially like the ones with Barry Allen and Wally.

But Morrison is going to have to pull some serious magic to bring the disparate (and strange) stories together. Of course, if anyone can manage it, he's the one. But so far, this book has been a disappointment.

Grade: C+