DC Comics
Final Crisis #7: The Post Structuralist Review
By Hervé St-Louis February 1, 2009 - 10:23
Publisher(s): DC Comics
Writer(s): Gran Morrison
Penciller(s): Doug Mahnke
Inker(s): Tom Nguyen, Drew Geraci, Christian Alamy, Norm Rapmund, Rodney Ramos, Doug Mahnke, Walden Wong
Colourist(s): Alex Sinclair, Tony Avina, Pete Pantazis
Letterer(s): Travis Lanhham
Cover Artist(s): J.G. Jones, Marco Rudy
$3.99 US
This is the final issue of
Final Crisis, where the
resolution, one hopes, to the current predicament of the DC Universe will
unravel itself. Darkseid, having seemingly killed Batman last issue, is
confronted with an army of Supermen from different realities. It’s up to them
to fight the anti-life equation and bring order back to their world. Meanwhile
the monitors seem contents that the humans have saved the multiverse but for
what purpose?
Like many readers, all of
Final Crisis was utterly
nonsense to me. Mostly, it’s because writer Morrison is not playing with the
same rules of storytelling. He is not interested in telling the story going
from point A to B, like most comic book writers. Morrison even claims that he
planted all the evidence leading to this story years ago, perhaps starting with
his run on Animal Man, and of course his work on JLA in the late 1990s all the
way to the early 2000s. There is no way to verify this, but having not read the
full body of work by Morrison, it’s hard to prove that it is indeed necessary
to have read a large amount of comic books to understand Final Crisis.
If it were in fact the truth, then Morrison is playing
with some of the last vestiges of comic book fandom in an interesting way. The tendency
of many super hero comic book readers to just amass large quantities of comic
books, they ultimately have no interest in, just to keep their collection
intact and have an easy repertoire to a single continuity that cannot be
allowed to be broken, is, in my view one of the post struturalist ways with
which Morrison is playing with readers, and it may be the only way to
understand what
Final Crisis ultimately stood for.
OK, before we go any further, I think it’s useful to
provide a few bits of understanding on post structuralism. Post structuralism,
is one of those French philosophical way of looking at the world that evolved
from the work of several scholars in the 1960s. As evidenced in the name, it’s
a reaction to structuralism. It doesn’t matter much, for the sake of this
review to understand the inner working of Foucault and his tribe to understand
what Morrison meant for
Final Crisis. All that is required is the understanding
that the linear way of gathering knowledge, making conclusions based on
evidence, cause and effect thinking is not relevant here. Post structuralists
like to turn things around. A comic book is no longer a comic book, but a
social construct we call a comic book. There is no definitive essence to the
comic book. There is no definitive essence to Superman or Batman or the DC
Comics’ universe. There are only different interpretations of these essences. There
is no truth or ways to find and prove truth without looking at the truth digger.
It’s important to understand who is delivering the truth to understand what he
means by truth. Thus, the differing truths provide a contingency of essences
and ways to interpret the truth – or in our case, the comic book that we are
looking.
A typical narrative has an introduction, a conflict, a climax,
and a resolution. These linear building
blocks form a story. It creates a determined path that both readers and writer
follow. Writers, like Brian Michael Bendis like to switch some of these to
liven up their narratives. For example, in Secret Invasion, readers were shown
the climax, before they were ever introduced to the introduction and the
conflict.
Morrison rejects these ways of writing a comic book and
that’s why most of us have had problems with
Final Crisis. Even when we’re
college educated and have read tons of post modern theories, we just don’t
expect to read this stuff in a comic book featuring Superman and Batman,
fighting against Darkseid and Lex Luthor. So faced with something that doesn’t
play by the rules, we blank out. If Morrison were a good sport, he would
let his readers and editors in on his game. But doing so would give a specific
meaning to
Final Crisis and it would stop readers from interpreting this
comic book in their own ways. Remember there is a contingency of truths and
Morrison’s is as valid as that of anyone reading
Final Crisis.
The name of the series,
Final Crisis, pokes fun at the
entire concept of linearity in comic books. That there is a way where
characters are coming from and going to and that these large comic book events
serve to redefine the comic book continuity as stepping-stones. In fact, super
hero comic book history is nothing to but a circle jerk, not going anywhere
with different variants of Superman, Batman and every possible continuity
duking it out as the ultimate reality.
Final Crisis may be called final, but it
may just be the first crisis. Now a few “comics historians” will point out that
the first crisis was the one in
Justice League of America #21 where the League
first met the Justice Society of America. It doesn’t matter. That’s the whole
point. Any of those crises could be the first, the last, the most important the
most this and that. What a post structuralist finds more interesting is how
they relate to one another and how the various truths they contain can create a
descriptive narrative commenting on the various aspects of the stories.
For example, in
Final Crisis We are introduced to a black
Superman and a black Wonder Woman. He is also the President of the United
States. Here, Morrison plays with the social construct of President Barack
Obama and how we see him as a saviour, a super hero, a modern Christ-like
figure that will save us from evil and redeem us. This one aspect of how we
have traditionally seen Superman. He was a man greater than us, willing to go
beyond to save us. So the Barack Obama version of Superman is a truthful as the
other Superman that fought Darkseid to a standstill in latter pages.
In another passage, Darkseid is obliterated by the omega rays
that he shot at the Flash through time to destroy him. What is interesting is
that the omega rays are the ultimate linear and deterministic symbol ever. It
is said that they always hit their target, even if that target runs in time,
changes course, or teleports. There are rules about how omega rays function,
yet, Morrison used these rules to destroy Darkseid. How can omega rays destroy
the very person that created them?
Morrison, in
Final Crisis, tells the reader that it’s
alright to toy around with all these concepts and ascribe to them dubious
truths that are neither clear or real. There is not a single defining Superman
or DC Comics’ reality. There is a multiverse of realities and we just happen to
read more often, about the one where Superman is from Krypton, is married to
Lois Lane, works at the Daily Planet, is part of the Justice League.
My thesis about the post structuralism of
Final Crisis and Morrison's intents are my way of understanding what otherwise would be a mess to me. It is also a more pleasurable way of reading and thinking about this comic book than other approaches. I have no certainty of knowing if Morrison was going for a post structuralist approach, but it doesn't matter. Through this approach, I have enjoyed this comic book and what it represents and says about this hobby and the cultural phenomenon of super heroes. Post structuralism, allows the reader to make up his own truth independent of Morrison's or what is considered gospel by DC Comics' historians. If it works for me, it may work for you.
Mahnke completes this issue, replacing artist J.G. Jones.
Mahnke is a talented pro and it’s a credit to his skill that he was called in
to complete this issue when scheduling issues came up. Perhaps, it would have
been better to hand him the entirety of the project instead of the last chapter.
His presence here doesn’t break the flow of the preceding chapters. His
rendition of Superman is different, but interesting. He is a great storyteller
capable of assembling a disparate script together in one unit. If a reader
cannot piece this comic book, it is not because of his efforts.