Drunken Comics Rage

I thought that I would pretty much just roll through this issue, and give you what I think as I read it. There's going to be a ton of spoilers below, so you might want to stop here if you haven't read the issue yet.

Final Crisis #2

The issue starts out in Japan, which already worries me, but let's see how it goes. Anyway, there's an older Japanese superhero talking about how the old heroes were a lot better than the new young guns, and that all the youngins want to be are gimmicks. The older guys team was named Big Science Action (heh), and someone from one of the younger teams, named Super Young Team appropriately enough, basically thinks the old guy is just a stupid old man.

The young Japanese Hero looks to be named Superbat, and he's hanging out in a night club when Super-Sumo walks in. No idea who any of these characters are, but I'm not sure I'm supposed to really. Well, Super-Sumo gets challenged by Megayakuza, who looks like a big robot. Super-Sumo isn't even wearing a costume, just regular clothes.

Super-Sumo blows him off stating that he only "fights in the ring". Megayakuza decides to push the issue, and sets the back of Super-Sumo on fire. Super-Sumo turns around, punches through Megayakuza's armor, chest, and right out the back, tearing Megayakuza's heart out, which Super-Sumo leaves on a bar glass. Interesting.

Super-Sumo makes his way to the bathroom, and tells everyone to get out. Out in front of the club, someone gets out of a limo. He looks like a middle aged man in a suit, with small brimmed fedora. Everyone treats him as a VIP, and he goes inside. The VIP guy heads strait to the bathroom to find Super-Sumo, and introduces himself as Mister Miracle, stating that Motherboxxx led him to Super-Sumo. Mister Miracle states that there was a Cosmic War, and the powers of evil won. He's asking Super-Sumo to help him put together a team.

Something of note here. Super-Sumo's skin was all burned when the Megadork set him on fire. When Mister Miracle finds him, Super-Sumo says that he recognizes the pinging sound Motherboxxx seems to be making, and Super-Sumo's skin is suddenly totally healed.

The next jump is to the guy that popped up right at the end of last issue. In talking to EvilArtist, he filled in a blank for me that the guy was the Monitor that was exiled. He seems to remember the actual exile as a dream he had, and that he feels like he should be somewhere else. Like he's "gonna find a magic word one day" that will take him home. I guess that might be why he's reading through the dictionary.

At the moment though, he's working at Big Belly Burger, and drawing super heroes. Not sure who they are, but I have a feeling they're going to pop up at some point.

Next, we jump to somenone beating the crap out of someone else. If I had to guess here, it's the cop from the first issue. The someone on the ground I think is the Mad Hatter. The cop (that's what I'm going with) is still looking for the children (didn't he find them last issue?) and thinks that Hatter knows where they are. Hatter finally give up a place, Bludhaven (cheeeeese) and the cop heads there.

The comic then jumps to Martian Manhunter's funeral, that's being held on Mars. Superman is speaking, and it pretty much looks like everyone is there. Interestingly, at the end of Superman's eulogy, he says "and pray for a resurrection". So Manhunter might not be as dead as he seems. Or maybe since super heroes seem to die and come back from the dead all the time, he's just hoping that happens to Manhunter.

We next jump to the bad guys. Libra is still talking to everyone about joining up into a big evil gang. Luthor declines, stating that Manhunter was easy (uh…ok) and that if he hurt Superman, that would be something. Clayface mentions that he's next in line, which I guess that means Batman.

Luthor and Savage are out front talking, and Luthor seems to already be trying to put together a team to take Libra down at some point. Luthor asks Savage if he can count on him, and Savage seems to feel that as long as what Libra wants to do takes away his boredom, he's teaming with Libra.

There's a really interesting exchange between Libra and The Human Flame. The Flame calls Libra "boss" and Libra states that he's not the boss, but you'll know him when he shows up. Seems like there's someone else behind the scenes, and all I can guess at this point is that it's Darkseid.

Next, we have Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, and Flash taking a look at Orion's body. Hal Jordan shows up with Alpha Lantern Kraken, whose pretty much a total bitch. The Kraken chick-thing pretty much thinks everything is beneath her, and everyone in the room is a waste of time.

The highlights here are that it looks like Orion was shot, but the bullet didn't leave a wound. Also that Batman asked John Stewart to look at the crime scene again to see if he could find the killing-with-no-wound bullet. Oh yeah, and that the Kraken chick is a bitch.

We jump to Stewart looking over the crime scene with Green Lantern Opto. Opto goes to look around, and Stewart finds some sort of unidentified material. His ring is trying to figure out what it is, when it goes nuts. Stewart then gets stuck to a crate by Green Lantern looking giant nails.

A shadow figure, apparently a Green Lantern, shows up and tells Stewart to say goodbye to his eyes. Stewart breaks free from the crate, and takes a swing at the figure. That's where it ends.

In the next scene, the Alpha Lanterns and Opto show up in Hal Jordan's bedroom, and place him under arrest for the murder of Orion, and the attempted murder of John Stewart. Things seem to be getting bad for Hal again.

We then jump to Superman and Batman talking about Hal's arrest. Both of them think that Hal is innocent, and that they need to clear his name. Superman flies off to hang out as Clark Kent for a while, and Batman goes to talk to Alpha Lantern Bitch Kraken.

Then things become a little more clear. Alpha Kraken suddenly shows her palm, where Stewart's punch landed, and it has a ring emblem embedded in it. Kraken also asks for help saying that "she's eating my mind alive, tell them our weapons don't work". I guess she's under some sort of mind control.

Batman calls for a Black Alert to warn everyone, and whatever is controlling Kraken gets back control. It goes a little bad for Batman here. Kraken sends him into a Boom Tube as "another plaything for Granny".

The issue jumps back to the cop, walking around Bludhaven looking for the kids. The cop runs into Reverend Good, who starts explaining things. He tells the cop that they have prepared the pit of human suffering for his rebirth. The cop is all confused, stating that he was just looking for the kids. The Reverend says that he already found the kids, but the cop just doesn't remember.

The Reverend then starts spilling the beans about what's going on. He says that they are all the Gods of Apokolips, manifesting themselves to bring about the final crisis of man. It seems that they are working on turning Earth, or at least part of it, into Apokolips, with fire pits and all. It also seems that the Cop is now Darkseid himself, and just doesn't know it yet.

The Reverend then happens on Batman, who says "They're coming to get us all!" right before he's put into some sort of machine. It looks like it's not going to be a fun ride.

We then jump to Superman, as Clark Kent, at the Daily Planet. Lois asks Jimmy to take something downstairs for her, Jimmy agrees, and when he steps into the elevator, it seems that it was just Clayface posing as Jimmy. A huge explosion then goes off, taking out a huge chunk of the building. Lois looks to be buried under some rubble.

We then jump to Flash and, well, Flash, running along. It's Wally West and Jay Garrick. They're checking out the hideout where all the bad guys met Libra at. No ones there at the moment of course. Batman sent Wally to check it out, and Wally found Martian blood, a phony "crime bible", and the Metron looking chair that Libra was sitting in.

Batman (of course) has a theory that the bullet that killed Orion was fired backwards though time. When John Stewart was checking out the crime scene, he mentioned that the energy signature he was looking at had been buried in the concrete for 50 years. So the bullet traveled from the future, killed Orion, and then buried itself in the concrete 50 years ago. Which is the deal with it not leaving a wound.

This is where Metron's chair goes nuts. It starts sending out light and vibrations. Suddenly someone comes out of the light….

Sure looks like Barry Allen to me. Especially since they were just talking about him (foreshadowing) and when Jay felt the vibrations, he started in with the "no, it can't be, not after all these years" bit.

No idea who the guy behind him is, or Barry is reaching for, but I'm pretty sure that's the same sort of guy, with the long ski feet, I mentioned right at the beginning of issue #1. 

Ok, so overall it was a pretty good issue. It still leaves a whole hell of a lot up in the air, but it did a good job of giving you at least a little bit more of what's going on, took out John Stewart, Hal Jordan, and Batman, blew up the Daily Planet, and possibly brought Barry Allen back from the dead. Lots of hooks in there that do make me want to read the next issue to find out what the hell's all going on. I'm also pretty happy that it doesn't seem that I needed to read anything else DC to keep up with the story. I'm looking forward to the next issue.

Rating: 4 Stars 

Filed under: DC Comics, Ghostshark's Rants