Final Crisis: Escape!

When someone talks about Final Crisis these days they usually mention failed build-up, Bruce Wayne "dying" or that it was actually good/bad. Nobody really talks about other things connected to it, like 4 Aftermath series that were released after the event ended. No surprise there really, they all sold poorly and focused on things that nobody cares about. But that makes them perfect for this blog.

Escape is probably the weirdest one of the bunch. At a first glance it has nothing to do with Final Crisis. Nemesis and Chase weren't even featured in that event, Electric City wasn't mentioned either. Only thing that kinda connects it is Global Peace Agency (GPA), but even that is not a direct connection. But then you read it couple of times and it clicks, you see the bigger picture. Or you think that you see it.

So the entire series is based on British The Prisoner TV show. Everyone pretends that they have seen it and totally get it so without elaborating too much: Nemesis keeps waking up in a prison, he doesn't know why he is there and he is trying to escape.

Eventually he manages to "escape" and in the process we learn what was this all about. Electric City is powered up by Miracle Machine that we last saw in Final Crisis. It is kinda like a base of operations for GPA and their goal is to prevent humanity from self-destructing. They obviously need good agents for that and Nemesis now qualifies because he passed all the tests.

It all sounds like a happy ending and a new cool direction for Nemesis, but very last panel is Chase telling Nemesis and us to close our eyes. And she does look a bit sinister, while she is saying that. So we are left with a question if Nemesis did really escape, or are we just entering another loop and it was all a lie.

Brandon does a solid job on writing, but we have artist change on, I think, third issue. Fortunately Richards and Rudy have somewhat similar style so the change does not look as jarring as it could. Overall it is a solid miniseries that I'd recommend picking up if you like weird and big picture stories in DC Universe.

But wait, there is more! Some time later Brandon and Richards did a 4 issues sequel called Nemesis: Impostors. It happens some time later and Nemesis has gotten real paranoid about things. And well his paranoia is somewhat justified considering that he gets visions from Electric City and encounters fake Joker, fake Batman (Dick Grayson) and another version of himself. Things aren't going well for our lead character and the ending is even more ambiguous. Who was working for whom? Who are the good guys? What was the point of all that? If you get to this mini without reading previous one then you're probably going to think that it is badly written mess and frankly I'm not sure if it actually isn't just that.

Anyway, if you liked Final Crisis Aftermath mini and want more then Impostors mini is worth picking up as well. It gives more questions than answers and considering that a) it sold badly and b) it happened 5 reboots ago then we are unlikely to ever get any answers to these questions. But I guess the important thing is that the journey was fun and raised questions were rather interesting.

Reading this series I'm taken back a bit to Kirby's OMAC where GPA, OMAC and Brother Eye were introduced. It does look like Kirby wanted them to be a force for good, but DC always goes for some sinister and evil interpretation. Even the recent Darkseid Special for Kirby's anniversary had OMAC story that is a direct sequel to Kirby's OMAC #8 and exposes GPA as power hungry psychopaths. I guess we have to get to Great Disaster one way or another.

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