The Book of Hsssh

To finish up my Final Crisis themed writings I figured I'd look into characters that usually are not talked about much when it comes to Final Crisis, Alpha Lanterns. In Final Crisis all major characters were disabled in one way or another to give the impression that Darkseid is really going to win (already won?) this time. Hal Jordan, just like in the classic "No Man Escapes The Manhunter!" story, was arrested for something he didn't do. Who could arrest intergalactic cop? Enter Alpha Lanterns, an internal police of sorts. Supposedly created by Morrison and actually put to paper in Green Lantern books by Geoff Johns. And thats where we will start. Once Sinestro Corps War ends Guardians feel like they need to be a bit more like Sinestro. Killing now is ok and a new Corps, Alpha Lanterns will make sure that regular GLs won't get any funny ideas. We see this in Green Lantern #26-28 by Geoff Johns. Another noteworthy thing is that, if I'm not mistaken, this is whe...

The last aftermath mini featured Tattooed Man. While not a major player in Final Crisis, he was one of the leads in Submit one-shot and definitely was more significant to the plot than Human Flame or Super Young Team. Nemesis wasn't even in it at all. So how did it turn out? Over the years there have been multiple Tattooed Men in DC comics. This one was created by Geoff Johns few years before Final Crisis in Green Lantern #9. He wasn't treated very seriously there and was more of an excuse to have Hal Jordan and Batman team-up and resolve some of their differences after Green Lantern: Rebirth. While he was killing criminals there wasn't much of an attempt to make him a good guy, so basically a cool looking villain of the week. In Final Crisis Morrison tried to make him a bit more heroic, maybe an anti-hero. How did it work? I'm not certain, I don't think that pages with him were bad, but at the same time I don't feel like anything would be really missed if he wa...

Super Young Team was a weird bunch of characters introduced by Morrison and I didn't have much experience with Casey work so I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. Let's find out. I'm going to start with the unfortunate - asides of rare cases I'm really not a fan of multiple artists doing one story. I was kinda okay with Escape having two artists, but this has 3 and a number of inkers, it is just too much. It doesn't help that I have read some of the recent Chriscross' work and it looks much better than here. Everyone has a bit different taste and all that, but I'd say that this one has the weakest art from the four aftermath minis. With that out of the way lets talk a bit about Super Young Team. So the idea here was to create a Fifth World version of Forever People. Morrison has been pushing this Fifth World idea for a long time so it is not surprising that such team would be introduced at some point. But here is the problem, DC is never going to f...

Out of the four aftermath miniseries released after Final Crisis this one was the one I was the most excited about. While he didn't have a major role, Human Flame ended up being responsible for MM's death. Death that kickstarted the entire event. So what happens to this loser when the dust settles? Lets find out. I like the first two issues of this mini. Sturges establishes rather well that Human Flame is out of shape Z-lister who is way over his head. He is also a total scumbag who refuses to take any responsibility for his actions and always blames someone else for it. So you know, he totally deserves all the pain that is coming. Luther has put out a bounty for his head and John Stewart is searching for him as well. Someone will get him and he'll get what he deserves. Unfortunately following four issues are something else. Human Flame characterization is there, he still blames everyone else for everything, but he get three power-ups during the series. Three. At the start ...

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 ...