Creative Team:
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: JG Jones
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Issue Rating:
Story: 9.4 out of 10
Art: 9 out of 10
Overall: 9.2 out of 10
Issue Summary:
In Japan a bunch of “poser” superheroes gather at some sort of superhero club. Inside the club a fight breaks out involving Sonny Sumo and Megayakuza. Sumo quickly ends the fight by ripping through Megayakuza armor and taking out his heart. After placing Megayakuza heart on the bar counter Sumo goes to the bathroom to check his injuries. Just then a black “Mister Miracle” comes in and tells Sumo that Motherboxx has found him.
We then cut to a short scen of a teenage kid waking up in his room and at work telling his co-worker his strange dream of being exiled to Earth by some judge. Then we see the same kid drawing sketches of different superheroes.
The scene again changes to an apartmant were Tupin, the detective from last issue, beating the crap out of The Mad Hatter for answer to what happend to the mind controlled kids. During this time Tupin feels strange like he is being controlled from an outside force. Tupin finally gets Mad Hatter to tell him the kids are in Bluehaven.
Next we see Superman and all the rest of DC superheroes gathered together in Mars for Martian Manhunters funeral.
Elsewhere Libra ask all the supervillains if they are coonvinced of his power yet. Lex Luthor says he wont believe Libra until he is able to take down Superman. Libra just says fine. Outside while all the supervillains are leaving Libra tells The Human Flame how he can repay him for killing Martian Manhunter.
At the Hall of Justice the Justice League is running their test on Orion’s body to find out what or who killed him. Just then Hal Jordan comes in with Alpha Lantern Kraken who decides to take charge of examining Orion’s body and telling the League their help is not necessary.
Over at the dock where Orion’s body was found John Stewart is looking for some evidence with some help from his Green Lantern ally Opto. After finding a glowing bullet both Lanterns are attacked out of nowhere. The attacker appears to be a fellow Green Lantern although we only see him from the neck down. This unknown Green Lantern pins John against some crates ready to kill him.
Over at Hal’s apartment the Alpha Lanterns come in and arrest Hall for murdering John Stewart and take away his ring.
Back at the Hall of Justice Superman decideds to go back to the Daily Planet as Clark Kent so no one becomes suspicious of were he is all the time. As Superman leaves Batman goes back to the emergency room to check Orion and Kraken testing. Just as Batman is about to question Kraken she attacks and knocks out Batman and takes him with her through a Boom Tube.
In Bluehaven Tupin meets with a reveren that leads him to an underground base were all the kids are locked up. As the suppose reveren leads Tupin through the base Tupins ears start to bleed though he doesn’t seem to notice. They then reach what looks like an experimentation chamber were we see Batman locked up in some sort of machine. Batman tells Tupin to get the League and warn everyone but some sort of headware is placed on his head before he finishes.
At the Daily Bugle we see that Clayface is posing as Jimmy Olsen and blows up the whole bulding with Clark, Louis, and Perry in it. Clark, in just his Superman gear, comes out of the rubble and see what looks like a dead Louis buried under rubble.
We then see Wally and Jay in Central City running to were all the supervillains gathered earlier in the day to find some evidence on who killed Martian Manhunter. They then see a machine inside the building that seems to start up with something screaming there name. That something appears to be a returning Barry Allen running out of the machine telling them to “RUN.” End of issue!
Review:
Wow! That is all I can say about how awesome this issue was. I did not realize when I first read this issue how much stuff happend until I wrote the summary. Morrison really didn’t pull any of the punches with this issue. Final Crisis #2 was far and away a much superior read than the first issue of the series, which was just plain average.
I practically loved every scene in the book. I thought the scene in Japan with all the kids dressed up in superhero costume was hilarious. I kind of wonder which of the kids in the club actually have superpowers and which ones are just dressing up so they could get into the club. Also the scene where Sonny Sumo ripped out Megayakuza heart out was just gruesome. Any time I get to see someone pull out some other characters heart in a comic book its a A in my book. Also I kind of wonder who this black guy calling himself “Mister Miracle” is since last I heard the New Gods Mister Miracle is still alive and white, but I may be wrong. Still I wonder if this guy is working with Granny Goodness at Bluehaven.
Speaking of Granny Goodness, I believe that was her maquerading as a revern since that is her thing. All I know is that were Granny Goodness is involved Darkseid is not far behind and it does seem that both Darkseid and Goodness are gathering up the re-encarnated New God children for some sort of diabolical plan, obviously. But I am kind of wondering why Goodness is running test of these NEW New Gods in what seems to be turning them into animal creatures.
Also how was Goodness able to control one of the Alpha Lanterns and why didn’t the Guardians of the Universe know their was a traitor among the Alpha Lantern? Though I got to say I love it when any character stands up to Batman and just brushes him off. While Batman is my favorite comic book character it doesn’t happen often when a character, in this case Kraken, completely ignors Batman. Also the more I see the Alpha Lanterns the more I love to hate them because it is obvious that Morrison and Geoff Johns over in Green Lantern are cooking up the Alpha Lanterns to be a force in the near future.
I don’t know if it is just me but I am getting the feeling that Libra is Darkseid. Because it seems that Libra is working together with Granny Goodness to take down all the superheroes one by one. And Morrison has already revealed that Darkseid will be the big bad guy of Final Crisis so it could be interesting to see if Darkseid is using the Libra identity to work behind the scene and slowly manipulate the villains to do his bedding or if this Libra may be the re-encarnation of Darkseid and is looking for the Anti-Life equation to regain his power.
My second favorite part of this issue was how Libra and his crew of villains were able to take down some of the biggest heroes in the DC Universe. First we had Martian Manhunter quickly die last issue without warning. Then in this issue John Stewart seemingly killed by a Green Lantern. Then Hal is accused of by the Alpha Lanterns of killing John Stewart and basically becoming useless with his power ring taken away. Then Batman is quickly captured by the rogue Alpha Lantern and imprisioned in some secret underground bunker under Bluehaven. If that wasn’t enough the Daily Planet is blown up and seemingly killing Louis and Perry. Now I do not think John is dead sinc he we do not see his actual death the reader is only told of his death. But I thought it was genious how Libra took out Superman because we all know Superman is invulnrable to all physical harm so the only way to take him out is to take out his loved ones. As Kingdom Come proved that without those closest to him Superman isn’t so super anymore and is really at his weakest.
But my favorite scene of the whole issue has to be th return of Barry Allen. Morrison made sure the reader anxiously awaiting for the third issue with the mystery of how Barry is back. And now with three Flashes existing in the same universe it will be interesting to see if one or more of them die or if Morrison has something else in store for us with all the three Flashes. And what is a Crisis without a Flash playing a big role in it anyways
The only reason I did not give this issue a perfect score is because I still have no idea what Tupin’s, I think that his name, role is in this title since I do not know hardly anything about this character and have never seen him before Final Crisis. Also it is clear that if you haven’t been reading any DC book in a couple years this title will only confuse you since it seems Morrison is not really making any effort to make Final Crisis new-reader friendly. So if your thinking of picking up Final Crisis I advice you to look some of the stuff leading up to Final Crisis on Wikipedia since it is a pretty good website to get some info on whats going on in comics or else you may be lost with this and the first issue.
JG Jones art in this issue was just phenomenal in this issue. This is how art should look like for a big event. Jones nows how to make each page better than the last and the last page with the return of Barry Allen was awsome.
Closing Comments: If you liked the first issue of Final Crises than you’ll definetely love this issue but if you were on the fence with this series you’ll still love this issue since it was miles away better than the last issue. In any case Final Crisis is truly shaping up to be an great series and hopefully it will be the FINAL Crisis we have in the DC Universe.