Secret Invasion vs. Final Crisis – Up Til Now
After all the people who said Secret Invasion wasn’t “going anywhere,” I’m chuckling a bit now. Issue 3 was better than Issue 1 and has more answers than Issue 2, but it’s still not a story. It’s a jumble of ideas down on the page barely strewn together sequentially. How man characters are in this book already, and why should we care about Montoya or Turpin or Supergirl at all? Supergirl shows up for three seconds talking to her cat and that makes her the cover girl for the book? Mary Marvel looks nothing like her past self, and even a goth makeover can’t make somebody look THAT different.
Seriously, give me Skrulls over Final Crisis. At least the Skrulls I can understand. Maybe by Issue 7 I’ll look back on Final Crisis and say, “OH! So THAT’s what it was? Well, interesting.” I don’t see that happening. When comparing Batman: RIP to Final Crisis, I think Morrison is overextending himself by including so many characters in Final Crisis. I shouldn’t have had to read Requiem to care about Martian Manhunter’s death scene, which was given three sentences in the main book. I shouldn’t have to read about a character returning who should have stayed dead, because everyone and their cousin and their cousin’s CHILDREN all accept Wally West as the speedster of the DCU. How is going back to a previous generation for the second time in five years solving anything? How is this growth? It’s not. It’s rehashing. That is what makes Marvel’s present different from DC’s present. Marvel is looking at the past and breeding a future with a status quo that will stick. DC is looking at the past and…well, waving at it, asking it to come over for tea and reminisce for a while about the old days. Then they get to talking just enough that the past is back, and present is no longer relevant.
Yes I’m a sore Kyle Rayner fan and yes I’m a sore Wally West fan. But thing is, so are most of the people my age. So are a bunch of younger and older fans. Give us SUBSTANCE, DC, not subtext and hidden messages mixed in with rehashing and reshaping. Please. For me.