Seeing Red

May is almost here and we all know what that means… Blackest Night is upon us and I for one am hoping that Geoff Johns is able to turn in a better summer crossover than Grant Morrison did on Final Crisis.

If that first para made no sense to you, it’s ok. *whispers* it’s a comic related thingy, u know, juvenile stuff */whisper*

If you read Green Lantern, you’ll know that the basic premise is driven by the association of a particular emotion with a color. So for eg. Red is associated with Rage, Green with Will, Yellow with Fear etc.

The more I thought about it, the more I began to whack out and started seeing red all over the place. Kind of like Jim Carrey’s character in The Number 23.

The abundance of Red in our lives can only lead to a simple conclusion.

We are a society filled with Anger and Hate.

That explains the following phenomenon:

·         The most popular shades of Lipstick, Hair Dye and Nail Polish? You guessed it!

·         The most popular color for Cars? Wow! You’re Good

·         The color of the traffic light that causes the most number of accidents?

·         What color are the hearts drawn in most cards?

·         What was the color of the Carpet that stars like Bale, Crowe walked on?

I could go on and on. Point is, with the media feeding you constant news reminding us of the beast within us, with constant reminders of the divisions that mark us, constant reminders of the perils around us, and with the abundance of the color red around us, is it any wonder then,

 

Ki Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai?

 

/The Red Indian Signs Off/

grant morrison is a #!@$#@$ genius

damn, just finished reading Final Crisis 6. to say that it is a culmination of one of the most well connected and well conceived arcs i have read is a massive understatement.

spoiler warning for those who have somehow managed to navigate the web without running into the finale of FC6.

batman's death is a fitting conclusion to his gradual deconstruction that grant began with RIP. i know that a lot of fanboys have cried themselves hoarse over the apparent low payoff that bruce's death was given ("Just two pages, count them, Two Pages, TWO!!!")

my take on it is, you cant read final crisis like any regular summer crossover event. Grant Morrison has delivered an innovative experiment, where rather give us a third person view, similar to the isometric experience that we get in RTS games, he actually gives us an upclose and extremly intimate look at how even superheroes are affected in face of an evil that you dont have an answer to.

by not focusing on action pieces, and giving us page after page of character interaction, we finally get to see how people react when the world around them is falling apart.

for those who found it very confusing, i admit it requires quite a bit of knowledge of DC folklore, but there are pleanty of FC annotations available on the web. while you dont really need to know much about Anthro or Kamandi to get to the gist of FC, knowing about kirby's tremendous work with the fourth world will give you a greater appreciation of what a real crisis should be.

not some all powering sci fi villain who merely absorbs universes, not some angst ridden hero turned villain who wanted to recreate the universe. no, the greatest evil has to be a god who wants to remake the world in his image.

for 5 issues, we have seen our heroes become helpless as the skies turned red. helpless as their loved ones succumbed to the anti life equation. helpless as 6 billion eyes and 3 billion voices spoke out in the voice of Darkseid.

the highlight of FC for me, will be Turpin giving into darkseid, and the thumbs up splash will forever remain as wallpaper material.

the other highlight for me, will be the apparent death of batman. a lot of batfans will complain that bruce picking up a gun and firing on someone is totally out of character. that point i agree on.

but, when bruce confronted darkseid, he was not the same bruce we know. think about it. the guy just endured insane levels of mental torture at the hands of the black glove i RIP. he was pushed beyond breaking point and managed to overcome all odds in the end.

then he got captured and had to relive all the painful memories of his life again. scene by scene. think about reliving your nightmares for over a month, every single day. that's what he managed to overcome. WITH ONLY HIS MEMORIES!!!

before firing the gun, bruce broke his cardinal vow of never killing anyone. he drove The Lump to death by using his memories as a weapon. even though he promised lump that a part of him would live on in bruce's mind, lump did die thanks to bruce.

so when he confronted darkseid, he was at the end of the tether, mentally. he saw that there was just no way out of this. coupled with his total inabilty to affect any of the outcomes in the previous crisis' he finally snapped as he saw the total fall of his world.

his refusal to give into the antilife equation in the face of certain death makes him the ultimate badass of FC. superman was missing, wonder woman gave into the ALE, but Bats hung onto his humanity and made the greatest sacrifice.

for those complaining that superman's entry wasnt dramatic enough, please.. did you even read the page again? remember how the furies werent even tickled by the entire superheroes team minus the trinity? 

kal el flies in through the red skies, burns his way to the bludhaven bunker, lays waste to the furies and emerges with a smoking corpse wearing batman's costume.

i dont think it's bruce by any shot. i think that it is turpins' body wearing the batman costume. i think that darkseid has transfered himself into bruce's body. but next issue, we will see him finally lose to bruce's willpower. i think the end of bruce will be him shutting down mentally and living in a vegetative state, to prevent darkseid from breaking out again.

that would explain the whole thorgal preparation that bruce underwent for over a year. 

once again, morisson shows a tremendous abulity to weave a tapestry of events that are held together by strands of  providence. 

this is the most uncrossover crossover event i have read in a long time and for the guts displayed, i give hime 4 stars out of 5.

now, if only DC had managed to get out all books on schedule. i mean it's ridiculous that we are yet to see what clark kent did in superman beyond and legion of three worlds and yet see his return into the regular world this week.

DC editors, you must take a blow to the nose for this.

R.I.P.

No prizes for guessing what this post is about. I have just finshed reading Batman 676, which begins the “ Batman R.I.P.”  arc by Grant Morrison.  While I didn’t quite dig into the whole batman and son and the resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul storylines, the hints thrown about the current arc had me intrigued.

Certainly, the teaser thrown in DC Universe 0, was one of the best batman joker interludes I have read so far, surpassing Alan Moore’s famous “shine the light” in the killing joke.

The mood is appropriately dark and full of foreboding, pointing to the imminent demise of Bruce Wayne as batman. The only thing that doesn’t work for me, is the suddenness with which Bruce Wayne decides to integrate Jezebel Jet into his life.

Given the past history, I am guessing that bruce suspects Jezebel of being “hand in black glove”, and is setting her up. Another minor gripe, is that Alfred seems to have forgotten about Selina Kyle , in Bruce’s list.

Oh well, no one believes that Bruce will be gone from the cape from too long. None of these guys stay dead permanently. That includes Captain America. The dead one was a skrull you know..

Right now, I have to say that secret invasion seems to be the stronger crossover event, compared to final crisis. So far, we only have the return of Barry Allen to look forward to.

Here’s cheers to Grant and Geoff!!!