Every week on “Sunday Page” an author has to choose a single page from a comic book. It could be for sentimental reasons o for a particular technical achievement. The conversation could lose itself in the open water of the comic book world but it will always start with the question: «If you had to choose a page from a comic book you love, what would you choose and why?»
This Sunday I’m out with Abraham Riesman. Writer and journalist, he has written about comic books, art, culture, and entertainment for Vulture, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The New Republic
Final Crisis was misunderstood in its own time. Back when it came out in 2008 and 2009, people accused it of being near-incomprehensible, and I get where those critiques were coming from. The story is, in the words of T.S. Eliot, a heap of broken images; a collection of often-bizarre moments that regularly lack clear connective tissue and draw from a dizzying array of sources in DC continuity. Nevertheless, if you just let it wash over you, those moments can be stunning. Writer Grant Morrison set out to tell a story in the mode of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga, where abstract concepts were converted into characters and the pounding of myth resounded in every line of dialogue. Thus, you get scenes of primordial terror and tear-inducing triumph, and this page from the penultimate chapter features both.
I love this page because it’s a perfect action moment. J.G. Jones’s pencils and Alex Sinclair’s colors give us a Darkseid whose face is set in one of those great Darkseid-y expressions of pure malice and condescension, firing off a chillingly geometric laser beam; as well as a Batman who stands with confidence despite knowing he will almost surely die at the end of this encounter. I love how the bullet flies in the opposite direction of the eye’s journey across the page, thus jarring you and making it feel like it’s zipping toward you; and I absolutely adore the intensity of that final panel, where the lasers are mere millimeters away from his temples and Batsy looks totally unfazed. But the real action comes from Morrison’s dialogue, which mixes Kirbyish declarations from Darkseid (how great is it that he ends his question about the Omega Sanction with an exclamation point?) with the endlessly cool verbiage that Morrison mastered with Batman as far back as his JLA run. It’s just so perfect, this idea that Bruce Wayne’s last act would be saying “Gotcha” to the living incarnation of evil after coming full circle on his origin story and firing a gun. Everything comes right up to the edge of being over the top but never spills into absurdity, and it’s all synced up with the DC mythology of these two amazing characters. It’s everything I love about superhero comics.
Why do you think DC always choose to go with these crazy stories (also, Rebirth was a pretty obscure comic book if you weren’t into superheroes or DC continuity)? Sure, the hardcore fans are the ones that read it, but couldn’t they reach a wider audience with less abstruse stories?
I think mainstream superhero comics are often a snake eating its own tail. You’re absolutely right that stories like Final Crisis completely turn off casual readers or new readers, and that’s a big problem. I think DC has learned that lesson, however, and post-Rebirth, it’s toned down the convoluted mega-crossover events. They’ve also introduced this new “Black Label” program where they’ll publish self-contained stories that are set outside of regular continuity. That said, we have to remember that DC and Marvel rely on a small but extremely dedicated base of comics readers, the so-called “Wednesday Warriors,” who are very aware of continuity and want to shell out cash to read riffs on it. It’s not a great long-term strategy, but in the short run, it makes sense.
Is this the work of Morrison that you like the most?
It is not my favorite Morrison. It’s hard to pick my favorite of his works, but it’s probably New X-Men, his Batman mega-arc, or Annihilator.
Was it a comic book that made you feel excited about superheroes books? You’re a critic, a cultural journalist, you read for work, so I was wondering if you can still feel the spark of wonder when you’re reading escapism
I’ll admit that I rarely feel the spark of escapism with comics these days. Maybe it’s because I write about them, so it’s not really escape anymore. But I wasn’t writing about comics professionally as of 2008/2009, so Final Crisis definitely gave me a thrill. I wish I could re-capture it.