Crisis Time! - Final Crisis #5

Well, I’ve gotten pass the midpoint for this event. This time around I’m just looking at one issue: Final Crisis #5. The covers have some of that “Girl Power” this time around. Wonder Woman graces the main cover while a fight between Supergirl and Evil Mary Marvel is on the variant cover. I’ll have to go with Wonder Woman’s awesome image this time around. If Evil Mary Marvel wasn’t looking “toe up from the flo’ up,” I might actually go with the variant. The creative team is pretty much the same with Marco Rudy coming in to handle some artwork along with the other three. I don’t have much to say, so let’s hit it.

Final Crisis #5

Writer: Grant Morrison

Artists: J.G. Jones, Marco Rudy, Jesus Merino, and Carlos Pacheco

Colors: Alex Sinclair

Letters: Travis Lanham

Crisis Time! - Final Crisis: Submit and Final Crisis #4

After some universe-traveling hijinks with Superman in his Yellow Submarine, it’s time to get back to Earth and its “little” predicament. At the end of Final Crisis #3, Barry Allen and Wally West went ahead a few weeks in the future. They find their home looking pretty bleak. Some tie-ins like Final Crisis: Rogue’s Revenge and Final Crisis: Revelations looked at what happened during that time. Another book, written by Morrison, was Final Crisis: Submit. Since it was included in the trade, I’ll be looking at that as well as the fourth issue of Final Crisis.

Final Crisis #4 is still being written by Morrison. J.G. Jones is not the only artist this time around. He’s joined by Jesus Merino and Carlos Pacheco for those duties. Alex Sinclair still provides the coloring for the issue. The covers to the fourth issue are pretty cool this time around. One shows Darkseid and another shows some heroes taking on Darkseid’s forces. The main cover wins with Darkseid looking pretty cool in his new design.  As for Submit, it was penciled by Matthew Clark and inked by a few inkers. It came with two covers with the cover featuring Black Lightning being my favorite of the two.

Crisis Time! - Final Crisis: Superman Beyond

Well, it’s another day and another post about "Final Crisis." This post is a bit different since it’s not part of the main series… more on that towards the end of this event. Final Crisis: Superman Beyond was one of the tie-ins released during the event. In a move that still perplexes me, it was printed in 3D. You had to have 3D glasses on in order to get the full effect. Since it was written by Morrison, it was included in the trade paperback. Luckily, the trade didn’t do the 3D thing and left it as regular print. 

Of course, Morrison penned the two-issue tie-in. Both issues were penciled by Doug Mahnke. The coloring was handled by David Baron in both issues. The inking was handled by a lot of folk this time around. Just know this carries into the main series as well. The covers were okay. They’re just images of Superman looking cool and that’s pretty much it. With all of that out of the way, let’s see what happens when Superman goes universe-hopping. If you thought the New Gods invading Earth was weird, you’d be wrong.

Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1

Writer: Grant Morrison

Pencils: Doug Mahnke

Inks: Christian Alamy, Rodney Ramos, Tom Nguyen, Walden Wong and Doug Mahnke

Colors: David Baron

Letters: Steve Wands

Crisis Time! - Final Crisis #3

Greetings and salutations. I only have one issue for today: #3 of Final Crisis. I don’t have any tie-ins for this segment. The creative team is still the same for the issue. The covers to issue three do look a little weird. What is Supergirl doing? Is she shocked, is she trying to sensualize herself to the audience, is she hungry, or is she trying to strike a weird pose? I don’t get it. The variant is not as weird but a little spoiler-ish. I actually prefer the variant this time around.  That’s all I got to say, so let’s get to it.

Final Crisis #3

Writer: Grant Morrison

Artist: J.G. Jones

Colorist: Alex Sinclair

Letters: Rob Leigh

"Know Evil"

We start out in Gotham City. An organization called SHADE busts into the Dark Side Club. Frankenstein (I’m not kidding) and SHADE operatives find the Question (Renee Montoya) over the mummified remains of Boss Dark Side. After a little banter, the Question escapes the building and changes back into her civilian clothes. As SHADE investigates the remains, they mention that Bludhaven is getting worse. Suddenly, something falls out of the sky. Renee is one of the first to find a blond woman wearing some sort of military garb at the center of the crater. She’s also speaking German. Before Renee can do anything else, SHADE operatives find her and take her away. Elsewhere, Nix Uotan gets fired from his job for being nuts. On the street feeling dejected, he sees a news report about Metron’s symbol. Unbeknownst to him, a Monitor watches him from across the street.

Frankenstein (The Monster) is a character in the DC Universe. Figures.

Crisis Time! - Final Crisis #2

Hello and hello. I’m back with the second issue of Final Crisis. I don’t have any tie-ins for this post. The creative team is still the same for this issue. As for the covers, There’s not really much to say about them. All of the covers to the event look good in my opinion. The cover to issue 2 is a bit spoiler-ish if you know who that really is. Let’s just say that it isn’t Jay Garrick. The variant is also really spoiler-heavy. With that said, let’s go to Japan!

Final Crisis #2

Writer: Grant Morrison

Artist: J.G. Jones
Colorist: Alex Sinclair

Letters: Rob Leigh

We start out in Japan at a dance club. It’s here where we meet the Super Young Team. We got Superbat,  Atomic Lantern Boy, and a couple of other young heroes. They’re sitting around living it up while watching the big screen. Suddenly, a man named Sonny Sumo walks in. The team’s starstruck by the guy. A guy called Megayakuza attacks Sumo, so Sumo retaliates by straight-up killing him. When Sumo heads into the bathroom to clean up, a well-dressed man follows him in. His name is Shilo Norman and he is Mister Miracle or at least the new one. Norman heals Sumo with his Motherboxxx and they talk as the Super Young Team spy on them. Norman tells Sumo that there was a cosmic war that he needs help in building a team to face the evil ones.

Well, he's dead.

Weird Star Trek Episodes - Dear Doctor aka "Wait, You Flippin' Idiots Did What?"

Huh... I guess dude saw the ending as well.

Well, it’s time to enter the world known as Enterprise or Star Trek: Enterprise. Call it whatever you want. For the last few weeks, I’ve been going through the show on Netflix. I do have to say that it’s been a rough ride. I skipped one episode from Season One and quite a few from Season Two. At least Season Three has been been good so far. As of now, I’m almost halfway through the season. Today’s episode is from Season One and it’s called “Dear Doctor.” It’s an episode that… well, kind of perplexes me.

The whole episode revolves around the Denobulan doctor known as Phlox. He’s part of an exchange program and he was called to serve on the Enterprise because of his expertise. Some of the episode has him deal with being around humans and getting used to their customs. He also has someone who is pretty interested in him. The main drive of the episode comes when the Enterprise finds a downed pre-warp ship in space. They find survivors (the Valakians) and it turns out that they left their planet in order to find a cure for a planet-wide plague. The Enterprise takes the survivors back to their planet. The crew does what it can in trying to help them find a cure to the disease.

Phlox: Crewman Cutler, I've found a weird message here. It says "Are you interested in me? Check Yes or No." What does it mean?

Crewman Cutler: Uh... it must be a weird custom from the Menks. Yes, that's it! Excuse me...

It turns out the Valakians have another primitive species on the planet called the Menks. The Menks may be primitive but the crew finds that they have the ability to learn fast. They’ve also been treated poorly by the Valakians. It’s revealed that they haven’t gotten the plague, so Phlox checks them out to see if he can find a cure. Towards the end of the episode, Phlox finds out that the plague is actually a genetic disease and it’s killed the Valakians’ gene pool so that they’ll be extinct in 200 years. Phlox has made a cure but he thinks it would be wrong to cure the Valakians since it would hinder the Menks’ growth. Captain Archer doesn’t agree with it, but he eventually decides to defer to the doctor this time. The episode ends with the Enterprise giving the Valakians some medicine to ease the pain of the disease and more or less dooming an entire planet to an illness that could be cured… Well, they did!

The episode is pretty decent for the most part. It’s a “Prime Directive” episode and those are usually decent. It also serves as a Phlox episode which is nice. Barring the last few minutes of the episode, he’s actually one of the more interesting characters on the show. He’s definitely more interesting than Mayweather (sorry, bro) and a couple of others in the first season. I also like his scenes with his “crush” which were kinda funny. The stuff involving Archer and whether he should give the Valakians warp technology was fine and actually made sense other than the “other” plot involving the cure.

Then, there’s the whole issue about the cure. On the one hand, I can understand why Phlox didn’t want to use the cure. In his mind, the Valakians had to go in order for the Menks to thrive. I don’t like it, but I understand it. On the other hand, it just feels wrong. So, you’re going to leave them to die because evolution says so? What about that whole Hippocratic Oath you supposedly live by? The whole planet is suffering from this illness and I kinda think that this situation does fit with that oath. What’s even weirder is that Archer agrees to it albeit reluctantly. Also, you'd think he would have found another way to help both species without dooming one for the other. He doesn't know what'll happen in 200 years let alone three minutes!

Counter this with Archer’s decision to give warp specs to the Valakians. Archer doesn’t give it to them mostly because dealing with that technology is dangerous. There’s also the fact that they really don’t have the resources to teach them about it. It’d be like giving a kid a loaded weapon without teaching him how to use it. That was a decision that actually made sense. The decision with the cure made no sense to me at all. It made a decent episode smell pretty rank. I heard there were some editorial changes made by UPN with the ending, so that’s probably why it feels so “bleh.”

Hmm... I count three cavities, a busted molar, and some messed up gingivitus! What is Vulcan dentistry like?

Overall, it’s a decent episode with a crappy ending. I see why SFDebris gave it a 1 out of 10 but I wouldn’t go that far. It has its moments. The first season in general isn’t bad nor is it really good either. In fact, it has a lot in common with the other series since their first seasons were pretty subpar. Exclude TOS from that list since its first season was pretty good. Well, I’m outta here. Peace, God Bless, and don’t commit genocide anytime soon. It’s just not nice.

Crisis Time! - Final Crisis #1 and Final Crisis: Requiem

It seems like this is the year of Grant Morrison, isn’t it? I looked at most of his run on Batman, All-Star Superman, and some of his stuff from Action Comics. Well, it’s time to dip back in the weirdness as I jump into the event known as Final Crisis. I’d be correct in saying that this was a weird event. It didn’t tie into a lot of books like events of the time did. It had a prelude (Countdown to Final Crisis), but that 52-issue weekly series is rarely mentioned in the event itself. There’s also the fact that Countdown apparently sucked. Just look at Linkara’s review of the series. “52 done right?” I don’t think so.

I remember some of the tie-ins sort of tied into the event while others really didn’t. Why did Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds (something I’ll look at in the future) get included with that anyway? It really didn’t tie into that story. Anyway, I did get the first issue to Final Crisis when it was released, but that was it for me since I was on a college budget (food, clothes, and gas).  I kept up with the event via Internet. I actually ended up reading the whole event (main series and a couple of tie-ins) through a hardcover at the library in Pulaski. I acquired the paperback a while back on Amazon.

My plan is to go through each issue and some tie-ins this month. Today’s issues are Final Crisis #1 and Final Crisis: Requiem. Grant Morrison is the writer the first issue as well as the whole event. J.G. Jones does the art for #1 and for most of the event. He has mostly done covers and some interior work. He’s most known for Wanted, a Mark Millar penned series. For Requiem, Peter J. Tomasi writes the issue. Doug Mahnke pencils the issue and Christian Almany inks the issue. The covers for Final Crisis #1 were both done by Jones. While the one with Green Lantern is okay, the variant is actually the better of the two.