The novelization of the superhero event starring Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the heroes and villains of the DC Comics Universe
Victorious at long last against his enemies on the world of New Genesis, Darkseid has unleashed the forces of Apokolips on Earth. With the secret of the Anti- Life Equation at his command, Darkseid now possesses the ability to eradicate all free will from humanity-and usher in an end to the age of super heroes.
Facing an ever growing army of mindless slaves and corrupted heroes, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the remnants of the Justice League of America find themselves consumed by the ever spreading darkness. They remain humanity's only hope-the only light that will not be extinguished in the world's darkest hour.
Final Crisis was a divisive graphic novel, with some people loving it (I was one of them) and others disliking it, and still others not quite grasping the story. It was a massive crossover story in DC Comics, the home of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and other super-heroes. Original writer Grant Morrison used the Jack Kirby created New Gods characters to tell a story about when Evil has won.
Turning this story into a novel is a complex proposition, as much of the story hinges on the art of J. G. Jones, a working knowledge of the DC comics over the years leading up to the story, and the Jack Kirby New Gods stories. Just trying to work in that back story would be enough, but this also tries to encompass as many aspects of the story as possible, including massive numbers of super-hero characters.
As a result, there are times that the novel feels like a massive information dump, and plot threads that led into tie-in comics show up here and have to be resolved in a truncated fashion. The novel also reads in a choppy manner, going from place to place and to large groups of characters every couple of pages. Sadly, this makes it so that this is not a novel for a casual fan, but for someone steeped in the history of the DC comics universe.
The writing is suspenseful, does what it can with such a large cast and number of events, and works best as a companion piece for the comic series, rather than a novel that stands on its own.
Bad. So bad. Painfully bad. Just horribly written, and a terrible reading experience. Pure agony to struggle through.
This fails on every possible level:
As a novel, it's horribly written. The narrative is clumsy and disconnected; there is no clear plot line or effective storytelling; at best it reads like an adolescent attempting to narrate what they're seeing in a comic book. It's just a painful read.
As an adaptation it fails again. Novelization or adaptation of a comic or graphic novel REQUIRES some literary license and massage by the author. Simply narrating/orating what was depicted in a comic panel falls woefully short of description or storytelling, and that's the best that can be said for Cox's work on Final Crisis. At best, it reads like he's describing panel after panel, and that fails on every level in a novelization.
I've not read the actual graphic novel, but based on this, I'm going to assume that underlying storyline is crap, confusing and disjointed as well.
A slow, painful and torturous read, the highlight of which was finishing it so I can dump it on the used bookstore.
I enjoyed it, but the storyline was a bit confusing somewhere in the middle. I think it all got resolved towards the end though. I guess the scale of the crossover in this plot is among the biggest I've seen anywhere. Good book though.
The heroes fights against Darkseid and the whole multiverse is affected. Too many storylines and characters makes the main story falter. An ok read but it helped that i have read the cosmic before
In a fierce battle, far in our own future, Darkseid is defeated and is sent hurtling backward through time. Eventually, he lands on earth in our own present day. This causes an imbalance in our world, and also in the 51 other universes that hinge upon our own, and our entire reality begins to slide into a black hole. And then there’s the anti-life equation, a mathematical proof that shows Darkseid is the true ruler of all. Darkseid broadcasts the anti-life equation all over the planet to enslave all of humanity, and a few super-heroes as well, claiming a victory of sorts in his own impending death. All the super-heroes of the world, and a few not of this world, will have to band together to save the 52 universes.
Okay, I know there was a lot more to it than that, but Final Crisis has a few things going against it. First, it’s based on a comic book mini-series. If you know anything about comics, then you already know that it is nearly impossible to get the whole story by reading a single series or mini-series. The genre is lousy with cross-overs, tie-ins, team-ups, and all manner of hyphenated monstrosity. Second, Final Crisis is one of those messy non-continuum story lines that deals with variable times, dimensions, and realities. It gives me a headache just thinking about it. Even if you are not a comics fan, you have probably seen the Back to the Future movies and know how messy timelines can get. Third, the perspective of the audiobook jumps around a lot between times and universes, and it’s hard to keep track of where and when you are. Some elements of this story originated in other books, like the 52 issue mega-cross-over Countdown to Final Crisis, and some elements are continued in other books. It’s a big mess.
So far, I have probably made it sound like I really hated this audiobook, but that’s not the whole story. As much trouble as I had following the plot, I still enjoyed the audio production quite a bit. The music and sound effects were simply awesome. Graphic Audio’s slogan is “A Movie In Your Mind”, and the sound is cinema-quality to be sure. This is a full cast production, featuring a main narrator and a long list of voice actors playing the parts of the characters. It’s a pretty long list, at least two dozen I would guess, so I won’t name them all here, but there is a full reading of the credits at the end of the audiobook, telling who played each character. I liked that because full cast productions like this sometimes neglect to tell you who the voices were. The narrator and character actors all did a good job, and I especially liked the voice of Batman, it was kind of rough and gritty, the way you would expect Batman to sound.
The music and sound effects were especially stirring during the battle scenes, which make up almost this entire audiobook. The battles are fought on several different fronts, with different groups of super-heroes at each location. Every DC hero and villain you’ve ever heard of, and probably a few you haven’t, showed up at one time or another, and the climax featured the Supermen from all 52 universes teaming up together, which was pretty awesome.
Final Crisis was originally written by Grant Morrison and published by DC Comics as a seven part mini-series. The issues were published between July 2008 and March 2009. The limited series was collected and published as a hardcover graphic novel in June 2009, and adapted to audio by Greg Cox in 2010.
Oh, I wanted to mention one more thing. In one of the parallel Earths there was a Japanese team of super-heroes called the Super Young Team. The members had really funny names like Most-Excellent Superbat, Big Atomic Lantern Boy, Crazy-Shy Lolita Canary, Shiny Happy Aquazon, and Well-Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash. I had to laugh every time I heard those names. These characters were created by Grant Morrison specifically for Final Crisis.
I don’t think Final Crisis will appeal to a wide audience of audiobook readers, mainly just comic fans. I know I didn’t make the story sound very good, but honestly, it’s worth a listen just for the music and sound. Also, if you’ve never listened to an audio production of a comic, you should give it a try; it’s a pretty amazing experience. Graphic Audio did a top-notch job with this one.
A decent adaptation of a spectacular comic book epic. Not my first foray into novelizations of a major comic book story. Some are good and some are bad, this one is average at best. Not written by the same writer, but Greg Cox does a decent job in adapting this story. A fine compliment that can be given especially since the original story had several spinoffs and side stories involved. But it is still flawed, in fact, it is just as weak as the comic book.
I am usually not a fan of multiverse stories, believing that the nearly infinite number of alternate worlds is too cluttered and full of information that becomes irrelevant to the story of the main universe. But over time I have gotten quite used to certain stories, some of which I have enjoyed greatly. In this case, the multiverse is watched or monitored by beings that are responsible for its well-being, for there are always powerful beings out to destroy or conquer a universe. But in this case, one such powerful being in his quest to rule his universe will end up destroying the entire multiverse.
A comic book story known as the Death of the New Gods has transpired to lead to the prophecy of the end of the New Gods and the conquest of the New God Darkseid. Having spent so long searching for the Anti-Life Equation that will allow him total control of the universe he ends up discovering the secret as a powerful being ended up destroying all the New Gods. Yet somehow, Darkseid manages to survive and unleash his plans for universal domination by claiming the planet Earth where he wages war on his enemies, the Justice League. Bringing forward his disciples to subjugate and destroy his enemies all the while they fight back some dying, while others fall to his sway, as others manage to fight on.
All things considered this It's not as bad as the adaptation of Crisis of Infinite Earths - avoidable at all costs I might add. But it is not as good as Infinite Crisis which was only slightly better. This story still takes the histories of the previous universe as well as certain extensions of the plot that were absent from the graphic novels. It is still pretty chaotic and lives up to why I avoid Multiverse stories.
Thankfully, Greg Cox sets this story with a multitude of characters and does what he can to stick to some of the important parts. Even if the whole point of the Multiverse involvement was a bit contrived.
This adapts the Final Crisis graphic novel, but they either should have been more thorough mentioning the Death of the New Gods storyline better if not outright create a Death of the New Gods novel.
The adaptation is chaotic with only a few good moments that show the thoughts of some of the heroes that fight, die, or even better come back to life.
All things considered, this is okay but it’s not like the Death of Superman, Knightfall, and Kingdom Come novelizations. But this was not a great story to adapt in the first place. They should have done one for the Blackest Night or even Flashpoint instead.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I really love great artwork and the front cover of the book just had me thinking, "Now that's what I'm on about!" The layout of the cover was great also apart from Wonder Woman being obscured. After a quick flick over to the back cover I got thinking that perhaps Wonder Woman was blacked out purposely. You see, Wonder Woman is a goddess and is renowned for being strikingly beautiful yet in the picture on the back cover where you can clearly see her face she looks very odd with her pursed lips and "out of it" look. In fact with the big boobs, pursed lips, dark hair and spaced out look it made me wonder why the artist didn't just give her an orange tan and call her Snooki.
MAIN COURSE: I'm a big fan of the DC Universe novels but, bloody hell, was this particular novel confusing. The problem is that it takes place across multiple cities, multiple universes, multiple realities in different times and has more characters than you can shake a stick at...and I'm damn good at shaking my stick! As such I found my enjoyment of the story diminished as I had to constantly take myself out of the book to review what had occurred in relation to what was occurring elsewhere in other cities, other universes, other realities and other times. Sigh. The story itself is well told by Cox and he worked well with the material he was given (this novel is based upon a series of comic books) and so I cannot blame him for the confusing storyline that involves multiverses slipping into the black hole of hell while the Green Lanterns have an internal crisis and the superheroes and humans of the world become mindless zombies and Superman disappears into the future and a certain superhero killed off a few years ago comes back to life while a major DC character dies (not giving anything away but just look at the front cover if you're wondering) while another gets amnesia and the space fabric of time collapses in on itself and the new gods are assassinated and Darkseid looks for human hosts while death himself in the form of the Black Racer chases The Flash...ARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There's way too much going on and I'm not even an outsider who has no knowledge of the comic series.
THE VERDICT: I have to admit I was left a tad disappointed by this novel after waiting so long to read it. It's way too complicated and a casual reader just picking this up for a read would be even more lost than I was at times. I would recommend this only to the hardcore DC followers.
So yeah, if you don't follow the DC mythos, you are going to be COMPLETELY lost on this one. This isn't like a Batman book or a singular superhero where you can kind of follow along even if you know jack squat about the character, with this, they expect you to know a LOT about the DCU. And not just main characters like Wonder Woman or Martian Manhunter. I consider myself a pretty big DC fan and even "I" was really confused when they started throwing these C list characters at me like I'm expected to know who they were and actually giving them pretty integral parts. Like I had no idea who Tawky Tawny or Tattoo-man was. I actually had to google some of these people while I was reading this. This is where you can totally tell where this novelization falls a little flat. In a comic setting, jumping from location to location with a cast of 30+ main characters isn't that awkward because it's a visual medium. With a book you feel like you get whiplash after awhile. Some of the things you will ONLY understand if you are an avid DC reader. The Anti-life equation plays a big role in this and unless you've brushed up on your Darkseid, you will have NO idea what's going on.
That being said, the author did all right with what he was given, but the reading did at times gets a little dry due to the fact that they had to explain all the technical mumbo jumbo. I feel it could have used some better heroes doing stuff and the final "Battle" felt a little rushed and weird. But all in all....it wasn't bad, but I would NOT recommend this for a casual DC reader like I would the Arkham Knight Batman books. You really should only read this if you are in that small percentage like me who is an avid DC fan but hasn't been arsed to read the actual Final Crisis comics. Not sure how big of a market that is, but you know, if you exist, then this book's for you.
I cannot say I ever was a comic book guy. What little comic book love I had, usually was directed to Marvel. But I find myself pleasantly surprised and engaged by this audio presentation of the Final Crisis story arc.
At times, sure, it was a little over the top. Of course, the solution to this crisis not just a deus ex machina, it was literally a Machine from the Gods. At times the audio engineering was off, and the theatrical performances and sound effects drowned out the narration. But those things aside, I found myself sitting in my car, in my driveway, listening to the next chapter.
That's my little sign to myself that I'm enjoying an audio book, even if I don't want to admit it.
Likely someone with more experience and back story would be able to draw a more accurate review and criticism of the story arc itself. But for me? it was good enough.
I read the comic first, but it was pretty hard to follow, so I figured that the novelization would fill in a lot of the gaps. It's an amazing, epic, ambitious story being told, but it just doesn't fit together very well.
Anyway, this version does help a little bit, but not enough. I was hoping for something that I could share with friends who have only a basic knowledge of the more prominent characters, but they would simply have no idea what was going on.
I'll overlook its flaws because it's a great story, and damn it's ambitious.
I abandoned this book because I thought it was centered mostly on theJustice League, DCs top heroes and the major villains they face. Then as I started reading, there were so many other minor heroes and viloains Id never even ehard of. If it was Marvel instead of DC, Id be able to follow better. If I learn my DC characters more later, I might revisit, but I dont feel like having to use google every few chapters just to read backstories and see characters mentioned. One or two is fun, seven plus is too many
I read this novelization of a comic book miniseries because parts of the comic were a little tough to penetrate and I was hoping to gain some insight. I think the author, who is not the same person that wrote the comic book miniseries, did add to my understanding.
The book was pretty well-written and I did enjoy it. I can't say if it works on its own since I've already the comic but I think it would.
i badly wanted to give more stars for this book. but... i find that the story is written in a rather haphazard manner. new characters are thrown into the middle of the plot until there are so many characters and i could not even remember who is who! though i discovered that there are more than one Flash.. and a few Green Lanterns.. and how the Question came to be... the villains, my goodness, with the complicated names, it is a tough feat to remember all of them!
This book is very well written with descriptive language that puts you into the story quickly. It was easy as a reader to visualize what was going on. I personally never got into the "New Gods" in the DC universe, so it was hard for me to relate to the story, but that is no reflection on the writer. He did a great job of telling the story. When a character that I was not familiar with entered the story, the author described him or her so clearly that I could easily picture them. Great job!
This was a fairly good interpretation of Grant Morrison's original story. Although, key elements were excluded. Particularly the events of Superman: Beyond 3D issues 1 and 2. Given the density of the plot and the bizarreness of Morrison's concepts, Greg Cox and the crew at Graphic Audio did an admirable job.
I like this so much more than the comic book, funny that was the source. This is what happens when the DC world loses to the bad guys. It was all depressed like the story wanted with moments reminding me of childhood. Supergirl had the best line "look! up in the sky!" on one of the last moment rescues. But who is in the Batman uniform at the end of the book?
Listened to the "audioplay" version. Thought it was pretty good, and nice to fill in a gap in the dc continuity I missed when I was too busy reading secret invasion.
Some great moments and some facepalms, but that's how comics are.
Final Crisis is hands-down the best DC comic novelization I've read so far. Creg Cox captures the energy of the original work perfectly. This book covers most of the converging story arcs leading up to Final Crises, as well as the big event and it's aftermath.
After reading the Crisis series I can see how discombobulated the DC universe is with all the infinite Earths, so much so that it makes reading this mashup story unbearable. I had hopes I would be entertained by this but only found myself frustrated by the entire series.
I liked the series but the whole multiverse crisis got to be a bit of mind boggler at times. Of the four books I liked "Countdown" the best mostly because it's storyline didn't jump around as much.