Brian Cronin posted his "Final Crisis FAQ" at Comics Should Be Good today, and besides being an excellent resource for everyone with any kind of questions about what went on in the series, it's also thought provoking.(By the way, though I agree with basically everything Cronin says -- and he certainly understands "Final Crisis" fully -- I do think Dax Novu/Mandrakk is supposed to be the Monitor from the original "Crisis." Cronin implies that he might be, but I think the connection is much stronger than just an implication. But that's not really the point of this post, so I'll move on.)
Here are some thoughts provoked by the FAQ:
1) Did people really not understand all this stuff that they're asking questions about? (Like who the black kid in the burger joint was supposed to be? Or who actually attacked John Stewart? I mean, that stuff was an ESSENTIAL PART OF THE STORY and fully explained within its pages.)
2) Did they even bother to read "Final Crisis"? (Because some of those questions imply they read neither the words nor the pictures.)
3) Why do readers in the comments section say stuff like "Unfortunately, just the fact that the series needed something like this to make some sense of it, shows how poorly constructed and produced it actually was"? (Brian Cronin obviously didn't need "something like this to make some sense of it," and neither did I, and neither did almost anyone I've actually talked to about the series. YOU needed it, person-who-left-that-comment, but that doesn't mean the series needed it.)
4) When "P_B" asks for "an attempt at tracing Superman chronologically through the whole thing," why didn't Cronin link to my attempt at tracing Superman chronologically through the whole thing? Do you hate me Brian Cronin? (I know you don't, because you linked to the "Final Crisis Dialogues" in a later post!)
The FAQ is really cool, though, and puts the answers all in one place for readers who couldn't make sense out of the series. (Though they might want to practice reading harder. Too snarky? Too bad! Read HARDER!)
