Grant Morrison is a polarizing guy. You either love his work or find it completely incomprehensible. When you try to get someone to explain, a typical answer is “it’s Grant Morrison” as the owner of my comic store, The Phoenix of Westchester and Comix 411 colleague, Joel Rosenberg learned. So where does Morrison’s “Final Crisis” fall in the scheme of his work? A little from column a and a little from column b.

Reading the first three issues of “Final Crisis” was like watching a five-car pile on. Morrison hit you with one thing after another without explaining anything. I felt like I missed an issue (and the tie-ins didn’t fill in any gaps). Then issue four hit and “Final Crisis” started making sense. So if you still don’t understand what’s going on, here’s a little primer to make sense of the basics so far…

“Final Crisis,” as solicited, is the ultimate battle between the heroes of the DC Universe and Darkseid. Darkseid seized control of mankind by infecting modern technology with the anti-life equation, which robs people of their free will (I always knew math was evil).  However, Darkseid was not able to enslave all of mankind, so he needs a little help from his fellow evil New Gods.

Before “Final Crisis” began, the war of the gods between New Genesis, ruled by Highfather, and Apokolips, ruled by Darkseid, ended with Darkseid as the victor. The New Gods’ bodies must’ve been destroyed in the process, so in order to survive the gods have decided to inhabit the bodies of super heroes. Below is a list of which God possessed which hero:

Darkseid = Dan Turpin
Granny Goodness = Alpha Lantern Kraken
The Female Furies = Wonder Woman, Giganta, Batwoman, and Catwoman
Deesaad = Mary Marvel (this one is a guess, but in the latest issue Black Adam claims to spot a “leering old man in her eyes”)
Metron = Tattooed Man (not sure of this one too, but he turns silver so put two and two together)

As for the other aspects, here are my predictions. I predict that Superman is going to recruit heroes from throughout the multi-verse to aid in the struggle against Darkseid. And Batman will… well I’m not going to go there. There are two more issues left and since issue four, things have been coming together. So, in the words of Axl Rose, let’s “use a little patience” before labeling “Final Crisis” an unintelligible acid trip.