May
19
Didio talks 'Final Crisis'
Comics fans looking for the next superhero blockbuster will be bypassing the box office this next week on their way to the comics shops, as DC Comics' long-awaited Final Crisis #1 drops Wednesday, May 28, courtesy of writer Grant Morrison and artist J.G. Jones.
Dan Didio, executive editor of the DC Universe, promises that this is indeed the last crisis — "We've retired that word," he says — and that the series will put the publisher's vast array of heroes to the ultimate test, forcing them to face the possibility of complete defeat. "The log line is, 'The day that evil won,'" he says.
The first issue deviates from the world-shattering jump starts of its predessors, 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths and 2005's Inifinite Crisis, and sets up its storylines and mysteries in a way that's both welcoming and intriguing. Characters, some of them major, die in this first issue (I'm keeping spoiler-free on that point). Didio says in this case the deaths are essential to later events in the series and that killing a character is a decision that isn't taken lightly. "You don't want it to be random, haphazard and pointless," he says.
The debut issue also continues to play up the characters and concepts Jack Kirby created for the publisher in the 1970s, and better melding those creations with the DCU was a major impetus for Final Crisis. "I was always a big fan of the Kirby material when I was reading in my younger days, and I always felt that in some ways it didn't integrate completely with what was going on in the DCU," he says. "Part of what Final Crisis does, it strips both the Kirby concepts and the DC Universe down to its core and rebuilds in a very contemporary way around them, so they both feel like they're coming from the same place instead of being forced together."
That means that, yes, the DCU will be reorganized once again — this book is called "crisis" — though Didio says it will indeed be the final such revamp. "The constantly rechanging time and continuity and reality series come to a close with Final Crisis, and you'll come up with one clear, cohesive world," he says.
While event series such as this are the comicbook equivalent of a summer blockbuster, Didio says Final Crisis went through a lot less Hollywood-style development than it may appear. Didio says the idea for the project came from his first conversation as exec editor with Morrison more than six years ago and the project and its spinoffs are all primarily being written by former 52 collaborators Morrison, Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka. Keeping the brain trust small was a lesson learned from previous events, as is publishing fewer spinoffs specials and miniseries.
When Final Crisis wraps up later this year, Didio says he thinks it will have given fans plenty to think about and talk about while leaving the company with a clear direction for the future. "There will be one or two shocking changes at the end of the series that they'll be talking about or arguing about for quite a while," he says. "But more importantly, what you're going to see is a lockdown in the interpretation of our characters so that we have one very clear, concise intepretation of who our heroes are and how they act and behave. And i think that's one of the things that fans will understand and hopefully identify with and follow from that point forward."
And while this is the last Crisis event, Didio says plans are already in place for DC event series in 2009 and 2010.
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I an a die hard fan of DC comics..but please
figure out another way to create plot lines and extended stories without killing off superheros.
Some need to take a rest..but don't kill them off! Sure, i know the bottom line is that your comics need to sell so take your main characters
give them a modern feel and have writers update them..Yeah, i know it's easy for me to say..because i don't have my job riding on the outcome but Marvel has done that very thing..and i think they are doing okay.
Posted by: Bruce L. Joyner | May 20, 2008 at 01:54 PM