I’ll agree to disagree on this one.

There’s always been something about Bendis’ visual storytelling that just seemed off to me- the pacing of images and action seems wrong somehow.

He does it very well a lot of the time on Ultimate Spider-Man, but he also structures it like a very traditional comic book. (However, I do remember him using the flashback-and-narration thing during the first Venom arc, which I was annoyed with then.)

Actually Grant IS spoon-feeding you the ideas and that is the problem. Batman’s big gun speech is ALL exposition, for instance. There are very few pieces of dialog in this series that are not moments where the character is telling the reader something that the story should be conveying on its own.

There’s a difference between a character telling the audience what they need to know to understand a scene and a overexpository dialogue in which Roy Thomas or Marv Wolfman characters go on about “Oh no this situation is very bad and we will have to band together and fight it and be tough.” Batman should be telling the readers about the gun (and again, he’s been shown as a taunting sort by Morrison before,) Braniac 5 should be talking about the Miracle Machine. They shouldn’t be telling the readers what’s happening on the page directly.

I cannot see how Final Crisis could be viewed as sophisticated, let alone what the comparison could be to David Mamet. The only writer I can see as being similar to Mamet in his writing is Bendis.

And I don’t see how it could be so summarily dismissed. And I have to say that your second comment sounds like something that someone who’s never looked beyond the dialogue in Mamet’s works would say; Bendis does things that absolutely betray good storytelling time and time again, with the end of Secret Invasion being the most obvious example I can think of – after a series of escalating battles, he mutes the impact of the final conflict by having it be a montage of flashbacks with narration on top, a trick he’s done before and will do again.

Additionally, readers have been sold on Final Crisis for about two years now that it would impact the entire DCU. How is it now a discrete comic?

Were they? I don’t read a lot of the hype that either company puts out, so you may well have a point. And as far as having a point goes – it’s obvious that you’ve got some very well considered opinions about Final Crisis that might be a better fit in your blog versus my haranguing you over what I consider to be deliberate obtuseness on your part.

(And calling a creator you don’t know by their first name is just weird, man. Don’t do that. It freaks me out.)

We’re not hiring, but we’ll let you know.

I cannot see how Final Crisis could be viewed as sophisticated, let alone what the comparison could be to David Mamet. The only writer I can see as being similar to Mamet in his writing is Bendis.

Additionally, readers have been sold on Final Crisis for about two years now that it would impact the entire DCU. How is it now a discrete comic?

Fixed it for you. You might be thinking of Secret Invasion.

Not only is Final Crisis failing to impact the monthly comics, it also can’t even coincide with it’s own mini-series! That is the point of a series like Final Crisis, after all, to impact the entire universe of comics. So, uh… why is that not happening here?

I can only imagine the disappointment from casual Batman fans who bought #7 to ‘SEE THE FINAL FATE of BATMAN!’ as DC directed them to. What a readership killer this one issue is. Convoluted and confused with so many plot threads that none of them can be maintained issue-to-issue, readers are also treated to an absurd death scene that is somehow supposed to relate to Batman R.I.P.

That is the point of a series like Final Crisis, after all, to impact the entire universe of comics. So, uh… why is that not happening here?

I think that’s something that fans are assuming more than the actual intent of editorial and Morrison. FC has been very discrete: it’s not tied into monthly books directly and any of its ancillary material have carried the Final Crisis branding. Secret Invasion is something designed to create a line-wide event; Final Crisis seems to be designed for its own purposes. Personally, I prefer the latter, but I can understand how many fans might enjoy the former.

Convoluted and confused with so many plot threads that none of them can be maintained issue-to-issue, readers are also treated to an absurd death scene that is somehow supposed to relate to Batman R.I.P.

I didn’t find it to be either convoluted or confusing, but that may be because I don’t like it when comics spoon-feed me everything with narration, captions, and expository dialogue. I like being engaged by a work and getting to piece together some things – it’s something I’ve discussed before, in relation to how David Mamet and Grant Morrison have similar approaches. Everything you need to know is on the page, as others have pointed out in these comments. Putting together some of the elements is a lot of the fun for me.