Final Crisis #7 - the crisis is over

Shipping only 2 weeks after issue #6, Final Crisis #7 brings DC's mega-crossover event to a close. Maybe it's because it came out so soon after the previous issue, but this one actually seemed a little easier to follow.

It starts with Captain Marvel recruiting an army of Supermen from various alternate realities to help fight the crisis. I don't know where that started from (I don't remember it from any previous issue) but it's a cool concept. It leads to a pretty awesome scene in the next pages as well. Then we see Superman holding the charred carcass of Batman, and we're off.

Barry Allen and Wally West continue their race against death and the way they end the race is a real treat. Darkseid gets what's coming to him, that's for sure.

The biggest moment of this final issue for me was a little obscure set of panels you probably would have skimmed over. Morrison takes this minor miniseries from last year's unsatisfactory ending and brings back a true hero to the DC Universe. That's right, Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew are back! Just like I asked for! Thanks, Grant!

The series also closes with a revelation of the final fate of the Batman. I don't know if it was a good or bad move to prove up front that he's not dead before the "Battle for the Cowl" storyline has even begun, but it's what they wanted to do. In all honesty, who really believed he was gone forever anyway? We all knew he would eventually be brought back, though the suspense of where he'd been hiding and doing and all that is pretty much gone now. I guess Morrison wanted to make sure whoever took the Batman story from here understood this was how it had to be done. Of course, if whoever it is decides to take Grant's route, he'll ignore the ending and just bring Batman back his own way. If they follow Morrison's ending, how will he be rescued? Well, Booster Gold regularly goes through time in each of his issues, so he'd be the obvious choice...but I'm sure they'll go another route.

I don't know if DC learned anything from this miniseries or not. Perhaps tying a miniseries in to so many other off-shoot minis wasn't the best idea. Because of publishing problems, if one issue was delayed it caused them to have to delay the entire rest of the series so it was read in proper order. Maybe next time they have a "Crisis" (and contrary to what they say, they will), they can do it all in one linear storyline and just make it a 12 issue series again.