Final Crisis or Blackest Night

I'm going to take a lot of heat from this, but Final Crisis. The story had a lot more depth and complexity. The more I read and look back on Final Crisis, the more I enjoy it. The more I think of Blackest Night, the more I see it as a simple "popcorn flick."

Final Crisis. Blackest Night didn't interest me enough to even pick up. So I guess it may be better, but I wasn't interested in it.

Final Crisis gave us this, that complete outclasses anything by Darkest Night:

"I. Am. The. New. God. All is one in Darkseid. This mighty body is my church. When I command your surrender, I speak with three billion voices. When I make a fist to crush your resistance. It is with three billion hands. When I stare into your eyes and shatter your dreams. And break your heart. It is with six billion eyes. Nothing like Darkseid has ever come among you; nothing will again. I will take you to a hell without exit or end. And there I will murder your souls! And make you crawl and beg! And die! Die! DIE FOR DARKSEID!"

end thread/

Well, the vote's tied right now but I'll be the first to post in favor of BK, lol.

FC had a very cool premise, but I didn't think it was handled well. (As opposed to say InfC, that wasn't as "deep" - but it delivered on what it "promised"). I thought the novelization of FC (by Greg Cox) was much better than the comic-arc. The flow of the story was so much better. BK wasn't the best GL arc, but it wins by default for me.

Hated Final Crisis, the only good thing that came out of it was Barry's return

I'm basing my answer on when I first read both arcs. When I read Blackest Night, I loved everything about it. I thought it was awesome. When I read Final Crisis, I hated it. I was so confused by everything, none of it made sense. Darkseid and the New Gods were dying and were hiding on Earth in new bodies but then out of no where this dark Monitor Mandrakk shows up at the end? I was so confused. Flash forward to now, I recently reread Final Crisis (this time with most of the tie-ins) and I understood the story better. I understood the premise and the complexity of the story and appreciate it that much more. I also understood Mandrakk better because of Superman Beyond 3D. I haven't reread Blackest Night since it was released but based off me originally loving it and originally hating Final Crisis, I went with Blackest Night.

Final Crisis struck me as a little pretentious.

Final Crisis in a stomp.

@arturocalakayvee: Even after reading the novelization the whole Mandrakk/Superman's side adventure plot never made much sense to me, lol (at least in how it connected to Darkseid's plans).

Final Crisis was awesome, but I enjoyed Blackest Night more.

Final Crisis no contest.

Final crisis was a good idea done very poorly. First of all, I object to a story that you can't follow without picking up another 50 issues from different titles. If you read, for example, Civil War or Blackes night, you won't know all of the backstage, but the main stories are all in the core book. Final Crisis had none of that. There were characters popping up randomly who were all-important for 3-4 pages and then disappeared forever (the thing with the cosmic parasite at the end could have just as easily not been there).

It wanted to be the definitive event, but it wasn't. Evil didn't win, Darkseid was pathetic, he just brainwashed people like an 80s villain.

Blackest night wasn't the best thing ever, by no means, but it promised to be a huge battle between super-powered people and super-powered undead people, and it was just that. Also, a lot of stories from green lantern came to fruition without disrupting the flow of the event. Professionalism and execution will always win over just a good idea, for me.

Final Crisis when read in a trade, preferably with Superman Beyond, is a classic and one of the books I keep returning to. Mainly because if you get into the mindset that you and the heroes are on the same level for once in understanding what's going on initially. You hear the rumbling in the distance warning you of an imminent danger and still you are taken by surprise when Darkseid strikes.

I think it's main failing is being published as a monthly book and putting some essential material in some of its tie-in's. (Those last pages really dont make any sense without Superman Beyond).

Blackest Night... It made a ton of wrong moves.

• Zombie Apocalypse... From SPAAACE! (While I think zombies are normally boring, making them come from space is like launching Jason Voorhees into space)
• More dead Titans, I don't know what Johns has against the book he once wrote, but killing Tempest, Damage and Holly Granger just seemed utterly pointless
• Stupid reason why Earth is so special, seriously, it just comes out of nowhere and is at it's core a flawed idea.
• Quite a few of the BL's targets and vulnerabilities didn't make sense to me. Like why is Dove immune to the Black Lanterns? And why did a bunch of them feel the need to traverse dimensions to chase down Superboy Prime?
• General absence of magic. I know they were around, but wouldn't magicians and mystics be the people you'd want with you during a Zombie Apocalypse? (Also, the recruitment of the Spectre as a BL doesn't make any sense when the rings can't see magical creatures like Etrigan.)
• Personal massive irritation: Blackest Night was a massive event focused on emotions... and yet the most powerful empath on the planet at the time, Raven, was featured at all outside of a cameo on page 1 of issue 1! To me the event was a target the size of a barn to make Raven have an impact during one of these events, yet DC decided to not even try. :(

I may get some heat for this but despite being a massive Morrison fan, Final Crisis is one of his few works I don't really like. It was convoluted, overly complex, confusing, difficult, far too overreaching in themes and it was Morrison going way, way overboard with the story and not paying much attention to particular characters or the reader's understanding of just what the hell is going on. Most of Morrison's work can be followed with close attention to detail but Final Crisis is not one of them. Whilst it was more simplistic and perhaps clichéd at times, Blackest Night was a much more enjoyable read. It focused on Hal and Barry very well and endeared me to them, introduced me to Johns' emotional spectrum and consisted of a more fun plot that was easy to get into and enjoy.

Final Crisis is a bunch of crap. Grant Morrison must have been on stronger-than-normal drugs when he wrote it...I know I'm not the only one who can't make heads or tails of it, and am super-pissed that I wasted money collecting it when they were on the stands.

Blackest night, IMO, was much more pleasing. Getting to relive some of the more iconic moments in DC history, and all the beautiful panels that were drawn.

I may have a GL bias, but come on, this was the first major story-line that we got to see all 7 lanterns corps in all their glory.

Crazy pants. People are voting for the phoned-in zombies in space story over Final Crisis? Superman vs. a reality-eating cosmic vampire and he defeats it with the power of song? How you gonna top that?

Final Crisis god stomp.

Final Crisis 1-7,Superman Beyond 1-2,Batman 688-683,DC Universe 0,Submit and maybe Secret Files and Origins.

I dont see what's so difficult here,and some of the tie inns such as Revelations,Rogue Revenge and Requiem were awesome on their own.

@fodigg: It was a convoluted mess of a story. And this is coming from a huge Morrison fan. I just didn't get any enjoyment out of Final Crisis unlike most of Morrison's work I read. It was too complex. confusing and just didn't add up to the overall plot many times in the story. And by the way, Superman beat Darkseid by singing. He beat Mandrakk, the cosmic vampire by powering the Miracle Machine with his own solar energy and wished for a happy ending. Then Mandrakk got beat down by the Supermen of the Multiverse and staked by the Green Lantern Corps.

I loved them both, but received more enjoyment from Blackest Night.

You seem to have a clear grasp on events for what you say is a confusing story. Personally, what you describe just reminds me even more-so how much I love it. It's not perfect mind you. But compared to Blackest Night?

With hindsight and time passed, I have a grasp on Final Crisis somewhat. But at the time? It was a nightmare to read. It was the first DC and event comic I'd read since a friend had lent me COIE and I was looking forward to it. But I was horribly let down by the writer of Batman, which in hindsight, was also the best written series on my pull list at the time. The themes were overly hidden, the dialogue far too complex and the symbolism and metaphors shoved into the story in a non subtle way that alienated the reader from what was going on. I admit, I don't dislike it as much today as I did when I was reading it. But I still don't find Final Crisis a wholly compelling read compared to Morrison's vastly superior library of stronger work.

It was kinda lame how they handled certain plot points, such as the overlap between Batman RIP and Final Crisis. Ugh. I will readily grant you that.

@fodigg: Yeah the link between RIP, arguably the best Batman story next to The Killing Joke and Final Crisis wasn't executed well for my tastes.

@fodigg: Yeah the link between RIP, arguably the best Batman story next to The Killing Joke and Final Crisis wasn't executed well for my tastes.

@entropy_aegis: Didn't say it was complicated to buy a ton of different books. I just said that it is really low to make it so you can't understand what is going on if you don't buy them. All comic book events have tie ins, but they rarely explain what happened in the main plot. Since this is an artistic medium that is supposed to entertain, they should find a way to make money but still keep it entertaining.

Still, it's only my opinion. As you can see a lot of people here complained about the exact same things I did, so it can't just be that I'm the dumb one who was too lazy to understand the story. If we are to be honest, the whole thing with the miracle machine, Superman singing Darkseid into defeat and the giant bug who gets defeated by nothing... all those things come out a little from nowhere.

@lvenger: totally! I loved RIP too, but there were a couple of passages I went "ugh, this is kind of a buzzkill." Also, wouldn't it have been better without the FC tie-in? I think so, just checking if someone agreed.

@matteopg: It would have been better without the Final Crisis tie in IMO. Just clunked things together unnecessarily.

This. I enjoyed it when I read the series individually, but it is an amazing experience to read the entire thing in a trade.

That could be actually interesting and change my mind. DC already has trades that weave the issues from different titles in the correct way... maybe if I read the FC one I could like it. I'll give that a try and get back to you.

The most essential issue is probably the Superman Beyond issue, which should have been part of Final Crisis itself. Those two issues explain a lot.

BN is way better. Ivan Reis' art was just perfect. All them dead characters coming back to life in such corrupted state was creepy and intriguing. FC was a mess! JG Jones started the art, then Pacheco finished the last issues, Batman dies but not really, Aquaman shows up in one panel and MORRISON HAD NO EXPLANATION FOR IT!!!!! Darkseid takes Dan Turpin's body... Really....Really? Then Mandrakk. And that AWEFUL female Question touring the multiverse?! Wtf? it was just a cluster$&ck!