The most- and least-definitive death in modern comics: Final Crisis #6

[sigma7]

Obviously major spoilers for Final Crisis #6 below. If you don't know what specifically that means, follow right on through.

For everyone who rolled their eyes at Batman's much-hyped "death" in the Batman RIP storyline because there were about nine million different ways the world's second-greatest escape artist could cheat death from a crashing/exploding helicopter, Final Crisis #6 gives about as unambigiously fatal a moment as a comics character gets -- Batman, staring down one of the most powerful entities in the universe, Darkseid, literal god of evil, guns him down¹ with the same theotoxic bullet Darkseid shot backwards in time² to kill his own son. And Darkseid's lethal omega effect kills Batman a moment later.

It's an epic death -- it doesn't get more badass than a mortal killing a god, liberating his world and dying in the process, and it's appropriately fitting the character and his legacy (compare and contrast with the punk-ass death afforded J'onn J'onzz in the first issue of the series, one of those OMG THEY MEEN BUZINESS deaths DC has become quite fond of in lieu of dramatic development or actual storytelling). And lest you think the omega effect sends Bruce Wayne back in time -- as it's been known to do -- the final page of the issue features a perturbed-looking Superman (well, I guess he's supposed to infuriated or such, but he really just looks like he's been standing in line for half an hour at the DMV but I think I'm one of the few people who didn't contribute art to this issue) holding a charred near-skeletal figure in Batman's tattered costume.

And if those were the only pages of the issue you'd read, you'd be perfectly justified in thinking this pretty much an iron-clad death.

Problem is there are escape hatches opening every few pages in the storyline -- in the third page, Brainiac 5 shows Superman the Miracle Machine, "A machine that turns thoughts into things," which has no apparent limitations (in any of its previous appearances), capable of rewriting reality. Mr. Terrific exposits to Renee Montoya the details of Checkmate's Black Gambit, a plan for escaping through the Bleed to a parallel Earth (which, from Metron's comment, seems to be the Worst Possible Idea at the moment). Add to this the cavalcade of Flashes -- including freshly-resurrected Barry Allen -- who plan on outrunning the Black Racer (the an embodiment of death itself) on some undetailed plan to thwart Darkseid moments before Batman's showdown with him, and that's just three sealed-in-the-narrative outs in this particular issue. Add to these the very basic reasons you can't keep a good Batman down -- you can bisect all the ex-Teen Titans you like, they won't come back because nobody cared enough to save them from the reaper or even give them a decent death -- and you have every reason not to wonder that a much more definitive final bow for the Dirtnap Detective is being given zero media attention as compared to Batman RIP.

I'm still very...undecided on the entire endeavor. Morrison's narrative ambition -- which we didn't see at play in RIP -- is at least at full speed here, even if it doesn't necessarily cohere (and, again, given RIP, I'm not optimistic that this will either). For every subplot that works for me (Luthor, Tattooed Man) there's at least one that doesn't (Super Young Team, Mary Marvel, Wonder Woman with tusks), and that's not a good ratio. I'll at least pay attention, and that's about as much as I will afford.

¹I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole breaking-my-own-rules tactic -- yes, it's his dying act and he knows it, and I'm still not sure if I buy him not being able to come up with something better.

²I still enjoy Morrison's position at the nexus of language and audacity, of widescreen action and his capacity for phrasing things in exciting and peculiar and alienating ways. Even when they don't necessarily play out well on paper, but when they give birth to phrases like "theotoxic bullet Darkseid shot backwards in time" I can't help but appreciate them on some level, certainly more than Superheroes Punch Each Other in New York City Volume XXVII.

Comments

[foenix.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Batman could come up with a better idea, but...I do actually kinda respect the whole mythicality of it.

Personally, I'm hoping we get a Black Lantern Batman.

[jeditigger.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine blurted out the ending before I read it, so I already knew about the ending. Still...

I am not sure how I feel about it. Like you, I think it is a suitably epic ending for Bruce, but I dunno if it'll stand.

Seriously, if they write their way out of this one I'll be rolling my eyes for a week.

[digital-eraser.livejournal.com]

"but I think I'm one of the few people who didn't contribute art to this issue"

I laughed out loud at that line.

I don't think the death would've come off as quite as ridiculous if there hadn't been that ending of Batman RIP where it was like "was that supposed to be him dying?" If there'd been no attempt at making it look like him dying, just "oh, the title Batman RIP was meant to be in the figurative sense," then Final Crisis would've had more impact. Because people would be like "oh, the plan wasn't to kill him after all..." -- DEAD. But having a lame anti-climatic maybe-death followed by the real death completely ruined any sense of shock. "Oh, he's back already...oh, he's dead again already." It sounds comical, because it is.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Well, from the solicits it's obvious Bruce isn't Batman post-FC, so there'll be some repercussions -- whether they're of the typical comic-book temporary duration (a la Knightfall, for example) or whether they have the type of lasting effect that passes for "permanence" in this medium (I'm surprised Steve Rogers is still dead, myself), I dunno.

I think, inevitably, the classic tales will return to their original form -- problem is I don't know what the industry will look like when this one does, if they keep Bruce at room temperature for any respectable length of time.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

I wish that were the only sense of inter-title hilarity coming from DC in the last few months, though -- their fumbling of Countdown was enough that if I'd actually paid for the issues only to have them apparently, well, invalidated and struck from the continuity (or, at the very least, to have great swaths of their plots directly contradicted by FC), I'd have been just a bit pissed off. That was an editor failing to do their job, coordinating between Dini/Giffen and Morrison (or failing to keep Morrison in line, whichever way you want to take it) -- but when it's two Morrison titles, that's just a bad writing choice.

Maybe I'm being entirely too generous to Morrison here, and I'm giving him a hell of a lot of slack on the plot of FC, which isn't working for me on a ton of levels. I don't know how much of it to credit to editorial mandate and how much is narrative ambition not paying off in print. Sad thing is the last time he helmed an epic of this nature -- JLA's World War III arc -- it was pretty awesome. So I don't know why this one isn't working. Confused.

I am sure that Dan Didio has a higher...a different calling, because being an editor on any level is not it.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

If there's a Black Lantern Batman, they're going to need that escape tunnel to a parallel Earth because it's going to go all Marvel-Zombies-shaped in a big hurry. Batman -- alive or dead -- with a ring would be a bad, bad idea.

...Unless it's a Zamaron ring in which case that'd be like a cocker spaniel with a sewing machine.