Perhaps Me And Crises Don't Mix

So Final Crisis has begun, amid great blogger debate over its quality. For me, the event itself falls into the same camp as Secret Invasion, which is "Don't care, don't care, so completely don't care." That being said, I am concerned about what effect it may have on the DC titles I'm currently enjoying, since books can be easily hijacked by these things. Two things sort of mitigate this: 1) I can't recall seeing much about regular monthly titles being tied into Final Crisis (as most of the tie-ins seem to be mini-series) and 2) Infinite Crisis itself wasn't terrible on the books I was reading when it came out.

Granted, Batgirl got dragged out looking for her mother and away from the supporting cast Andersen Gabrych had been building, but it also saved her from Chemo's getting dropped on Bludhaven*, so you take the good with the bad. Willingham was running out the clock on his Robin tenure, so we got lots of OMAC and villain fighting, which isn't a bad thing. Teen Titans didn't fare so well, as either very little seemed to happen or everything had already been covered in Infinite Crisis, but I think Johns' writing was being hurt by spreading himself too thin.

So perhaps I'm less concerned with what happens to Batman & the Outsiders or Booster Gold during Final Crisis, as what happens after. I mean, Infinite Crisis ended, One Year Later kicked in during March, and I dropped Robin and Teen Titans before the end of the year (Batgirl having been canceled). Robin had the whole "Cassandra Cain is his enemy now (not terrible). . . and she might be attracted to him (Terrible!)" thing that caused me to drop that book like it was a poisonous snake (complete with me stomping on it/running away afterwards). Teen Titans became entirely too joyless, and there was that dud called "Titans Around the World" where we learn the traitor in the Titans' ranks was the character we met one issue before. How unexciting. Unless Johns was counting on the return of Jericho to pep us up, and in that case, he really shouldn't have gotten rid of the mutton chops**.

So yeah, I'm concerned about what the new status quo will be in the DCU once Morrison finishes his possibly brilliant plan, and whether it'll disrupt the flow on the books I like. I know, really premature, seeing as Final Crisis won't end until, December, is it? But it's been worrying me, since I did finally find some DC titles I'm enjoying again, so you know, just felt like throwing it out there.

Oddly, I'm not that concerned about Secret Invasion, mostly because I don't think it'll really change anything. That's probably a bit of false hope, but World War Hulk didn't disrupt any books I was reading, and while Civil War didn't help my opinion of Ms. Marvel, it did get me on board the Cable/Deadpool bandwagon, and after The Other, the Amazing Spider-Man Civil War tie-ins were a welcome change, with their lack of people's eyes being ripped out and eaten***. At least initially, because it eventually leads into One More Day, and well, let's just not go there, shall we?

*That still strikes me as a remarkably extreme response from Deathstroke. Nightwing gets one over on you, so you blow up his city? Poor form, Slade.

**Really, what's the point of bringing Jericho back without the 'chops?! Not many people can make that look work! Probably including Jericho.

***JMS, Deodato, what was that about? You previously established Morlun survives by draining the life energy of the totems, so why he is actually ingesting body parts?! Gah!