Final Crisis #5 Annotations

Page 20 - Mary Marvel is, of course, possessed by Darksied's chief torturer, Desaad, named for the Marquis De Sade. Hence Black Adam's line about the leering old man in her eyes. Its a shame we don't learn Mary's new magic word, although one supposes it might not be fit for publication in a family-friendly, death-metal, end-of-the-world comic book like this one.

Page 21 - "You're not facing Freddie this..." A reference to Freddie's new role as Captain Marvel, graduating from Junior sidekick to the real deal.

Mister Tawky Tawny, the Marvel Family's man-sized tiger mascot arrives on his afforementioned jetpack.

Page 22 - The mute cube-solver is Metron, as seen in his human form from the Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle mini-series.

"different... unforeseen" references Metron's description of himself in Kirby's New Gods #7

Its not very clear who the hooded hairy guy is. A lot of people speculated when this issue was published that it might be Himon, inventor of the Mother Box, but there's not much in the story as a whole that points to that being the case.

Morrison's Frankenstein is quoting Milton's Paradise Lost, originally spoken by Satan.

"Wait for the lightning to strike", recalls Morrison's use of the Flash family in Final Crisis, as well as the Marvel Family's magic lightning and the title of DC Universe #0, "Let There Be Lightning".

Page 8 - Its worth mentioning that despite all their vying for his favour, Darkseid's acolytes are esentially all aspects of Darksied himself; varying shades of evil if you will. Dating back to Kirby's original Fourth World titles, Darkseid's court are killed and resurrected on his every whim.

Page 9 - Darkseid's "rabid angel", his "plague goddess"is Wonder Woman, infected with the metagene negating virus

Page 10 - In the first panel we see what might be the Doom Patrol's Tempest, killed many years ago by Morrison in the run-up to the conclusion of his Doom Patrol run, and Hawkgirl.

Saving Alan Scott from the Justifiers we have Hawkman in the centre, and clockwise from him the JSA's Cyclone, Stargirl and Starman; another appearance for the Teen Titan's Argent; Bulleteer from the Seven Soldiers series; the new Black Condor from Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters; and Blue Beetle. The Bulleteer has been pretty much relegated to one panel cameos like this since her Seven Soldiers mini-series. Morrison has joked in interviews that she always seems to be shown as flying when that isn't one of her powers. Of course, she's flying here too.

Donna Troy, created, as Wonder Girl, by Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani, first appeared as one of the original Teen Titans in 1965's The Brave And The Bold #60. Her backstory has been difficult to grasp, to say the least, since her inception. Haney used her in the Titans assuming she was some sort of kid sidekick to Wonder Woman when, in fact, the Wonder Girl that had appeared in Wonder Woman's own title was Wonder Woman herself as a teenager, ala Superboy. Since then she has been retconned at every opportunity, has gone by various hero aliases and had many different costumes. Prior to Final Crisis, she had been positioned as one of Countdown's Challengers of the Beyond, multiversal adventurers who were 'out of place' on their respective worlds, an idea lifted from Grant Morrison's unpublished Hypercrisis proposal. Typically for Donna Troy, this status has since been totally ignored by every writer who subsequently used the character.

Page 11 - More Super Young Team and Mister Miracle. Most Excellent Super Bat is in front of the car with Shy Crazy Lolita Canary flying ahead of him. On the car itself is Mister Miracle (again mis-coloured as white) and behind him from left to right we have the rest of the Super Young Team, Shiny Happy Aquazon, Well-Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash, Big Atomic Lantern Boy and Sonny Sumo.

Page 14 - Kalibak's new Tiger-Man body is (literally) straight out of Kirby's Kamandi

Page 16-17 - The heroes' attack on Bludhaven gets underway. From left to right, those flying are Shazam; the JSA's S.T.R.I.P.E.; Black Adam; Green Lantern, John Stewart; Supergirl; and Mexican hero Iman. On the Humvee are Vixen, Blue Devil and the Suicide Squad's Bronze Tiger; on the motorbike in front of them are the JSA's Liberty Belle and Hourman; beside them is J.A.K.E. 2 of the Creature Commandos; Frankenstein is front and centre on the bike; Wildcat and his son, also Wildcat, are on the red bike; Mr. America and (possibly) Major Disaster on the car; and finally Red Arrow on the last bike.

The vehicles the heroes ride, in an inspired touch, are the shape-shifting Metal Men, last seen prior to this series in Duncan Rouleau's excellent Metal Men mini-series, from 'concepts and ideas' by Grant Morrison.

Page 18 - Iman was created by Oscar Pinto, F.G. Haghenbeck and Giovanni Barberi, and first appeared as part of the "Planet DC" event in Superman Annual #12 from 2000. At this point, he was pretty much the only character from Planet DC who had made it into the main line of books, though Morrison would go back to the well during his Batman Incorporated run. Morrison's use of him here reflects his desire, indeed his job brief as one of DC's creative consultants, to make the DC Comics line more racially and ethnically diverse. The Spanish dialogue translates roughly as "What hit me? Ah, $&#*! My armor's useless. Weighs a ton... what would Superman do...?"

Kyle Rayner, another member of the Honour Guard, was created by Ron Marz and Darryl Banks and first appeared in 1994's Green Lantern #48. He was a major player in Grant Morrison's JLA, and Morrison has said numerous times that he prefers Kyle as GL over Hal.

Page 3 - Morrison established that artist-by-day Kyle Rayner was a manga-nerd in his JLA run.

Page 4 - The Krona Protocol, named for the architect of DC's multiversal creation myth, is presumably a plan for stopping the bad guys blowing up the central power battery, as Krona did in the Len Wein and Mike W. Barr scripted Tales of the Green Lantern Corps mini-series from 1982. Krona was a renegade member of the Guardian's race who was obsessed with seeing the dawn of creation. In a curious, quantum physics-esque twist, his act of seeing the birth of the universe actually created it. His is the giant starry hand that holds the primordial universe in issue #2. All this happened in Krona's first appearance in 1965's Green Lantern #40 by the way-ahead-of-his time John Broome and Gil Kane.

Kraken's mention of Metron giving "them" i.e. humankind, an ultimate technology echoes the scene between Metron and Anthro from issue one.

Page 5 - The Alpha Lanterns reappear. From left to right they are Varix, Boodikka, Green Man and Chaselon. The Green Lanterns in the background as the injured Guardian falls are probably Cimfet Tau; Torquemada; Tomar Tu; and Turytt.

Salaak, Green Lantern keeper of the mystical Book of Oa, handily tells us Kraken is possesed by Granny Goodness. Hal beats this God-like personification of evil with a left hook.

Page 6 - 'Crumpled spacetime' foreshadows issue 7's unconventional structure, as well as conveniently explaining away the continuity discrepancies between Final Crisis and the titles that led into it, for instance Countdown or Death of the New Gods; and even some of its tie ins, like Final Crisis: Resist.

Hal's "24 hours to save the Earth" bit echoes the famous line from the 1980's Flash Gordon movie.

Page 7 - The Question, Amanda Waller and Talib Beni Khalid at Checkmate's castle headquarters

The M in M-theory doesn't stand for anything, but its proponents have variously suggested Membrane, Mystery, Mother and Multiverse as possibilities. Morrison uses it here in relation to the Bulk Theory of parallel universes. in short:

The central idea is that the visible, four-dimensional universe is restricted to a brane inside a higher-dimensional space, called the “bulk”. The additional dimensions are compact, in which case the observed universe contains the extra dimensions, and then no reference to the bulk is appropriate in this context. In the bulk model, other branes may be moving through this bulk. Interactions with the bulk, and possibly with other branes, can influence our brane and thus introduce effects not seen in more standard cosmological models.

Essentially, imagine our universe as a comic book and an impercetible higher dimensional universe outside of it (we, the readers), influencing and interacting with it without ever being detected. Phew, hope that clears it up...

The 'kit super-soldier' Biomacs seen here tie Kirby's original creation from OMAC #1 into the broadly unrelated robot killers as featured in the run up to and throughout 2005's Infinite Crisis. Wisely, Bruce Jones' truly awful OMAC mini-series seems to have been brushed under the carpet. Though far from consistent in its through-line, the Checkmate/OMAC story, "the last move in the human game", is picked up in Final Crisis: Resist and in Ivan Brandon's Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape, before Judd Winick throws all of that out of the window and brings them back as evil super-robots in his and Keith Giffen's Justice League: Generation Lost.

Renee's involvement links the faceless Question with the faceless agents of OMAC's Global Peace Agency in an inspired Kirby/Ditko mash-up.

Commentary

Marco Rudy, uncredited in the solicit for the issue, joins the title as another pitch-hitting penciller for JG Jones.

Annotations

Page 1 - Green Lantern attorney Malet Dasim was created by Bob Toomey and Alex Saviuk and first appeared in Green Lantern v2 #130.

Amongst the jury of Green Lantern's we have, top row from left to right, Veniz; Apros; and G'Hu. Bottom row there's probably Sodam Yat; Tomy-Fai; Torquemada; Rees-Van; and Skirl

Pacheco misses Hal's scar in his first few pages, as Jones has done at various points in the story up till now.

Page 2 - Guy Gardner was picked, along with Hal Jordan and John Stewart, as a possible recipient of the Green Lantern ring when Abin Sur crashed on Earth. In an unlikely turn of events, Jordan got it as he was nearest. Gardner was created by John Broome and Gil Kane and first appeared in 1968's Green Lantern #59. At this point in time he is part of the Green Lantern Honour Guard, stationed on the Guardians of the Universe's home planet of Oa.

Humanity enslaved! Time shattered and bleeding! Anti-Life triumphant! Can Earth's demoralized, beaten heroes rally their scattered forces for the ultimate super-battle against the nightmare armies of Apokolips when the forces of good meet the forces of evil on the bridge to Blüdhaven? As Darkseid's presence causes reality itself to sicken and the lights to go out across the universe, as even the Guardians fall, the true power of the evil gods finally reveals itself, and a major character returns for a shocking conclusion.

Does the secret of humankind’s salvation lie in a mysterious cave painting and a bolt of lightning? Or has the Last Day come for us all?

Written by GRANT MORRISON; Art by JG JONES, CARLOS PACHECO & JESUS MERINO; Cover by JG JONES, Variant cover by CARLOS PACHECO & JESUS MERINO

DC Comics, December 2008, Color, 40pgs, $3.99