Hartley talks… written by Hartley Holmberg is more than just another comic book blog with a hint of comic love from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Legion of Super-Heroes!

Last weeks final issue of LSH is an insult to the fans and comic readers everywhere, combined with a solicitation lie to get us to by the ish!

It was supposed to be written by Jim Shooter but wasn’t and it didn’t even sport art by series (and brilliant wrap around cover) artist Francis Manapul!

Its reads like shit looks like shit and made me feel like shit for buying it!

But then there’s this week and the Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds comic!

Written by the ever consistent imaginative, respectful, enthusiastic and talented Geoff Johns, and drawn by my personal favorite penciller George Perez this comic is out-fucking standing!

Solid plot, great and vivid characterization, brilliant art, and on top of it all each and every character written has distinctive personalities that are completely on track and mindful of personality-continuity.

Rarely have I read and seen such meticulous work.

Each page is a love letter to the DCU and the LSH in all of its various incarnations, and the intervweaving done to connect certain stories and histories is all but completely mind blowing.

All that and somebody shows up that made me pee myself a little bit!

Outstanding work, and a must buy for anybody who’s a fan of the LSH!

Another extremely interesting factor for DCU fans is the numbering of a certain Earth that is a far far higher number than 52…

Man I loved these 2  stories.

(All due respect to Robert Parizek!)

With each issue they both just got better and better, more so Final Crisis than R.I.P. as Final Crisis unfortunately had its main opening moments ruined by Countdown

Unfortunately for Final Crisis in the last 2 issues the art started to fall apart yet although the quality slipped there were still many great moment regardless.

Say what you will of Grant Morrison’s writing style but I personally like a story that challenges me to let go of my preconceived notion of what a comic should be, and lets my imagination be the judge of what works and what doesn’t.

I like having a ton of ideas coming my way one after the other like a Gatling gun of conceptual madness, and that what that Grant Morrison guy does best!

And for all the nay-sayers that R.I.P. didn’t come to its conclusion in R.I.P.?

The plot of R.I.P. was Batman dealing with the Black Hand.

And that did indeed come to a conclusion in R.I.P..

Its simply the curse that the Black Hand places on “the cowl” that wasn’t resolved and that ties the title “R.I.P.” to the storyline which wasn’t resolved.

Of course with the way the DCU was effected by the R.I.P. storyline, and Batman’s having been missing during R.I.P. and considered dead and being mourned the title had relevance even before his ultimate fate in Final Crisis.

A good story is a good story, and regardless of Didio’s silly way of marketing the book and suggesting the Black Hand story wasn’t finished at the end of R.I.P. was just kinda dumb.

I have no idea why Didio didn’t just say that R.I.P. ended with R.I.P. but had an set into motion things that would be resolved in RIP final rites and the last 2 issues of Final Crisis.

Because at the end of R.I.P. it seemed like the end R.I.P. but we were told that wasn’t indeed the ending, and now that the so-called real ending is here its really obvious that R.I.P. did end in R.I.P.

So my questions are:

What the hells going on with Didio?

How does Morrison feel about all this?

Was it his insistence that R.I.P. not be considered over until the end of Final Crisis, or Dan Didio’s?

Because if Grant Morrison says that R.I.P. didn’t end until final Crisis #7 I think I will be confused.

Strangely I think I might even be okay with that?