Final Crises #1 has Lanterns!

Lots and lots of Green Lanterns. AND Hal right on the cover. I do realize that there is actually a whole lot more going on in this first issue of Final Crises than just drooling over Hal, but I really can't help myself sometimes. I will say, that the art is gorgeous. I love a well-written book, but I love it even MORE, when the art is as good as the writing. I think that has been a major problem with the Justice League lately. Put a decent artist in with McDuffie, and he shines.

But that's getting away from the point. I read Final Crises, and was a little confused about a few things. However, I have discovered that reading it several times, is a good idea, you begin to pick up on things, and some of the other plot points have had some time to percolate, so it all starts to make more sense.

I WILL say, that it doesn't really seem to tie in with Countdown, and I think that is a very good thing. It makes it much easier for someone who didn't read Countdown or Death of the New Gods, to pick up and get into. If you DID read those two series, (as I did) and didn't really like them all that much (as I did) then by God, you have a chance to start all over again. So I'm just pretending that a lot of the stuff towards the end in Countdown didn't exactly go down the way that it seemed.

But anyway. There are Lanterns in it, and boy howdy are they done well. There are some very nice small touches, such as spotting John Stewart in a tie, working in an office. Presumably, an Architectural office. A small thing, but a nice one. Then he flies off into battle, with his green aura showing up so beautifully against the red and lightning in the sky, with even his eyes glowing eerily green.

He's called for Hal, but typically, Hal is a little late, and John's first question is "Blonde or Redhead?" which I found to be perfectly in character. John and Hal are friends, but I just know that John occasionally finds Hal to be a bit exasperating. J.G. Jones proves that he knows all about Green Lanterns with a lovely rear shot of Hal.

Then the Guardians get to play like Cosmic CSI's. There is actually a code, 1011 for Deicide. The Guardians want them to seal the crime scene, dust for radiation, and so on. They even send in the Alpha Lanterns. I'm hoping that a certain pair of Honor Lanterns will also be showing up eventually. There is a lot of other stuff inbetween, but when Green Man, Boodikka and Varix do show up, there is an absolutely gorgeous scene of them hovering over the earth, with the green beams from their rings criss-crossing the Earth.

Oh, and Anthro, Metron, the JLA, the Question, a bunch of cranky Monitors and the Bad Guys also show up. And some very very bad things happen to poor J'onn.