Not dead again

Most of us went into Final Crisis expecting the usual Infinite Crisis style crossover. However, what we actually got was this odd hybrid meta-Crisis which was as much a deconstruction of, and a commentary on the mega-crossover as it was a celebration of it. Most of the chrome around the Multiverse and Final Crisis exits within Morrison’s own meta-textual bubble. He may have private notes on all the characters and worlds, but as presented in his stories they’re fantastic snap shots that zoom past like a car chase in an art museum.

One particular snap shot in Final Crisis has people confused. Universes are in flux, Hawkman and Hawkgirl throw themselves into the chaos in what appears to be an act of self sacrifice. After all that’s what heroes do in crossovers. Whether Morrison wanted to actually kill the Hawks or not I don’t know, but DC certainly didn’t consider them dead. However, many of the fans took the scene to mean that they had been killed. Newsarama brough the issue up with Morrison after the series had concluded. He commented:

Sorry if it seemed unclear to some readers but the words and pictures on the page do contain all of the information above if you go back and look. Is it presented in a carefully-composed ‘chaotic’ way? Yes, because getting caught between two entire universes as they skim past one another at the end of the world, while Justifier troops pour in through the walls to get you would be pretty chaotic and I wanted to capture that. This page is pure Pop Art – big shouty, jagged balloons with ‘TIME! SPACE! SHREDDING!’ and declarations of love. It’s the 4-D Roy Lichtenstein page!

It seems that it wasn’t just the fans that were confused. Lying in the Gutters links to a Dwayne McDuffie message board posting about a rewrite in JLA #31 – it’s a scene at the grave of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, unfortunately those characters weren’t actually killed off. Either DC’s policy changed or somebody didn’t send Dwayne the right memo.