Final Crisis #6 (OF 7)

For the past nine months the unthinkable has been in occurance -- evil has been winning!
While many of DC's greatest heroes have found themselves turning villain in the eyes of those uneffected by the Anti-Life Equation; it is Grant Morrison who, for some, has been the biggest villain of this story.

"Confusion" is a state thrown around all too often in the modern era.
Never has this been more true as some readers repel from an epic tale that began with the death of a New God and the penetration of time, space, and reality.

The Fifth World has come without warning and swept the heroes away before even they knew what was happening. Only we, (and the Green Lanterns), have had a vantage point that allows us to survey the horrid destruction of everything we know. And what a vantage point it has been!

Hope springs eternal as some of the heroes find small victories in their skirmishes with Darkseid's minions, but for the Dark Knight, his is a defeat unrivalled. Batman is dead.
With a gun in hand the Batman challenges Darkseid in a poetic stand-off that ends with a wry smile. The irony of his predicament is not lost on a man whose life was defined by the negative effects of firearms. Yet, with the world in ruin, and no other heroes to aid him, Batman makes a supreme sacrifice, willfully putting his life and ethics on the line to save us all.

Is Batman really dead? In a world where men are becoming the new gods, who can say?
Perhaps it is simply all part of Bruce Wayne's cunning plan to continue his undying pursuit of justice in a world of great evils. "Gotcha."

With Final Crisis, Morrison unloads a scenario we've rarely seen taken to it's logical conclusion. Peppered throughout his dalliance with armageddon is yet more evidence of Morrison as one of comics' great writers, both a student of this medium, and a master.
The pace of his epic is both familiar to longtime comics readers, and revolutionary. It establishes every beat of overwhelming those within the story no doubt felt, but never loses sight of it's mythic dotpointing of events that will one day be looked back upon by those that followed. For the superheroes, this is an account of history. For us, a bloody good story.

Doug Mahnke's clean and concise pencils were a welcome sight to the closing pages.
I wish he were "name" enough to have been here all along. Superman Beyond fans probably know what I'm talking about.