Final Crisis #1 (OF 7)

My first thought upon reading Final Crisis #1 is that J.G. Jones art is really solid.  Although it doesn't have the same polished look as I remember from Marvel Boy and the Black Widow mini-series, it's really sharp and Jones does a great job of telling the story.

Morrison's script has some really strong beats and cool elements, but some of the character interactions seemed off to me.  I think that the framing sequence with the cavemen, although very cool to look at, used a page or two more than was needed.

And who is Detective Turpin and why is he driving parts of this story?  As a casual DC reader I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be familiar with this character, of if I'm supposed to be meeting him for the first time.  And as for the Orion sequence, that left me frustrated with the connection (or lack thereof) back to Countdown and the Death of the New Gods.  Turpin finds Orion in the throws of death, which triggers a sequence of events that appear to ignore all recent (and some long-term) continuity.  We see Jon Stewart (was he really hanging out at the GM headquarters in Detroit?) and Hal Jordan talking about Orion like he wasn't well known - wasn't he a member of the JLA during Morrison's run?  Then we see the Guardians and the Green Lantern corps react with great concern upon the death of Orion - where was all of that concern when ALL of the New Gods - including Orion - were getting knocked off last month?  And why are the Guardians talking like extras from an episode of CSI ("dust" for radiation prints?????)?  It just seemed very "clunky" and more distracting than interesting.  And later we see Superman talking to the JLA about the New Gods, and he fails to mention that he witnessed them all dying.  In fact, he speaks about them like they're a mysterious clan with little familiarity to the JLA.  Even more odd considering that Superman's closing narration from Death of the New Gods was "...my memories of Orion, Lightray, Barda, Scott and the others will live on," only to have him forget about them all being dead by issue #1 of Final Crisis.

The sequence with the Secret Society was interesting, and featured good character interaction.  Libra's execution of the Martian Manhunter without fanfare or the typical villain monolgue seemed very realistic, but I felt that it was extermely poor service to a character that's been around for decades and has his own fan following.

And then we have Turpin's meeting with Dark Side (Darkseid) and his son Kalibak.  Are these the alternate versions of the New God that appeared in the Mister Miracle mini series from Morrison's Seven Soldiers event?  I dropped that after one issue (when Pascual Ferry left) so I'm a bit unsure.  Hopefully this will receive a clear and new-reader-friendly explanation as the series progresses.

The last three pages are completely without explanation (at least to me), but I assume that's simply setup for the bigger story to come.

Overall not a horrible comic and one that offers promise for an interesting series, but the flaws drew me out of the story several times and I'm hoping that I find the later issues a little more compelling.