Thank you AGAIN, Grant Morrison!!!
As a standalone series, it is almost impossible to get a perfect take on the ending, without reading Superman Beyond 1 & 2. You find therein, Mandrak, the Dark Monitor. Along with the book of Limbo, a book where all the stories that have been written, and ever will be written are compressed into one page. The book contains a passage about an 'ultimate weapon' that can be used against the 'ultimate evil' aka Mandrak.
Capt. Atom creates a 'thought robot' fuses Superman & Ultraman into a perfect Symmetrical idea, becoming the ultimate weapon.
The Monitors it is revealed that in some way are vampires per se, thriving on the observed experiences and stories of the 'germ worlds' they observe.
Mandrak, you see, feeds on the life blood of the multiverse, which are the stories that each earth tells. He not only begins to drain the essence of the multiverse which is the stories, but the linear time as well. Mandrak embraces the ‘dark side’ of the monitor aspect, while the others do not, they deny it.
The breakdown in coherence in the story is even noted by the heroes as time slows to a stop, and events begin to happen randomly, and out of order. The breakdown of the title logo 'Final Crisis' on the cover of every issue is a visual representation of this breakdown.
To Swiftmann’s questions:
It was clear to me that the Asian Club Kids were the Forever People, judging by the 'TAARU' sound effect in the one panel appearance this issue. I could be mistaken but it does make sense.
The Mary Marvel Storyline was clearly the darkening of The Marvel Family. Clearly, Mary has aligned herself with Black Adam, and his dark power. Again.
Darkseid has become the Anti-Life Equation itself, with all his evil minions overlaid onto heroes\humans, now destroyed. Remember, Batman poisoned Darkseid with the same bullet Darkseid used to kill Orion with in issue #1, and is suffering from the final stages of Radion poisoning. He has become nothing but a vibrational frequency, and Superman uses a counter-vibrational frequency to cancel him out, via music.
The black monitor is Nix Uotan. He you will remember is the Monitor who was framed and exiled for his role in 52. Weeja Dell also from 52, is his love.
I’ll agree with Swiftmann, that as a standalone, it is impossible to understand, but I believe Morrison intended it to be read along with the other titles that accompany it, like Superman Beyond, and Legion of Three Worlds, which still has issues 4 & 5 to be released.
A lot of symbolism throughout this issue, but it only became apparent to me when I searched the other issues.
It is also clear the Monitors are now part of the story, instead of just 'toxic' observers.
The story's epilogue contains Anthro from issue #1, who was given a weapon of sorts, by Metron, and that weapon was the ability to conceive stories. Batman is somehow there in this seemingly ancient time, and begins to draw his own 'story' on the wall of the holy cave. It is unclear how he actually got there alive, but we do see the rocket ship his dead body was sent in along with several other artifacts crashed near the holy ground.
For me, this answered all the questions I wanted the answer to, as well as created some new ones.
I will continue to fill my wantlist with DCU titles, in the hope they will make more thought-provoking stories like this to challenge my imagination, and defy the contemporary ‘kids book’ mentality, running rampant in the Marvel universe.
The way I look at it, more happened in this issue than in the ENTIRE ‘Secret Invasion saga’. That is saying something.
Thanks again Mr. Morrison, for raising the bar!