Thank you, Greg Rucka, for using issue #2 of Final Crisis: Revelations to remind us that Grant Morrison actually told us, back in the Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle mini-series, what the Anti-Life Equation was.That's right, the mystical MacGuffin that Darkseid spent centuries looking for goes:
loneliness + alienation + fear + despair + self-worth ÷ mockery ÷ condemnation ÷ misunderstanding x guilt x shame x failure x judgment n=y where y=hope and n=folly, love=lies, life=death, self=dark side
Yup, after all the decades of hullabaloo, after all those comics where Darkseid just couldn't ferret out the intricacies of the Anti-Life Equation, it turns out to be just some lyrics from a Morrissey album, or a word salad from a depressed 7th grader's journal (probably accompanied by drawing of heavy metal skateboarders fighting tanks, or some such).
Some writers need to be reminded that they're really not doing Jack Kirby's work any favors with lame attempts to take mystery out of what was meant to be inherently undefined and, well, mysterious. Next thing you know, they'll try to destroy whatever subtlety was left from his Fourth World by doing something stupid like, oh, I don't know, renaming Darkseid "Dark Side" or something.
Oh, wait...
I liked the Anti-life equation better as that weird lettering crown that Walt Simonson drew. Now, that new one's dumber than Johnny Quick's speed equation.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I read a ton of I Expect You to Die last week, which made me sad I haven't seen a Bond flick in a dog's age.