Why Is This Not A Final Crisis Special?

So this is kind of weird. I just now got around to reading Brad Meltzer's DC Universe: Last Will and Testament one-shot, which came out almost three weeks ago. The delay in picking this one up off the new arrivals pile for reading came about because I didn't really know enough about it to get excited, although I've generally quite liked Meltzer's previous comic work, so you'd think...

Anyway, now I'm left scratching my head. This one-shot isn't branded as a Final Crisis tie-in, and actually has a cover design that's the inverse of what we've been seeing with FC covers so far. Those have tended to have a single character, full-figure, in the centre, leaving both sides mostly free for the cover dress ("FINAL" down the left side, "CRISIS" down the right). Here, as shown to the left, we see the opposite of that: many characters, upper torso or face shots only, on either side, with a bolt of lightning running through the middle. Based on that, and the total lack of FC branding, you'd naturally assume that it's totally unrelated to DC's big event.

But then I read the story, and it certainly seemed like it was tied into Final Crisis. Why do I say that, when it doesn't actually mention that series directly at all? Well, it came out only 1 week after Final Crisis # 3, the ending of which basically said, "Now evil wins." In this one-shot, the heroes are all preparing for what they've been told will be the last night before the world ends. They also refer back to two earlier times when things were this dark: when they had to attack "an anti-matter cannon" (Crisis on Infinite Earths) and when they had to destroy "something called an interdimensional tower" (Infinite Crisis). Final Crisis is described as the end of the trilogy that began with CoIE and flowed into IC. So that would seem to indicate that this is the night before some big, awful event (like evil finally winning?) in FC, right?

So why wouldn't DC Universe: Last Will and Testament have "Final Crisis" slapped all over it? I mean, some of the stuff the Marvel and DC have called "tie-ins" to their big summer crossovers in the past have been downright ridiculous, so why would DC let such a golden opportunity for marketing fall by the wayside here? The only two reasons I can come up with are that the cover didn't fit the necessary format (that'd be a really stupid excuse) or that the publisher didn't want to tie novel-writer Meltzer's hands too tightly by forcing him to keep his continuity consistent with FC's. That latter one might be it, as there are moments in Last Will and Testament that don't seem to line up well with what we've seen in the issues of FC published to date. What's Batman doing, footloose and fancy-free in Last Will and Testament, for example, when we know that he's been help captive by Darkseid's forces since partway through Final Crisis # 2? How can Superman be visiting his foster parents in Kansas, when we were shown that he wouldn't leave his injured wife's side (except to go on a cross-universe trek to try to save her)? It's possible that DC was so sure that the continuity-freaks - and I guess I'm one! - would jump all over Meltzer if this comic carried a Final Crisis label that they just avoided the whole thing by calling it a "DC Universe" special. It'll be sad if that's the case, but I don't know how else to explain it.

At any rate, it was a good, entertaining read, as Meltzer usually is, although it really didn't accomplish much. Lots of big talk about murder and revenge, but by the end nothing's actually changed for the status quo. I suppose that's probably true of most comics, in the final analysis, but sometimes you can get fooled into expecting more. I definitely do enjoy the way author Meltzer writes most DC characters, though, and Andy Kubert's art, some of which was inked by his legendary father Joe, was a real treat for the eyes.