Irashaimase!

All right, friends. I'm back in the game. Let's talk about Final Crisis.

Specifically, an aspect of Final Crisis that I feel well qualified to discuss: Grant Morrison's wacky Japanese superheroes.

I'll admit that at first glance characters like the members of the "Super Young Team" appear to be ridiculously over the time. They appear on the surface to be quintessentially Grant Morrison. You would be forgiven in thinking that there is no way the real Japan could be that wacky.

You would be forgiven, but you'd be wrong. I don't know if Grant Morrison has spent any time in Japan. But on the surface, I'd imagine that he has. And even if he hasn't, he's probably studied some of the pop culture. Because characters like Most Excellent Superbat and Shiny Happy Aquazon aren't that far off from the characters you see in the comics here.

The key, of course, is to combine things that shouldn't go together with bright colors and a dash of poor English. The result is not far from what we've seen in the Final Crisis Sketchbook.

Of course, even though he gets some of it right (Only some... "Shy Crazy Lolita Canary" wouldn't wear a schoolgirl outfit; she'd wear a lolita outfit) the real test will come in how they are played on the page. If Morrison can play them straight while still keeping the wacky elements, they'll be perfect.

(Oh, and for the record... Japanese shopgirls don't usually shout "SUMIMASEN!"... They shout "IRASHAIMASE!")