Well, The action is better this time out than in the last issue. We get to see some better balance between heroes and villains, and less emphasis placed on the tie-ins. Overall it felt like a better paced series of action scenes than what we got last time out. Black Adam turned to crystal was a nice scene which would never happen in the modern DCU.
Ha! I knew Psimon wasn't powerful enough to stop Brainiac! Woo woo woo!
Good to see the Spectre subplot come to fruition, although I have never liked the cliche of "everyone stops fighting just because some big guy says so." A lot of these villains would be consumed with bloodlust and probably keep on attacking their foes. But if you need everyone to stop fighting this is the sort of go-to trope for it and at least the Spectre is someone powerful enough to back it up.
I liked the callback with Anthro. I had a sneaking suspicion about the pink energy wave but once I saw it with Anthro it all clicked in my brain, "Oh yeah -- time warp!"
I had to laugh when Superboy-Prime literally comes out of nowhere. Because we don't have enough characters to juggle at this point, obviously. But I do have to say, the footnote which we get when he arrives is really important as far as I am concerned because it illustrates the importance of footnotes. That little footnote tells me that the story was told somewhere -- unlike nowadays when most of the time you have to guess whether the character really did just pop in or if there is some other adventure which fills it in. So even though I am 99.44% likely never to read that story at least I know it's not just a random "hey throw this guy in there" bit.
I read the Monitor Files after reading the main story. Is this the correct order? I didn't really take much from this strip (although I liked the artwork and the use of the comic strip format), although I did like the bit about the Thanagarians turning violent in a time of crisis -- how typical, heh.
One element which I am still unclear on is who's hand it is that Krona sees at the beginning. God? The Anti-Monitor in some sort of temporal anomaly? It's unclear. Personally I am going with God just because, well, Creation is sort of His thing.
Man, Sam Scudder went down like a punk. Arguing with Icicle of all people?
It was also nice to see Pariah get exonerated, but I still suspect that he's going to make a heroic sacrifice before this series is over. It's part and parcel with a character like that.
This issue was a good deal better than the last one. For one thing, the plot moved along in a more logical direction. The villain uprising proved to be little more than a roadblock, and you can tell by reading the issue, I think. Having the Anti-Monitor's last plan be revealed really helps this comic shine. (Especially since he pretty much told us he had one more trick up his armored sleeve.) The stakes are raised once more and the story gets its momentum back. And you can't beat an ending like that! We're definitely in the home stretch now!
Next: Aftershock!
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