Countdown To Final Crisis #2

Well, it's almost over. And I think it's safe to say this series has overall exemplified all the problems that many detractors have with big events in general, and with DC in specific. Namely, that overblown crossovers are prone to creating a disjointed experience, and that DC's continuity is just too damn dense.

 After Ray Palmer successfully..smashed...the...widget in Jimmy Olsen's brain last issue, Jimmy and Darkseid go all King Kong vs Godzilla in Metropolis.  It doesn't go well for Jimmy.  Then, in what you can almost call a literal deus ex machina, Darkseid's son Orion BOOM's into the fray to settle his daddy issues once and for all.  Hey, you remember that sequence early in this series' run where we were introduced to Orion and got a good feel for who he is, and his relationship to his father?  No?  That's cause it didn't happen.  There is no precedent within the series to set this up. None. This comic assumes you've spent your free time doing your Kirby homework on Wikipedia.  Even for those who know who Orion is, he just.. shows up in the penultimate issue of a 52 issue run to set things right?  Really?

And i gotta mention Supes.  Here are two (well, okay, three) gargantuans causing beyond catastrophic damage to HUGE swaths of his city, and he just stands idly by because he feels it's not his place to interefere in the matters of gods? Sorry, not my Superman.

On the plus side, Scott Kolins on art makes stuff blow up good, evoking some of the grander sequences from World War Hulk.

T-minus one, folks.