© DC Comics, Inc.

I don’t know that this is a review, exactly, just some thoughts. I generally don’t read these massive crossover books. The only one I really enjoyed was the original CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. The others I’ve sampled since then haven’t appealed to me. I do like the writing of Grant Morrison and the art of J.G. Jones, though, so I thought I’d try this one.

First, the cover. An unusual and eye-grabbing design, and I approve of the fact that you can read the title from across a room, but I also feel the space devoted to the cover art is too small. Sure, it made some design sense to divide the space into thirds, but then the central space was cut further by the white area, UPC and prices and DC symbol, leaving only about 25% of the cover for art. The art itself is sort of a teaser, not bad, but is it really enough to grab readers? The hottest thing on the cover is the bright red on the outer thirds. Unless they’re going to do them all with red, that won’t last. And the font used for the title is bland and ordinary.

I liked the art inside quite a lot. Jones does a fine job, as always. The writing is almost all short set-ups, but kind of what I expected. If I were a younger reader emotionally invested in a lot of these characters, some of the inevitable deaths would probably shock me, but…I’ve seen it all before, you know? I mean, one of the characters in this story is The Green Man, one of the Alpha-Lanterns. He was created in the early 1980s by myself and Dave Gibbons in some Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup stories. Then I used him as a main character in the OMEGA MEN issues I wrote. Later he was killed off in another big DC crossover event. But when Dave Gibbons was writing GREEN LANTERN CORPS recently, he brought Green Man back, with no explanation, just put him right in the book. I cheered. Fans didn’t seem to notice he’d ever been dead. So, remember…the only characters in comics who stay dead are the ones nobody wants to write about.

Some nice lettering styles by Rob Leigh. I like this one for Metron of the New Gods with Kirby dots behind the balloon border. The coloring by Alex Sinclair is very painterly and attractive. As for the plot, I can’t really focus on it, so I’m just along for the ride, enjoying the visuals and character bits here and there. Like I said, this isn’t really a review of the story. If you like this sort of thing, it’s well done.