Here it is - I couldn’t pick up my books last night, and will get them this evening. But go ahead and discuss. 
So, did anyone see anything in Death of the New Gods that couldn’t have just been handled by a little exposition when Final Crisis comes around to introduce the Fifth World? 'Cause that seriously seemed like eight wasted issues of poor plotting and writing.
Countdown: at least it’s over. (or maybe: at last, it’s over.)
Birds of Prey: finally finds its groove and gets Oracle into character, and… isn’t his run over now?
Young Avengers: Vision: like very much that this sets up the Vision not as a reboot of the old Viz, but as a teenager with teenager issues to deal with.
Checkmate #25: Ok. Not bad… But why was everyone so afraid of the Rooks again? I mean, they’re pretty bad ass, but no more than the knights. People were talking like they’d rather nuke the place first. I wasn’t too terribly impressed with this last arc. I guess I’m still disappointed that Kobra’s real plan wasn’t as great as their decoy plan. I have a feeling I’ll be nostalgic for this once I see the new direction though.
Birds of Prey #117: Is this McKeever’s last issue? It was pretty strong. Not as strong as Simone at her best, but more promising than his work on Titans and Countdown at least. Anyway, I just loved the Gangly Man, there’s good stuff with Misfit, and he corrects some of his bad characterization of Babs.
Batman #675: Okay, I know I’m not supposed to think this way, and I know I’m fogetting about Jezebel’s previous appearance, but did it seem to anyone else that Bruce was simply not that into her, and is annoyed that he can’t dump her at the end?
Anyway, here’s a math problem for you: The Ten-Eyed Man is the lamest villain ever conceived. But the revivial in 52 was actually pretty cool. But the Nine-Eyed Man is only 90% as effective as his comrades. How cool is the Nine-Eyed Man?
Justice League of America #20: This is a pretty decent story, but it’s a Flash story, or a Brave and the Bold Story, not a Justice League story. For starters, a JLA story should have more than two members in it. Then, they should be epic. Saving the planet, perhaps several planets, or at least a large city. Shutting down one bad guy’s heist is not enough.
The Death of the New Gods #8: From the cover, Superman speaks for us all. I liked the bit about how Superman felt completely out of his league, and the fight was appropriately epic, and Starlin finally remembered that promises had been made regarding how this thing was supposed to end, and the real ending in Countdown #2 went further than that. Still, this was a huge missed opportunity.
Countdown to Final Crisis #1: Yeah. This is pretty crap. And who monitors the Monitors’ monitors? Also, when did Black Adam get new powers and why? I thought he denounced them and handed them over to Mary (Not that I mind, really, he’s a much more interesting character than Mary Damn Marvel).
Hulk vs. Hercules: Not bad, but not enough Cho. Not nearly enough Cho.
Batman - Not a bad issue at all (I wonder why 9-eyes is short one, but that’s minor)…the thing that stood out the most was when Bruce was talking about Alfred’s stage career…Alfred Beagle’s Hamlet, eh? I’m going to be puzzling on the significance of that (within the story, I get the meta-ref) for a while.
Death of the New Gods - Hrm, well, if you squint a bit, it’s compatible with how things went down in Countdown. Not a great fit, but it can be forced.
Birds of Prey - Thank god Babs is out of the Bruce Spiral. This constantly changing home base is getting pretty silly, though. On the other hand, the Platinum Flats crooks look interesting enough. And Charlie got to be badass, so that was nice.
JLA - Nice little story. The best issue of the series in a good while. Paradoxically, though, also the most disappointing. McDuffie’s finally on the main story again, and…absolutely no follow-up on the Bat’s insubordination, and press-ganging Firestorm at the end of his first arc? Very disappointing.
Power Pack - I have no words for how adorable this is. And since I was never able to get into the original Power Pack series (It’s the art. I know, I’m ashamed.), this is the first time I’ve seen their origin in more than a quick summary. I am bugged by one thing, though… Alex keeps calling Katie ‘baby’, which is more of a parental pet name than siblingly, to my mind, so it’s jarring.
Hack/Slash - Unexpected little done-in-one. Nice. I’m fond of the target. He’s an interesting take. The bit with Pooch is clearly setting up something big down the line, of course.
Fables - Every time he does a Cinderella-centric story, I wonder if Willingham is an Oingo Boingo fan. Whether he is or not, Cinderella Undercover makes for a nice soundtrack to the issue.
And a couple from my back-log:
Suicide Squad - Most disappointing mini I’ve read in awhile. Even the squandered potential of Salvation Run wasn’t as disappointing, because it became clear the potential had been squandered right in the first issue - and it actually found its feet after a rough start. But SS…did the opposite. It was great until about issue 4, then it just…died. It turned around in this issue, a bit, but it shouldn’t have had to.
Catwoman - And speaking of Salvation Run…Although I don’t have much comment on that part of the issue (nice use of the cigar, though). My main comment is…the meta that Slam roughs up bears a striking resemblance to the Everywhere Man from the episode of The Batman of the same name.
All I got was Countdown. So somehow, a guy who can shrink, a lone Green Lantern, Donna Troy and a bug from New Genesis are going to police the Monitors? How? Is this a full-time job? Is Kyle no longer appearing in GLC, for example? What a dumb idea.
As for the others, Good: Black Adam and his attitude toward Mary.
Good: Mary actually came out of the series different than she came in.
Bad: Jason Todd is just another violent vigilante now, just in plain clothes rather than a costume? Big deal.
Confusing: is Buddy Blank who becomes OMAC the Buddy Blank of “real” Earth, or original to Earth-51? At the end of issue # 5, I thought the latter, but most of the series Brother Eye was connected to Blank in the “real” Earth. Is this the “real” Brother Eye, transported to universe-51 after its banishment from Apokolips, and recognizing a form of its creator?
Good: The last page with Harley and Holly. I thought that was a nice closing line.
Confusing: Is this in any way a lead-in to Final Crisis? If so, how? By foreshadowing the origin of Kamandi, who we know will be in it? Or are the Monitors and the Kyle/Donna/Ray/Forager team featured in it? I mean, the storylines seem mainly wrapped up.
So nobody else had the huge printer’s error on their copy of Checkmate? Four pages, reprinted twice. And I agree with y’all about Suicide Squad and the Rooks, both very disappointing. It would be interesting to see if they were the writer’s choice for Rooks or if they were “handed” to him. Basically they’re just people with guns and a poorly-defined magic user, not my choices for “ultimate soldiers” at all.
From what Morrison has said, the Fifth World will feature strongly in FC, so the Jimmy/Dakseid plot leads into that, and he’s made a big deal over a Supergirl/Mary Marvel fight, so her fall from grace/redemption/fall would be part of that. (Still badly handled.)
The other plots…who knows, yet. Well…Morrison and Johns, probably. But aside from them, I wouldn’t even trust that editorial knows, right now.
My favorites of the week were Checkmate and Hulk vs. Hercules.
Piper appears in Rogues’ Revenge, one of the supporting FC miniseries. Superman Prime next appears in Legion of Three Worlds, another FC mini, and I have to imagine that the fact that the villains are back from Salvation and are pissed contributes to “The Day Evil Won” if only indirectly. I’d be suprised if we didn’t see a Monitor or two in FC either.
Yeah, but what Johns has revealed about the plots of those series don’t indicate just how they tie in with what happened in Countdown (or into the main plot of FC, for that matter), other than the presence of the characters. Whereas Morrison’s revealed information does indicate why they had to go through Countdown to get where he wanted them in FC.