"The real him--the one buried below the surface--prevented it!" No, Condor-Red-Ex-Machina prevented it. The "real him" had no problems with murdering his friends, the Nightwings, despite the fact that murdering Condor McStrangerFace snapped him out of it.

Grayson spends far too long dumping exposition recap, but hopefully once this story gets going it'll be worth a damn.

I was enjoying this issue, I really was, but my nitpicky brain is nitpicking too many nitpicky issues with it. Batgirl's legs are working again after her encounter with the Joker? Ok... maybe this is writers not respecting/editorial not enforcing what happened in someone else's book, or maybe it's just overlooked so that we can have an actual Dick/Babs fight, so I was giving that the benefit of the doubt, but then you get Time Drake being Drake but also not being Drake, and that kinda broke it for me. I've long had complaints that DC Editorial are lazy (which I know is a total armchair "expert" opinion) but issues like this can't help but reinforce that opinion. EDIT: The week after this was published, Red Hood #48 was released which showed a meeting between Jason and Dick prior to the final page encounter in this issue. Without any spoilers for that issue... Jason should recognise Dick's new outfit at least. But he doesn't, and I can only assume the reason is bad writing from the writer or bad planning from the editor. Either way, this is just bad.

Dick is back. Hooray, I guess? This issue was all over the place, the "reveals" felt like covering up for mistakes in previous issues, the threat gets almost forgotten about, Joker's diabolical evil plan is to... wander off? And Bea grabs the idiot ball with both hands and ditches Dick because her boyfriend recovered from brain damage? Yup, that's quality Jurgens writing for you. I won't be buying the rest of this series.

Comrade Novak is my new favourite... but I was also a big fan of Bendis's Infamous Iron Man run, and it seems a shame they're completely burying it.

Doom chooses the good? You mean like that time he already did that? Also, Doom apparently thinking of himself as having been "simply" evil is kinda boring for a character who's morality is (or, at least, should be) much more complicated and interesting that "I was bad, so now I'll be good. Like that time I already did that."

Meh. I liked "shades of gray" Doom we saw in Infamous Iron Man and at some points in this series, and I find the "saturday morning cartoon villain" Doom we see in most Fantastic Four comics boring (admittedly with plenty of entertaining grandiosity). This ending just cemented him as the later. A shame.

Again, we see that status quo is king. Again we see a rushed ending to a story that was going really well. Again we see lazy DC editors not catching obvious lettering errors. Disappointing.

Duckboy?!

Eh... after a lot of build-up, the threat was resolved very quickly. In fact, it wasn't really resolved, it was just "last issue of the arc, threat is done now." It was very pretty though.

I don't think this series is for me. And that's fine.

A series about a UK superhero team has the potential to be an interesting departure from typical US-centric comics... or it has the potential to be a bunch of cheesy bollocks. And on the strength of this first issue, it might go either way. Will give it a go and see how it is. But I will say, damn pretty though.

On the one hand, this book is doing the whole parody of modern Britain schtick quite well. On the other hand, this book spent a fair few of it's pages failing to convince me that the woman who obviously has some kind of resurrection-based superpower is actually dead.

I also like to roundhouse kick my expensive bespoke computer equipment when I'm thinking.

A Serious House: 9.0 Family Ties: 7.5 The Symbol: 8.0 Ashes Of Eden: 4.0 Clown Hunt: 6.0

Pointless filler arc is pointless filler.

Pointless filler arc is pointless filler.

I'm not a fan of this new trend of "lets dump a page of text and move the story forwards half a dozen pages" I've seen in a few X-books, but overall it's still mostly alright.

Apocalypse: What he doin'?

The Sword of Might is presumed to be from Galador? Oh dear, somebody copy-pasted from last week's Cable datasheet. Nitpicking aside, Excalibur has always been an... esoteric read, but this was just bordering on confusing.

Last issue, I said Excalibur was bordering on confusing, this week it's crossed the border and immigrated to Central Confusing City and set up a boutique emporium peddling home-made confusion.

I'm not 100% sold on this yet. It's a cast of characters I've had to google, a lot of [REDACTED] and mystery space pyramids which, sure, are setting up later reveals, but were enough to annoy me, and... what was up with Magneto's face? I can't put my finger on it. But, maybe it just didn't click with me when it should have. I want to give it at least a couple more issues to see if I like it... but it's jumping straight into a King in Black tie-in, which I haven't taken an interest in yet.

Despite the fact the infographic pages read like a damn barcode (which seems to be an annoying trend of this series), I'm onboard for the Space-X-Men.

Not a fan of the art style, but this still a fun little story that I've liked from this series.

Maybe I'm a Spurrier fan-boy after having read Hellblazer, or maybe this was just god-damn-hilarious, and very good looking.

Eh. Some of the jokes landed well, some really didn't.

It's a Thanksgiving Special!.... just in time for Christmas. It's silly, and ends on a touching note.

One word: Bat'leth

A good issue, but... Where did the scarab go? Batman took the scarab, used it to destroy the tower, and then.... it's gone? Apparently he just gave it back to evil Jamie.

I'm not a fan of the "Heroes are responsible for the evil that villains do" trope, and both protagonists seem to have come down with a case of stretching forehead syndrome.

Apart from a few more odd-shaped heads, this is a good looking book, it's good fun, and a good conclusion to this story.

Another fun little book from this series.

Not bad, but felt like filler.

A really good book... but I HATE the trope of "I know the real you is in there and you can break free of the unbreakable(!) mind control". Don't say a thing's impossible and then just do it.

So in the end, this particular reality was destroyed by a cat pushing it off the edge of a table.

ffs, just pick an artist!

Guns: No. Rocket Launcher: Yes.

Eh, I've liked Joker War so far, but this didn't do anything for me. It's not bad, it just... is.

Could've done without the teasers at the end.

Bullock switching from "We're gonna ignore City Hall to help Oracle do what's right" to "Get that damn bat out of my crime scene" is an odd development, but DC's Batman at the moment is shaping up to be more entertaining than Batman's Batman.

Never been a fan of "Heroes are responsible for the evil that villains do" trope, but so far this story seems to be going in a good direction.

After reading the first issue of this arc, I had high hopes. They weren't really met, but in isolation, this issue put a bow on things satisfactorily.

Apocalypse: What he doin'?

Remember The Phantom Menace? The movie which had an awesome space battle and an awesome swordfight and an awesome motor race and an hour of slightly less awesome politics? No particular reason why I bring it up... but I did like The Phantom Menace.

I liked it, I really did, but just one thing bothers me, didn't the monkey's magic sword lose it's powers when the imaginary world was destroyed? (That is a weird sentence!)

The baddie believes he has absolute power, but the goodies believe they can defeat him, it's belief vs belief! A belief-off! Belief-a-palooza!

This has now hit the (expectedly silly) tone I expected when I read the words "Alien Plants vs Mutant Zombies vs Old Ladies", which last week's issue kinda didn't.

I was underwhelmed by the explanation for Kate's failed resurrections, but on the same page, intrigued by what seems to be yet another clandestine twist involving the resurrection protocols.

Magik's flip-flopping from stern, kick-ass war captain to excitable teenager was weird. The blatant dream sequence opening was weird.

Maybe this is the kind of issue that will pay off in the long run, but in isolation, this was kind of... meh.

This right here is what I like from my comic books - comical, but with a touch of intrigue and a bit of the ol' ultraviolence.

Now that's more like it! Subverting expectations without being confusing, and just a little bit of ridiculousness instead of an entire weddings-worth.

In which nobody actually says the words "Prince Andrew".

It's been a while since I read a comics event that didn't have an underwhelming ending.

It's silly! It's got lampshades! It's got silly lampshades! It was good fun, looked great, and I laughed a lot.