This issue is sort of the "Empire Strikes Back" of this series, in that nothing goes that well for the heroes. Mr. Miracle seems to go off-script, abandoning the plan to set nuclear weapons across Apokolips in his pursuit of revenge against Darkseid. Moreover, Fury makes a cryptic comment that someone had told her that he would do so, implying that she might still be furthering some sort of plan that Steppenwolf put in place before Bizarro killed him. Barbara gets shot trying to board the train taking the refugees from the camp, though it's unclear if she dies. The Geneva team is no closer to finding Helena. They do manage to find Clark, but he's wounded and seems to lack his previous powers. The crazy avatar of the Blue is released on the world, and Sam resumes insisting that he's not the person that Alan once knew. The only real good news is that Dr. Fate manages to purge the rage gripping the population, freeing Kendra in the process. But, it's pretty limited as a win.
By and large, this issue continues the trend of the last few issues, moving along all the various plots and sub-plots a little at a time. I have to say that, at some point, we're probably going to need to focus on certain plots to forward them where they need to be. Mr. Miracle's fight with Darkseid, for example, is probably going to need more than five or six pages. Although the authors continue doing a great job of making each plot seem fresh, we're building to a point where it's going to be awkward to ditch a plot that just had a major development. For example, I get that the authors would want to leave us on the edge of our seats when it comes to Barbara's fate, but they don't want us just rushing past these moments, since that undermines their emotional impact. As I said, so far, they've done an amazing job of not doing that, but I'm not sure how long it can last.
(One small note on the camp story: I get that we're supposed to see it as representative of a complete breakdown in society. But, who sent the trains then? If the World Army or Government is in charge enough to send trains to evacuate people from the camps, can't they impose some sort of order? Did they just hand them to the thugs?)
*** (three of five stars)
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