I don’t know why, but it feels like a long time since the first issue of this series came out. Because of that, I didn’t really remember what was going on when I opened this issue. Luckily, Simone does great work here. Unlike Generation Lost, here’s a “the world turns against our heroes” plot that feels exciting and believable. Unlike Brightest Day, the pacing is strong and fast, with a lot of potentially very interesting developments that Simone will hopefully get into more deeply in future issues. I don’t, in fact, quite understand how this is a tie-in issue, both because it doesn’t reference anything going on with BD and because it’s miles better than the event itself.

The art is overall very good, although many of the Birds have the exact same facial structure. That’s not a huge problem, though, and it’s not enough to dock the book a point. What is enough is that Ed Benes needed a partial fill-in artist already. Sheeh, dude, it’s only the second issue of the series!