You know, I never imagined I'd say this, but: Give Me More Geo-Force! I need less Batman, less Flash, less Superman, and more Geo-Force. Now don't get me wrong, that statement applies to this issue, and this issue only. I, in no way, think Geo-Force should have his own title, but because of that, I feel like he deserved to have this entire issue devoted to him.

First, this seems like the culmination of everything Meltzer's been doing with the character since he brought him into his Justice League run. If you're not going to tell the story here, then where? Batman and the Outsiders? No, thanks. Plus, if you can't fill a single one shot with just his story, it probably didn't need to be told.

The presence of the other heroes also made this story impossible to place as far as time goes in relation to the main Final Crisis book. It can't be after issue #3. Batman's been captured, Flash is in the future, and Superman is... well, I think he's in the far, far future, but I'm not positive on that. Oh, and Hal makes a last panel appearance, but wasn't he arrested and taken to trial on Oa at the end of issue 2? Maybe it was issue 3, but either way, he shouldn't be here either. So, if you have to place this in continuity with the main title, it's gotta happen fairly early on... like issue #1 early, but I'm pretty sure all the heroes weren't super depressed about how they were going to lose a final battle by that point.

But, you know, whatever. If you're reading this just for the Geo-Force story, and really that's what the book should have been exclusively. It seems like the other characters were thrown in just to tie it to FC, and FC just provided Geo-Force with a backdrop and reason for vengeance. I was really, really enjoying that part of the story until the very end. I understood what he was doing. I understood why he was doing it. I really wanted him to kill Deathstroke, or at least die trying, And man, was I ever pumped when both of those things seemed to happen. That was a really cool sequence where Geo-Force slit his own throat and then managed to stab Deathstroke (other than the fact that the sword switches hands for no discernible reason).

But then, (and this was easily going to be my pick of the week until this happened) they just threw it all away with the final few pages. They're both still alive. In the eyes of the other heroes, Geo-Force is still a hero who didn't give up. You know what? Who cares. I don't care if Geo-Force is a C-list hero in perpetuity. I'd rather have him go down in a blaze of glory dispensing vengeance than read his future irrelevant adventures with the Outsiders or some other C-list team. And he 'beat' Deathstroke? Again, who cares. The guy's still alive. He's just gonna be pissed about this whole thing and start killing more people. He's certainly not going to care that he was 'beaten' by Geo-Force, other than possibly carrying on a vendetta for him.

Basically this story boiled down to potential greatness that was just tossed aside because DC couldn't commit to killing off an entirely expendable hero and a badass villain. Blah.