Should I feel better about the worst issues of this series now, knowing that they were all part of the plan?

Eh, no, of course not. All the terrible fight issues were still terrible, and while I'm glad they're not entirely pointless, I'm still gonna skip them when I re-read this series in the future.

Omac Prime isn't that interesting. He, like his constituent parts, is primarily a time-waster while the really interesting stuff was going on between Booster, Max, and Captain Atom. I get that Omac Prime (whose name I keep typing as "Omega Sentinel" for some reason) is vital to Max's master plan, but the pacing on this book was so slack and back-loaded that Max's plan was not what was keeping me reading.

What kept me reading is the fact that I love these characters, and from that standpoint, this was a pretty good issue. Many of the characters (including Jaime, who's been woefully underused in this series) got nice moments, and, well, the character we lost hasn't ever been interesting outside this series, so I was okay with losing him.

Also, for the curious, yes Batman pops up again in this issue, and yes his function is mostly expository.

Lopresti, of course, was in fine form this issue. I don't know if it was just my excitement getting to me, but I thought Max looked more like Max than he has at any time during this series, and Ice's costume, while of course inconsistent with the way it looked last issue, is a step back toward her regular costume, and I am all for that.

Overall, I know that I didn't like this series as much as most people on here. There were too many dead issues, Winnick can't write Ice worth crap (even discounting the retcon), and the revelations were paced terribly. Despite all of that, though, I enjoyed this series, and I'm happy to have these characters in the spotlight again.

And c'mon. We all know what the ultimate victory is here: New monthly JLI series! Here's hoping that it moves in semi-discrete arcs to tighten up the pacing.  And also that Guy at least gets to guest-star.