Countdown to Final Crisis #15

I believe this marks four weeks in a row where I have actually enjoyed "Countdown to Final Crisis" enough not to be totally disgusted with it. Writer Paul Dini and company stay with the Earth-51 story providing a few answers to some of the questions brought up over the last 36+ issues of this series. We now have Mary Marvel crossing over into the Harley & Holly story, which deals with the ramifications of "Amazon Attacks" and the New Gods. We have Karate Kid intersecting with the New Gods in Bludhaven as well. I liked the interaction between Jason Todd and Earth-51's Batman. Dini and company may be using this as a method of evolving Jason Todd past his Red Hood Punisher-style ways. I'm not sure I like what they've done with the Ray Palmer character as he really comes across as rather spineless. In all my years of reading stories about Ray - spineless really doesn't fit him. The art team does a fine job this issue but it isn't anything spectacular.

Now in reading over at Newsrama that "Final Crisis" scribe Grant Morrision states that "Countdown to Final Crisis" doesn't really play into "Final Crisis", I must say I'm surprised about that. Dan Didio likes to say that the "beats" from this mini are carried into the next. I sure hope this hasn't been a big waist of time and money.