the Death of the New Gods #8 - DC

This one, to me, seemed a bit anti-climatic. I mean . . we already saw everybody die. Well . . except Darkseid that is. But at the end of last issue we saw him ingest one of Desaads failed formulas . . the Soulfire experiment. It sounds like a band from the 60's. Anyways, apparently this put him on the playing field with the entity that is the Source. Somehow this formula taps him in to the powers of all of the gods of the Fourth World. Even the dead ones . . I guess. Last issue, when Superman awoke . . Metron and Mister Miracle were dead. And Himon, or the Infinity Man, were long gone. The natural assumption would be that they had gone after the only survivor of this massacre, Darkseid. Which means that he had to return to Apokolips to find out what's going on . He arrives just in time to witness these 2 slugging it out. They're completely out of his league . . so all he can do is watch. Superman attempts to intervene . . but it's to no avail. Well, I take that back. He did distract Darkseid long enough . . what? maybe 5 seconds? . . he distracted him long enough for the Source entity to return Orion to the playing field. But no sooner does their fight start than Darkseid takes off for someplace. If you've been reading Countdown, you know he headed to Earth to collect the remaining powers that he's been storing in Jimmy. But before the Source sends Orion there, he lets Superman witness the destroying, or making, of a planet. New Genesis and Apokolips go careening in to each other. It looks like they're both going to be destroyed. But then . . they stop . . merged as one. Half of one . . half of the other. The planet kind of looks like the yin & yang symbol when you see it from space. And that . . is the end of the Fourth World. Now the Fifth world can begin. And all these people . . that Superman has come to know, and befriend . . are gone. This was a fantastic series by Jim Starlin. I can't imagine that they would bring the Fifth World into conception without at least some of Jim's input. It seems that he's the go-to guy for DC's galaxy spanning stories. And rightfully so. He did a tremendous job on this whole series, story and art. All I can say is, thanks Jim! Thanks for bringing us such a fantastic piece of literature!