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That would have been so much better than what followed.

Just one example.
Geo-force is impaled in both legs, bruised from falling out of the sky, sliced himself in the throat,

And still he has the strength to draw a bigass longsword and drive it quickly through Deathstroke's chainmail, both in front and behind, and through whatever's in between?

At one point, I think during Zero Hour, the Time Trapper revealed that she was actually from the past. But I think it's time for selective continuity: if we change just that one word, "past," to "future," then everything still works out. She's still the victim of a scheme from the future, a plant in the Titans. And later, when Geo-Force's genetic testing reveals her to be his half-sister, but he still tells her that she is not his half-sister, we know it's because a genetic test is not enough to be proof positive.

If we don't use selective continuity, than she was from the future, except she was from the past FIRST, used as a pawn by two completely different people with two completely different agendas (possibly even three, I'm not even sure), and WAS the original Terra, which leads one to ask the question: why did she turn hero the second time around? And furthermore, why, as several people have already noted, isn't Geo-Force mad at Black Adam the way he's mad at Deathstroke?

I prefer the first version for those reasons.

So now that I bought it, is the rest of this comic worth reading for free?

However, look at this dialogue:

Good Lord, Brian, I so wish I didn't. That was HORRIBLE.

Well, technically he had nothing to do with the costume change - he was given it as a gift by Helo, IIRC.

(AKA "I've read the Showcase BATO recently, but not THAT recently")

And as I've noted before, Meltzer doesn't really need to apologise for Identity Crisis in my mind; sure, the ending was weak, but mysteries that have to keep the ending open generally are. The bigger point of the series was that "the league can endure death, but it probably won't be able to endure such a large ethical conflict amongst its members", and Meltzer pulled that off very nicely - the murders, and the murderer, weren't as important as what the murders brought to light (although if you can't get past the murders - the second of which even I think was a colossal mistake - and the rape, I can understand why you don't like the series). Johns (and editorial, if it was an editorial mandate) needs to apologise for turning the followup into a meaningless excuse to revisit Crisis, rather than what everything was building to (the Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman conflict and the united supervillains making a push in the face of a broken JLA) before it went flying off the rails at the end of Identity Crisis #1.

However, look at this dialogue:

Deathstroke - "You're just like her, so much to prove but so damn weak. I can help you be strong."

Geo-Force - "I am Prince Brion Markov! There is nothing that will change that!"

DS - "Actually, you're no different from the dead Blue Beetle or Elongated Man or your whore sister. You're a C-lister. And in this day and age...in all this darkness...you don't have a chance."

And then Geo-Force manages to do what he thinks is the only way to defeat Slade, which is to kill himself (we even get flashbacks about how honorable it is to do that) and when he DOES do so, we get the following reaction from Slade...

(Eyes open wide in shock - small letters) "No."

DS - "This is my victory! You know how much I invested! You don't get to take that from me! This is mine, not yours!"

And then when he comes close to Brion, Brion stabs him in the chest with Slade's own sword.

Black Lightning, of course, repeats TWICE with amazement that Brion beat Deathstroke.

While sure, there is an edge to it all, I think Meltzer is definitely intending this to be a happy ending. A bookend to Identity Crisis.

Where Meltzer and I would differ is that he likely looks at this as a bookend of a good story while I see it as finally some sort of pseudo-apology for the earlier story (even if, as I note - there is no way Meltzer is actually sorry about Identity Crisis).

This reminded me a lot of Identity Crisis, and even his run on JLA. Like in those previous stories, Meltzer sets it all up quite well, but tries to get too tricksy with the ending and ultimately fails.

Essentially, Geo-Force tries to commit suicide rather than go on living and eventually succumb to Deathstroke's manipulation. Deathstroke sees this and expresses frustration -- which in turn gives Geo-Force a chance to do what he set out to do -- kill Deathstroke.

The scene with Black Lightning, I thought, was supposed to play as ironic. His dialogue indicates that he thinks Deathstroke slit Brion's throat and Brion got a self-defense blow in. The look on Brion's face isn't very happy, and Black Lightning's dialogue betrays a certain naivete about what actually happened.

And when you think about it, Geo-Force didn't really have a victory. He not only failed to kill himself (and thus avoid becoming a threat later on), but Slade's still alive as well. He hasn't necessarily stopped Slade from turning him to the dark side, he just put it off. And he really did become a murderer (albeit an unsuccesful one) -- his blow against Deathstroke was clearly intended to kill.

I think the scene has multiple interpretations, and I agree yours has some validity. However, I interpret it as, at best, an ambiguous victory. Overall, yes, Geo-Force does stop Deathstroke in this fight. But he doesn't get the closure he'd hoped for, and in the end he truly hasn't stopped Deathstroke's threat -- or his own.

Here, though, Brion was able to achieve a victory over Slade - doing what Ted Kord was not given the chance to do - actually stop the big bad guy himself.

I think it was a nice testament to the strengths of a vast universe of characters, to say that any one of them could be an engaging and important figure, not just as people we use to make Superman and Batman look REALLY good.

So I definitely think I reacted so warmly to that approach by Meltzer that I probably did overlook a lot of overwrought plot and dialogue (and an artist in Adam Kubert who did not fit the style of story at all).

Honestly, I was going to go with a slight not recommended at first, but I think I was just caught up in the whole "look what he's trying to do here! This is admirable!" thing, but it never really felt right saying recommended - so screw it, back to slightly not recommended!