I honestly don't think you can separate the two. He was weird oppressive beliefs about religion and sex. Whether they're the cause of the craziness, part of the craziness, or independent of the craziness, who can tell?

The Green Lantern Rebirth stuff is supposed to have been done by the time of Countdown, right? Because otherwise -- no Hal Jordan.

And are there innumerable Spectres as well as Green Lanterns?

There's one Spectre at a time, far as I can recollect.

Sumi, You're right, FL: Rebirth has to take place between IC and Coutndown. Also, there's one and only one Spectre.

There's one Spectre at a time, far as I can recollect.

Except for that J.M. DeMatteis Hal Jordan Spectre story that revealed bazillions of duplicate Spectres pursuing the cause of vengeance"redemption" all over the cosmos.

Yeah, I prefer to pretend that whole series never happened.

Heh. Comic book motivational posters.

Upon reading Countdown to—Couldn't We Have Thought Up a Better Title? last night I had a few thoughts:

• It was interesting to see Blue Beetle's competent side played up for once. Though I think the writers were pushing the whole no-one-gives-Ted-the-time-of-day thing way too hard to be believable. The Batman bit read as true, but not Oracle (who knows how capable Ted is) or J'onn (who's a frickin' mind reader).
• It really does seem as if Rucka is systematically scooping up all the characters Keith Giffen has written comedically and killing or changing them so they can't be used in that way again. Sue and Beetle dead, Maxwell Lord a villain (which I don't object to in and of itself - fits his character better than the slapstick), all their former associates so bummed they won't be usable for lighthearted stories for years... I can see why Keith might be pissed.
• After seeing the last page, my immediate thought was "At least it wasn't a superhero's significant other that got murdered to galvanize the plot this time."

"Well, maybe Booster Gold's..."

Countdown to Crisis sucked me back into the DC universe, and although I was bummed to see one of my favorite characters killed off, I rather enjoyed the ride.

Maybe it's naive of me in the extreme, but I can't help but wonder if the scarab will come back into play in some manner. I also see the mention of a third Blue Beetle to be foreshadowing of some kind.

Anne, I don't think it's naive at all. They foreshadowed a new Beetle pretty strongly, although it's entirely possible to read it as Ted Kord being ressurected through the Scarab, also.

As I've said elsewhere, I've liked how the overarching story has played out, but--while everyone's talking about the Big Three and how they've been effected by Identity Crisis and what have you--it's hard not to stop and look at the characters who've paid the highest prices out of the interconnected stories: Elongated Man, Firestorm, Atom, Booster Gold, Robin and Blue Beetle.

That's a pretty interesting lineup.

Lady Door wasn't so trollopy looking in the book, was she?