I caught up on Flash War and its aftermath. I feel like it could have been epic, but ultimately was just a way to break up the Flash family and set up the new Forces.
That’s a problem I’m having with DC Comics lately: Stories don’t feel like they start from the characters and new threats picking up where the previous story left off, they feel like they’re working backward from where everything needs to be to set up the next story and finding a way to get there.
It’s been like that for a while. It was a problem with Flash: Rebirth, with Countdown, with Full Throttle. I sort of feel like the early New 52 escaped the problem and built more organically, at least some of the books I was reading. But those kept getting cancelled.
If you compare Final Crisis to Metal, they’re both similar in structure: cosmic threat turns earth into a nightmare between panels, the heroes seek help from the multiverse to restore the world. But Final Crisis *finishes.* Metal sets up the alloys, the Challengers & Hawks, the crack in the Source Wall. It’s more like COIE in the way it works hard to set things up for the coming year(s) of stories.