"Countdown to Final Crisis Volume 4" by Paul Dini and Many Others

The fourth and final volume of "Countdown" sets the stage for Grant Morrison's "Final Crisis."  The artwork ranges from decent to pretty good, and all of the story threads are brought together nicely in the end.

Darkseid and one of the Monitors (I forget his name) continue their chess game, manipulating events in each of the 52 multiverses.  Karate Kid dies, but his corpse infects one of the multiverses with the "morticoccus" virus and wipes out almost everyone on Earth.  Mary Marvel gets her sexier black costume, and Darkseid attempts to reclaim the energies he stole from the rest of the New Gods.  It's all very, very confusing and hard to follow, but the conclusion is satisfying and I guess that was the whole point.

As said elsewhere, I'm not a fan of Grant Morrison's "Final Crisis," and I think that "Countdown" communicates more of the grandiosity one would expect from the company that gave us comics like "Watchmen" and "Crisis on Infinite Earths."  It's not perfect, but it's worth a read.