Byrne spends his first issue on Captain America (247) trying to explain away a continuity inconsistency as well. A few issues later we get the two part Baron Blood story which is deep in Golden Age lore.

What was the issue?  Err, the issue that needed correcting, not the issue of the comic.  Although that may be relevant as well.

Ah, the "Marvel monsters" homage.  Never realized that was meant to be a patch.  I like the story, though.

The character was created in the 60s and so 'psycho' didn't have the same sort of relevance. He never made it into the Legion because every time he used his powers it shortened his lifespan, so he was slated to die anyway.

Ok, I'm finally back for issue #4. Dunno if the reviews are still tough to follow, but at least they look like their author. Original issues required!

Now, let's see which rare characters get pulled out of obscurity and killed this time.

We left off with the Monitor in big trouble and there's a totally spoilerific cover.
Supergirl is here just in time... to die! That skirt isn't doing much.
So.. she left Krypton as a kid/teen. She's like older than Superman!? Do I want to know the answer?
Batgirl is a quitter. Supergirl saves some ingrate.

Now we meet Constantine. Had no idea he had already been created by this time. He's always trying so hard to be cool, I thought he was from the 90s. Moore was already on Swamp Thing?
Wait, Constantine is the drunk? No?

We're down to last five earths. I hope there wasn't anything cool in earth-6.
Pariah is back to proclaim his uselessness. Has he said the same shtick like a billion times by now?
Oh, we get to see earth-6, after all. Are all those extras actual characters, or is Perez just this crazy?
Everybody died. That's ok, they weren't that interesting.

Monitor is now sitting cozy. What happened to the cliffhanger? He asks for help from The New Warriors. Even his mighty powers are no match for the power of copyrights!

Japanese chick comes in like Steve Jobs. You hearing this, Batgirl, you pathetic wimp?
And she got killed instantly. This was like the best character yet. Put her in a friggin' costume!
Yes, bring her back, Monitor.
Not into this preplanned destiny stuff. Yeah, I know you've already plotted the entire series, but c'mon.
Vision's here to help. Or not help?

Not-so-firey-Storm and Frosty are back at last.
Firestorm can take out some shadows like the stooges they are. This is the only hero pulling his weight!
Shadows are getting their asses kicked, so they have to unite and transform into Bruticus.
Ok, everybody is still alive? Pretty sure I wrote off most of these guys as KIA.

Yes, mean girl is back as the new Dr. Light. Do as she says, cretins!
Supes is using his super-japanese powers. "A lot of people have worked hard to make the earth a good place". Interesting way of summarizing thousands of years of human history. That was like something out of a cheap anime dub.

I forgot we haven't seen Wonder Woman yet. Pretty anticlimactic debut. Whoever shows up last should be made like the biggest thing ever. Who's still missing?

Monitor knows all about you, Pariah. He's been reading since issue 1. Get to the point.
Ok, so the towers were the machines the heroes were supposed to be protecting. Call them towers, plz! I'm as confused as the characters are. Helps the immersion, I guess.
Bunch of more characters we haven't seen yet, but guess they're not important.
Shocker plot twist as Monitor gets fried! Well, after hyping it since the first issue and spoiling it on the cover.

And boom, everyone died. This was supposed to be a 12 issue series, but what're you gonna do? The heroes couldn't step up to the plate. Only Dr. Light and Firestorm found their form, but what can you do when your team has no gameplan, are short of fitness and have a no-can-do attitude? Old Superman and Young Superman were in particularly disappointing form.
I wasn't expecting this universe-exploding stuff to come until the last issue. Really not sure where they're gonna go after this. "Heey, guess what, the earths aren't destroyed, after all! But they soon will be, honest!" Yeah, this series is basically Infinity Gauntlet/War, or I guess I should say vice versa. Stakes are high and it's cool to see everyone together and stuff, but all the characters are treated like losers. When Starlin did it, at least the heroes jobbed to his own superkewl mary sues, but DCs finest are just getting clobbered by a cloud. Some ok character moments, but I feel like there should be more moments to showcase the personalities. If they have any, that is.
I'll tell you one thing about this story, though. It ain't boring! Looking forward to the next part.

I guess a lot of what I'm looking for in superhero comics are the hallmarks of what is called... I don't want to say "Good" writing, but "marginally competent on lower echelon fan-fiction level writing."

I guess I'm looking for character development, or a reason to care about characters, or characters with motivations other than "good guy!" and "bad guy!" or change or development in the relationship between the characters. Also main characters that are not a garbage whine-baby (Pariah) a nicely designed villain who has all the motivational depth of a poorly developed '20s movie serial villain who talks like what Scooby Doo villains are parodying (Anti-Monitor) or... what was Harbinger's deal again? Y'know, the kind of thing you find in basically every professionally written story in comics or other media, and 99.9% of amateur writing that goes beyond the author. See Secret Wars for a pretty good example of all of these.

I do remember the Batgirl scene! I liked it quite a bit, and that is because this is the *only* time I remember a character having any sort of arc either than shows-up/fights/dies. I guess Superman was sad about SPOILERS. Or SPOILERS leaving his dimension for SPOILERS at the very end. That might count.

It interests me that you say "the story is pulling together" because I don't remember the plot being much better. The meta-plot is the same thing you find in basically every superhero comic since the dawn of time. Hereos almost lose, than rally to defeat the villain. This was, honestly, more impressive the first 17,000,000 times I read it. And it seemed like a lot of events happened out of nowhere. The Flash runs and defeats the anti-monitor's gun with running, which is built up but it doesn't really affect the rest of the PLOT. Having such a major character die alters the TONE, but it doesn't actually lead to anything except the end of this particular sub-plot. Did it?

And then the villains show up out of no-where working together for no adequately explained reason. Was this set up at all? There was probably a pay-off to this, right? I don't remember. Without characters who have been developed at all as striving individuals with unique motivations, the story just turns to mush in my brain.

The plot has got to be better than I remember it.

What exactly the hell "came together" in this mess? I remember it as one wheel falls off the storytelling wagon, then three more wheels fall off. Then, somehow - against every physical law of God and Man it KEEPS LOSING WHEELS - holy shit it is a miracle of suck-ass storytelling.

I do agree that it succeeds in terms of tone. I mean, I'm used to Stan Lee/Jack Kirby comics which combine world shaking action with humor and individual pathos and a kind of sly meta-narrative where the author as character provides ironic commentary.

And Crisis really does capture the tone of the first of those four things pretty well. It is as tonally successful as 1/4th of a Lee/Kirby comic. That is a solid 25%. That is something.

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong? If it doesn't really succeed in even the most marginal way on the level of "plot" or "character" should I consider it like Rothko or Finnegan's Wake or Yoko Ono's Cut Piece or Paper Rad or Victor Moscosso's most abstract comics? Is Crisis basically a deconstructionist masterpiece, about how "writing" as a concept doesn't matter as long as you get George Perez to draw it? Or how comics have fallen so far in the fanboy era that you can be considered a successful storyteller even if you leave the actual Telling of the GD story in any sort of meaningful or competent way to other creators, past and present?

God, I hate Crisis so much.