It's All About the Characters
The Good: That's a REALLY compelling cover, taking advantage of one of Dr. Sivana's more distinct traits to create a decidedly creepy image well representing the threat of this villain. And if you look, there's Outsiders and Fearsome Five members both reflected dead in his lens. This compliments my suspicions that he has his own hidden agendas, but it's rare that we'd see a cover like this before his motivations were revealed.
Ok, Jade's determination is REALLY impressive. Even though its been proven that she's ineffectual, she's still not backing down. With a sling made of her own energy cradling her broken arm, she keeps on fighting.
During the particularly emotional scenes, we get to see some very well chosen panel layouts that really enhance the pure intensity of the moments.
Just like Grace and Arsenal before her, Thunder's injuries are treated with absolute seriousness. When the Outsiders are hit with truly serious injuries they don't just walk it off. It affects that team member for several issues, sometimes several arcs.
The arc kind of derails itself without losing any momentum. It works surprisingly well with it's surprising changes.
The scism/conflict teased before is developing nicely along with Jade's personality. In fact, it even kind of uses her personality to justify her lack of personality before. I know that sounds odd, but it makes perfect sense.
The Bad: I'm still not a fan of the new style Raney's using here. I don't know who's to blame, but it's not really working for me. It seems to be even a little worse this issue. It's not terrible, but it's basically just 'good' at this point.
The series is starting to fall into a bit of a rut. It's becoming formulaic. I'm still enjoying most of the arc, but it's three issues, the team tries to hunt down the villains but end up playing catch up like any other hero team, and one member gets very seriously injured and hospitalized.
In Conclusion: 4/5
The villains are mostly who drive the quality of this issue. The interactions amongst the Fearsome Five, and those between them and Dr. Sivana are the most interesting parts of the issue. Although the fighting is still awesome, and Jade developing a personality manifesting in some deep internal conflict among the team make for some interesting stuff as well. But if this series doesn't start to crawl out of the rut it's in by the next arc, I might start to lose the strong interest I have. It's not bad, but it's starting to run the risk of getting stale.