Sypes I agree with everything you said, but I'm curious what you're referring to when you mention meaningful deaths, since the AF mass kill-off was about as anti-climatic as it gets.

I know that it's kind of a staple of big comic crossover events to kill off a lesser known character or two to show how serious the situation is (or how "badass" an author's new pet villain can be) but doing so with roughly twenty characters off-panel is particularly brazen.