The Great TEN Ends With Issue NINE
Despite being forced to end an issue early, the Great Ten still manages to come to a satisfying conclusion. There are parts of this issue where you can easily see things were cut or comprised to allow this to be the final issue, but the smart choices Bedard makes keep it from feeling rushed through.
This issue deviates somewhat from its character-centric theme to split its focus between Mother of Champions and Socialist Red Guardsman. Mother of Champions gets more of the focus, though. This is largely her issue as we delve into her origin as we have the other members of the Great Ten. This leaves Socialist Red Guardsman as the unfortunate party who does not get an origin story. The character does receive plenty of spotlight but lacks the same treatment every other member of the Great Ten received. It's a shame, because Bedard does an excellent job on Mother of Champions story. The narrative voice he uses for this issue to mesh both characters together as the stars is also a very clever idea.
With this series, Tony Bedard has made his mark as the definitive writer of the Great Ten. Every character, even Socialist Red Guardsman, has become fully developed and distinct under his writing. Hopefully other writers have taken note and we'll see more of them sooner than later.
While Great Ten managed to avoid the fate of having a rushed and unsatisfying ending as most series cut short by DC, it's still baffling that DC chose to cut it an issue short. All they did was save the cost of having to produce one more issue, while they have other low-selling series continuing indefinitely. Hopefully DC stops this trend and allows the stories they commit to finish, because most aren't as fortunate as Great Ten.