I agree wholeheartedly with everything you've said here except this: "You read it and you can see exactly why Nathanial Adams was originally going to be the Monarch. It's so perfect in it's execution it's insane." I never thought that made any sense whatsoever, and I thought it wrecked the character. Frankly, I think a lot of other DC superheroes would have made much more sense as Monarch. My argument for that is too long to get into here, but I'm working on a post on my new blog, wretchedretch.blogspot.com, on this subject. (I hope it's okay I'm plugging my blog here; I couldn't find any rule against it.)