DC REBIRTH Month 15, Part 1

ACTION COMICS #985 by Rob Williams and Guillem March. Superman ends up in the country of Georgia, where The Machinist is using his mind control techniques to run this country. He soon discovers that The Machinist is actually popping up all over the world and doing the same thing. That leads him directly to Lex Luthor, who reveals that his tech has apparently been stolen. That leads to a team up where the duo goes to India and finds that elephants have been controlled. Unfortunately, Lex is being controlled too and attacks Superman.

ACTION COMICS #986 by Rob Williams and Guillem March. Superman battles Lex, who is finally feeling the influence of the Apokolyptian suit, turns into a stone-faced monster resembling Darkseid. Superman manages to get through to Godlike Lex, who unloads all of his weapons, draining his power and changing him back to normal. They re-enter the atmosphere and that burns off the mind tick. Superman quickly dispatches the Machinist’s mechanical tigers and then detains him and his crew. In the end, Lex discovers that one of the Machinist’s men had an OZ tattoo. Oz shows up, deletes Lex’ records and destroys the Superman symbol on Lex’s suit.

ALL STAR BATMAN #13 by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque, Rafael Scavone and Sebastian Fiumara. As Batman and Alfred fall to their possible deaths, Batman grabs a banner and that lessens their fall. In a flashback, we find that Briar had sent years training Alfred to Nemesis. It is also revealed that Briar’s son had made his way through the Nemesis program and died in Qatar. To help him become Nemesis, Briar had plans to kill Alfred’s father. Batman follows the Black and Whites and finds they have been badly injured. That’s when Briar arrives with Nemesis, who slices Batman up badly. In the end, Alfred has decided to enlist some unexpected allies in his fight. In the back-up, Batman is still in Russia and still battling with Vik.

AQUAMAN #27 by Dan Abnett and Stjepan Sejic. Aquaman and Dolphin have been captured by Kadaver and taken to Krunch, who threatens to kill Dolphin if Aquaman doesn’t reveal his true identity. Aquamna communicates with the giant fish that is menacing her and uses his ability to get the fish to break her free and they escape, while the fish eats most of Klutch’ crew. Meanwhile, Vulko continues to hide from Murk and the guards, with the help of disgraced Widowhood member Ondine. Up on the surface, Mera meets with the Titans and tries to convince Aqualad to help her free Aquaman. In the end, Mother Cetrea says that the best person to succeed Corum Rath once the rebellion succeeds is Mera of Xebel.

BANE CONQUEST #4 by Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan. Bane finds himself teaming up with Dionysus, because Bane needs him. At the same time, Catwoman is here in Russia, who gets captured by the police who want to make use of her to deliver a cyber package. Bane makes his way into the Kaluga Vor apartment, but Dionysus has managed to get free and has contacted the authorities to capture Bane. To make matters worse, Catwoman is here too and she has set off the security alarms.

BATGIRL #14 by Hope Larson and Chris Wildgoose. Batgirl and Nightwing end up together in Burnside and get attacked by a pair of unusually dressed “twin” women who resemble someone from her high school days named Ainsley. Mid fight, they claim “her blood is on your hands” and leap to their deaths. In a flashback, we see Barbara adjusting to her new high school life in Gotham after having moved with her father from Chicago. It turns out that Ainsley was both a substitute teacher and a co-worker at a local restaurant. Later, as Batgirl, she meets Robin for the first time. Back in the present, Nightwing and Batgirl track down the Mad Hatter’s associates and discover the identity of the two dead girls. They then fnd the Mad Hatter, beaten up in a hospital bed. He wakes from his coma to say the Red Queen is responsible for all of this.

BATGIRL AND THE BIRDS OF PREY #13 by Julie Benson, Shawna Benson and

Roge Antonio. Batgirl, Gus, Catwoman and Calculator have made their way into Terracare where they find Huntress and Benedict being menaced by Ivy and a lot of angry bees. From there, Ivy needs to make a pheromone to control the bees and get them to stop their attack.

She stops the bees, Calculator’s family is freed and Barbara buys Terracare and makes Poison Ivy the head scientist. Barbara becomes Oracle again to save Gus from the Calculator’s clutches. In the end, the team, minus Batgirl but with Ivy, springs into action.

BATMAN #28 by Tom King and Mikel Janin. During the war, Jim Gordon is captured by both Riddler and Joker and they both want him to bring them Batman to end the war. Riddler hired Deathstroke to kill Batman while Joker hires Deadshot to do the same. Both fail, which leads to five days of fighting within Gotham.

BATMAN #29 by Tom King and Mikel Janin. Both sides in the War of Jokes and Riddles are having a nine-course dinner at Wayne Manor with Bruce Wayne. His answer to stop the fighting: kill Batman and Wayne will give one billion dollars to the winner.

BATWOMAN #6 by Marguerite Bennett, James Tynin IV and Renato Arlem. It’s Year Five in the Reign of the Bat as a much older Batwoman and a one-eyed Jason Todd discuss matters on the Colony Battleship Sequoia. It seems Gotham has gone to hell and Batman and his gag of followers rule the city. She makes her way into the city and meets with GCPD Commissioner and former lover Renee Montoya. They get attacked by Batman’s followers and Renee is wounded, leading to Batwoman swearing revenge and Batman-Tim Drake.

BATMAN BEYOND #11 by Dan Jurgens and Bernard Chang. While Terry and Damian fight, Batman tries to hack into Damian’s computer and stop the missiles. But Koru shows up, explaining how Ubu took his own life after numerous defeats at Batman’s hands. And Koru wants revenge. Damian stops him from killing him, but Terry arrives, with the suit taking control and pushing him to kill Damian. Batman gets Terry to take control of the suit, but Koru decides to get involved and launches the missiles himself. Terry puts the batsuit back on and, with the help of Max back in the Batcave, stops the missiles. In the end, it turns out Goliath is NOT dead and Bruce and Damian make up. And Bruce tells Terry he feels like he is his son.

BLUE BEETLE #12 by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Scott Kolins. Batman has a bone to pick with Ted Kord for letting such a young hero go out and be a superhero without the proper training. Jaime heads off on a big date but has to bail because Ghostfire has been skywriting that he wants Blue Beetle. Batman observes the fight and is impressed until Jaime messes up and Batman needs to come and save the day. In the end, Batman finds that Ghostfire is An old man with terminal cancer and he is impressed by Jaime’s compassion for him. Later, Naomi chews out Jaime for missing his date and Teri Magnus shows up and wants to use the scarab as a power source for Cosmic Treadmill that would be able to send her and Tina back to the year 3001.

CYBORG #15 by John Semper Jr. and Cliff Richards. Before he died, this alternate wrld’s version of Dr. Elias Stone had discovered a cure for the OTAC virus, but he died before it could be delivered. And, it needed to be deliver to their Cyborg first, but he died. Cyborg, Variant, Beast Boy and Exxy go to Silas' old lab, where Variant gets captured and they need to find that cure to get her back. That leads to them fighting with the Metal Men and Exxy uses his mad skills to reprogram them and shut them down. They don’t find the cure, but they do find a hologram of this world's Cyborg. He’s alive, has the cure and is looking to kill off our Cyborg so he can rule the world.

DARK DAYS METAL #1 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. The Justice League is on Warworld and are being forced to fight as part of Mongul's death games, which have been created for him by Hiro Okamura. The team form a giant Transformer-like robot and defeat their enemies. Upon returning to Earth, they discover that Challenger’s Mountain has appeared in the center of Gotham City. Once inside, they discover the Challengers in cryogenic chambers and they also discover a shutdown Red Tornado, none of whom they know. Lady Blackhawk arrives, explaining that she is Kendra Saunders, who was once Hawkgirl, and has them accompany her back to Blackhawk Island. She explains that she plans on eliminating all the Nth Metal on the planet, since Carter disappeared looking for the source of it in what she calls the Dark Multiverse. It seems that a prophecy foretold that Barbatos would be released by a Wayne. Red Tornado reactivates and flips out, allowing Batman to escape with her sliver of pure Nth Metal. In the end, Batman discovers Carter Hall's journal hidden in Wayne Manor. He also is greeted by Daniel Hall: the Dream of the Endless.

DEATHSTROKE #22 by Christopher Priest and Diogenes Neves. We begin with the dead grocer from last issue and quickly move to Chetland UAI where Defiance is fighting the Radiant Men. It seems Dr. Light is pulling the Radiant Men’s strings and he is doing that as a favor to Deathstroke, who has been reported to the Society by Deadline. Meanwhile, the Grocer’s heir and his entourage have arrived and are looking for Willow. In the end, Terra arrives to take down the Radiant Men, to the surprise of the team, leading to Deathstroke presenting the US Ambassador with a $100,000 bill for services rendered. And, even though he is retired, maybe Dr. Light isn’t truly out of the game.

DETECTIVE COMICS #962 by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez. Luke Fox has put Azrael into the new suits and the Batman A.I. kicks in and he is ready for action. And that is good because Ascalon and Clayface are duking it out and Clayface could use the assist, even with Batman and Zatanna showing up and taking down the Batwings. Kate and Cassandra are watching Numoz and aren’t doing that good a job because he slips away. Azrael arrives and begins to battle. But Numoz arrives too and gets his throat slit by Ascalon just as he is about to reveal that Ascalon is Azrael’s brother. Ascalon reveals that Jean Paul’s father is the guy responsible for all of this. Zatanna gives the Sphere to Ascalon, who had just had his chest punched open by Azrael.  Before it explodes, he reveals to Batman that Tim Drake is still alive. In the end, Numoz is buried at Wayne Manor and it looks like Jean-Paul’s father is involved with Ra’s al Ghul.

DETECTIVE COMICS #963 by James Tynion IV, Chris Sabela and Carmen Carnero. After a flashback with a tender moment between Tim and Steph, we go to the present here Spoiler has gone to Monster Town to meet up with Anarchy, who is Lonnie Machin.  He takes her below the city into the tunnels and shows her that there is a small city living here. Meanwhile, Clayface is dealing with letting Dr. October continue to try and experiment on him to find a cure.

THE FLASH #28 by Joshua Williamson and Carmine Di Giandomenico. While Barry deals with now being possessed by the Negative Speed Force, Director Singh reveals that someone inside the police has been stealing evidence from the Central City crime lab. Later, Flash goes after a group called the Road Reapers. He thinks they are fleeing from him, but they are actually fleeing from Shrapnel, who slays them as Barry is forced to watch.

THE FLASH #29 by Joshua Williamson and Pop Mhan. We begin with Barry trying to recover from his battle with Shrapnel, as he is not healing normally since he became the Negative Flash. Shrapnel’s punches caused an energy build-up that led to an explosion, thus defeating him. The team at the station are still trying to figure what the deal is with missing evidence and end up at a cop bar to try to get an idea of who might be responsible. Barry leaves and goes to the CCPD Records room, and finds a bunch of fellow officers injured in some sort of attack.  The records room has been torched and Barry, not wanting to use his abilities, carries them out…and them collapses as the fire burns.

GOTHAM ACADEMY SECOND SEMESTER #12 by Brenden Fletcher, Becky Cloonan, Karl Kerschl, Adam Archer and Bob Haynes. Olive Silverlock is still possessed by Amity Arkham and she has decided to kill herself rather than hurt her friends. But Maps shows up wearing one of Robin’s masks, which parallels Batman trying to save Amity, and the pair save each other as the besties they are. At the same time, the Terribke Trio gets defeated and the team recovers the book. In the end, the Academy gets reopened after the destruction of the fire and everyone is friends again As this series comes to a close.

GREEN ARROW #28 by Ben Percy and Juan Ferreyra. Ollie visits Lex Luthor to fing out the connection between Lexcorp and the attacker from last issue. Lex thinks it was a rogue employee trying to discredit him. Meanwhile, Henry has been made to create an app that is causing Lex Corp employees to try to kill themselves and is causing stocks to tumble. Lex recodes this virus and it now sends out a message of love. In the end, Lex is a hero, Superman tells Ollie is is happy about the change in him and Lex sends Ollie off to look in Gotham for clues.

GREEN ARROW #29 by Benjamin Percy and Juan Ferreyra. In Gotham, Police find a victim who has bed out due to a sliced open carotid artery. Batman is watching it all, while Oliver Queen goes to a party hosted by the Court of the Owls. He goes undercover and ends up hunting Talons while Batman saves those being menaced by them. It turns out that The Burned are also involved with all of this. After teaming up to defeat them, Batman suggests that Ollie go looking to the stars for help, suggesting a team-u with his old friend Hal Jordan. In the end, Henry, Emi and Canary discover that Wendy Poole is still alive and holds the key to Ollie being vindicated.

GREEN LANTERNS #28 by Sam Humphries and Eduardo Pansica. After learning how a Kryptonian woman became one of the original seven ring holders, we come to the present, where Simon and Jess are trapped in the past. Luckily, those first seven Lanterns arrive, even though they all want to fight about the power they possess. Jess explains that she needs to train them and that just irritates them further. Jan-Al, the Kryptonian,can’t control her willpower and ends up burning up, leaving just six of the original seven Lanterns. Meanwhile, Volthoom is desperately trying to get to Rami and his Travel Lantern.

GREEN LANTERNS #29 by Sam Humphries and Eduardo Pansica. Jess and SIons struggle with teaching the first six Lanterns how to use their rings. Simon gets a vision of Volthoom attacking and ultimately destroying the planet Zoron. He ultimately convinces the reluctant Lanterns to help and, when they see what Volthoom has done, they band together to hopefully save the day.

HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERNS CORPS #26 by Robert Venditti and Rafa Sandoval. Kyle and Hal have been sent to collect information on a sub-gravitational field but arrive to find the entire planetary system is destroyed. As they scan for survivors, they are visited by Orion of the New Gods, who says that Highfather has sent him out to find the White Lantern. Unfortunately, Kyle no longer has those powers and Orion gets shot from an unknown source by Omega Beams. The three of them head back to Mogo where Orion is shocked back to life. He is greatly upset as he explains that those beams were for him and that big metal monster that destroyed the planetary system is now here and gunning for him. Can you say collateral damage?

HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERNS CORPS #27 by Robert Vendetti and Rafa Sandoval. Hal, Kyle and Orion battle the golem, which is there to eliminate Orion. As it begins charging itself to full capacity, Kyle realizes that he can make an artificial heart out of a construct. So Orion which the doctor then removes. The creature goes away, believing Orion dead. Back on Mogo, the doctor and Kyle keep Orion in a comatose state with the artificial heart while Two-Lobe reads Orion’s mind. We learn that Orion is a descendant of Yuga Khan and the golems are made from Nth Metal. He also learns that they need to find Lightray, so John and Hal prepare to head to New genesis and warn them that the golems are coming.

HARLEY QUINN #25 by Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Paul Dini, Chad Hardin and Bret Blevins. Madison Berkowitz Has hired a group of assassins known as the Unconquerable 25 to take out Harley Quinn, who is hosting a birthday party for Sy Borgman. Harley takes out the assassins, but then the police arrive and it looks the sometime criminals are in a world of trouble. In the back-up, Harley stills needs to find a way to pay the carpenter and Joker has found out about the new hideout she has built for him…and is thrilled. How does it all end? Find out in HARLEY LOVES JOKER #1…coming soon, we hope.

HARLEY QUINN #26 by Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, and John Timms. Harley explains to Rivera that she and her friends had been attacked by the Unconquerable 25. Harley apparently acted like a one-woman army and sliced and diced the team. Even Harley Sinn lent a hand, allowing Harley Quinn to sort of forgive her for trying to kill her previously. In the end, the decision is made that there is only one way to stop Madison and the Mayor; run for Mayor herself.

THE HELLBLAZER #13 by Tim Seeley and Jesús Merino. Constantine wakes up from a vicious night of drinking, turns on the air conditioner in his motel room and gets covered in blood and guts. It seems that he got into an argument with the manager and, unconsciously, wished him to climb into the roof fans and kill himself. He heads off to meet with the man who he got drunk with only to find out that he’s a nurse in a hospital and likes to collect panties: certainly not the man who claimed to possess rare brews. In the end, a derelict kills himself and it seems a pair of demons are to blame.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #26 by Bryan Hitch and Fernando Pasarin. 20 Years from now, a bunch of teenagers in semi-familiar costumes head towards Mt. Olympus, which happens to be in the center of New York City. Here they battle someone named Curry, who may be the father of one of the kids and possesses a Black Lantern ring that they call a Dark Ring. They make their way into what is left of the old Infinity Corps building. They get a brief taped message from Vincent, who says the Stones will take them where they need to go. That’s when Sovereign arrives to menace them, but are saved as the Stones take them back in time. In the present, the Justice League is trying to deal with the death and destruction in Midway City when the teens arrive and explain that they are their children from the future and billions have died because of their parents.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #27 by Bryan Hitch and Fernando Pasarin. The League tries to get associated with their kids. It seems that Barry and Jessica have three and Diana has a son she abandoned and who was raised by Superman. Simon has no kids here because he eventually killed Sinestro and led the Yellow Lanterns. Cyrborg’s daughter Cube reveals their story: there was a war between the super-humans and the kids were spirited away to Mount Olympus to be safe. They grew up and eventually returned to a devastated Earth and lived there, until Sovereign arrived and dropped Olympus onto Earth. In the end, Batman is investigating stuff in the Batcave when he is visited and beat upon by an old friend: a scarred, one handed Aquaman-the Curry from last issue.