DC REBIRTH Month 14, Part 1

ACTION COMICS #983 by Dan Jurgens and Viktor Bogdanovic. Keles is attempting to get Lois and Jon out of the Fortress of Solitude while the Superman Revenge Squad faces off against Superman, Supergirl, Superwoman, Steel, New Superman, and Lex Luthor. The battle does not go well, leading to Zod getting his hands on the Phantom Zone Projector. He also destroys he getaway ship carrying Lois, Jon and Kelex. Zod, not about to be taken down by a revitalized group of heroes, sends them all to the Phantom Zone, along with the Eradicator and Cyborg Superman.

ACTION COMICS #984 by Dan Jurgens and Patrick Zircher. Lois and Jon used the Kryptonian flyer as a distraction, so they are still alive. Meanwhile, Zod punches Mogul into outer space wile he makes Blanque keep in touch Eradicator in the Phantom Zone. Zod attempts to kill Supergirl until Jon shows up in the Kryptonian Battle Suit and comes to her rescue. When Zod tears the suit apart, Krypto saves the day. In the Zone, Superman gets his sight back and dukes it out with Eradicator and Cyborg Superman. Ursa and Lor-Zod get freed of the Phantom Zone and Superman uses the projector to free his teammates, leaving Cyborg Superman behind. In the end, Zod and his family, along with Eradicator, plan for the future while we learn that the voice that was guiding Jon is Mr. Oz.

ALL STAR BATMAN #12 by Scott Snyder, Rafael Scavone, Rafael Albuquerque, and Sebastian Fiumara. Batman is still alive and trying to save everyone, including Tiger Shark. He has Alfred scream as loud as possible, which attracts some torpedoes that are attracted to human sound. In a flashback, we learn how Briar drafted Alfred to be the First Ally to his Dark Knight. Back in the present, Alfred is fixing up Bruce, who tells him he has the Genesis Engine and they ned to find the killer. Of course, Alfred refuses because the killer is Briar. Penguin and Black Mask arrive, free Hush and blow up the building Bruce and Alfred are in. In the back-up, Batman is still on the run as the Myasniks plan to take on Gotham.

AQUAMAN #26 by Dan Abnett and Stjepan Sejic. While Arthur and Dolphin try to escape the Drift, Mera desperately tries to break into the Crown of Thorns around Atlantis. Meanwhile, Murk is interrogating Vulko, but he refuses, referring to Murk as a traitor. After Murk leaves, Reverend Mother Cetera shows up and sets him Vulko. Dolphin takes Aquaman to the headquarters of the Deluge, where the leaders seem to think he is THE AQUAMAN. Drift Commander Urcell pumps Krush for information about this Aquaman, but he tells her the rumors are false. So she sends Kadaver to go after him anyway, who goes to Deluge and attacks, killing one member and beating up most everyone else. He is ready to Aquaman when Krush contacts him and demands he bring him back alive.

BANE CONQUEST #3 by Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan. Batman and Bane, after the villain takes a healthy dose of venom, head off after find Damocles, while Batman seeks out Dionysus, who is a deformed creature in his own mobile power suit. Bane catches up with Damocles and proceeds to break him. When the two meet up, Damocles has been beat badly and Batman insists he is taking Dionysus to justice, leading to a scuffle between Batman and Bane. In the process, Dionysus tries to escape, but not before Bane tries to stop him, leading to them crashing into the snow below. While Batman heads off to Bicaz, Dionysus convinces Bane to let him be a tool for him.

BATGIRL #13 by Hope Larson and Inaki Miranda. One of Barbara Gordon’s students, Esme, is searching for a famous lost dog and she gets saved from a bunch of thugs by Batgirl. This leads to them teaming up with Catwoman, who is searching for her lost cat Isis. They find the pets captured by the villain Velvet Tiger, who they take down with the help of all the captured dogs.

BATGIRL AND THE BIRDS OF PREY #12 by Julie Benson, Shawna Benson and Roge Antonio. Huntress, Batgirl and Canary have a plan where they are going undercover to try and save Calculator’s family. With Batman’s help, Batgirl masquerades as the Dark Knihgt and meets with Catwoman, explaining the kidnapping to her. We learn that Catwoman was stealing from Terracare to get her hands on something to give to Poison Ivy, who is working undercover at Terracare. Inside, Canary and Helena find Ivy who unleashes his plant powers on everyone and everybody associated with Terracare. Can the rest of the team get there in time to save everyone before it’s too late.

BATMAN #26 by Tom King and Mikel Janin. While the Joker is killing a cab driver and a family, the Riddler is getting fixed up by Dr. Knowles, before deciding to use the bullet hole as the dot at the bottom of the question mark he carves into his chest. And, of course, he kills he doc when he’s done. The Joker calls Carmine Falcone and tells him he has an hour to kill The Riddler or else. The Riddler is walking through the park with Poison Ivy when Carmine’s men show up and she quickly kills them all. Carmine and crew find Joker in Carmine’s office, with Carmine’s mother’s teeth. Joker kills many, insists that Penguin now become HIS assistant and declares how he is taking over Falcone’s organization.

BATMAN #27 by Tom King and Clay Mann. Meet Chuck Brown, who is forced by Batman to set up a meeting to set up a meeting between him and the Joker. Riddler learns of this and that just makes things worse. Chuck meets with Batman with explosives strapped to his chest by the Joker. But the explosives are fake and that just leads to an escalation of the war between the two villains. The Riddler has poisoned the string on Chuck's son's kite, causing the boy’s death. In response, Chuck creates the villain Kite-Man and joins the Joker's side in the war.

BATMAN BEYOND #10 by Dan Jurgens and Bernard Chang. Damian and Terry continue to battle and, when things look bad for Damian, he calls out Goliath. Damian reveals that he

joined Ra's Al Ghul when he found out about Batman's Brother Eye project. Ra's use of the Lazarus Pit eventually became immune to its’ rejuvenating effects and died, leaving Damian to take his place. Terry recuperates, as the sit’s A.I. has taken over, and apparently kills Goliath. And now-maybe Damian is next.

BATWOMAN #5 by Marguerite Bennett, James Tynion IV and Stephanie Hans. Flashing back to after Kate’s accident that left her on Coryana.  Safiyah and Rafael have saved her, but this leads to issues with Tahani, who is ordered to leave by Safiyah. Safiyah and Kate become romantically involved and Kate becomes involved in plans to help the local warlords get rich. Rafael learns that Tahani is working with one of the warlords to kill Kate. Tahani decides to do the job herself, leading to an at sea wrestling match that takes them both into the water. Despite Sixth pleading otherwise, Safiyah saves Kate. In the end, Kate is asked to stay with Safiyah and we see the bloody body of of Sixth on the shore.

BLUE BEETLE #11 by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Scott Kolins. Jaime has not been taken over by the scarab…he is just messing with Ted. Fate takes down Arion and OMAC kills Mordecai after he turns into a flying bug. Back at school, Jaime gets detention because he spends too much time talking to the scarab. Ghostfire is ready to  take out Blue Beetle and now batman wants to get involved.

CYBORG #14 by John Semper Jr. and Will Conrad. Anomaly, Variant, Exxy and Cyborg are in  a wormhole and Blue, the sax player from several issues back shows up. Are some advice, the crew find themselves in a parallel world, where Anomaly has created his cybernetic world. As they get attacked by the cybernetic creatures, Beast Boy arrives to save them and take them to a safe place. It gets revealed that the voice in Anomaly's head is actually Cyborg’s mother, Elinore Stone. It seems that Silas Stone was able to cure her of her cancer, but Anomaly stole the OTAC formula and created a virus that has ruined this world. They need to get the cure, but the Metal Men stand in their way.

DARK DAYS THE CASTING #1 by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Jim Lee, Andy Kubert, and John Romita Jr. We begin in the past, as the Wizard Shazam gives a mysterious sect, that has Ra’s al Ghul as a member, a dagger that wields the power of Shazam. In the present, Batman is at the gates of Hephaestus' forge. Wonder Woman meets him there and gives him Apollo's flaming sword. This leads him to an underground complex in the Arizona desert, where he finds Dubbilex.  It seems Cadmus Labs were using the metal from Shazam's dagger to activate meta-humans, but it caused destruction.  Dubbilex apparently dies, but Talia Al Ghul arrives to claim the dagger, which she allows Batman to take in exchange for Apollo’s sword. Back at the Batcave, Duke accidentally releases Joker from his energy field confinements, where it is learned that Duke is The Signal that will allow Batman to get the answers about the dark metals. After using his abilities to recreate Green Lantern’s ring, Duke reconstructs Batman’s Genesis Machine to see into the Dark Dimension. But he can’t because it is being blocked by the Dark Multiverse's Batmen.

DEATHSTROKE #21 Christopher Priest and Diogenes Neves. We begin with Willow fighting and killing legendary Ying Zheng. The switch then is to Adeline, who is briefing government officials about Project Defiance. While Kid Flash tries to pick Power Girl’s brain about whether he should trust Slade, Rose and Jericho are trying to figure out who killed his bride to be.  Slade goes off to Chetlan United, where he kills the president’s back-up chauffeur, who has been dealing bad drugs and killing kids with them. In the end, the team heads to a situation in the Bronx while Terra meets with Adeline and Wintergreen.

DETECTIVE COMICS #960 by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez. After a flashback with Batman and Zatanna, we switch to the Red Cathedral where Ascalon is told to go to Gotham and find Azrael. At the Belfry, Jean-Paul is following his demon to put on a special costume. Meanwhile, Zatanna introduces Bruce to the Gnosis Sphere, that ties to the God Machine. She explains the history of it and it ties to the infamous Nth Metal. In the end, Ascalon arrives at Foxtech just as a reborn Azrael appears.

DETECTIVE COMICS #961 by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez. In the past, Zatanna shows Bruce the Gnosis Sphere, but Zatara arrives and they mind wipe him. In the present, Batman gets an emergency call from Luke, as he and Kate are fighting Azrael. Orphan gets involved, but it takes the arrival of Batman and Zatanna to take Azrael down with a magic spell. In the end, Luke has a new batsuit which he has designed and plans on putting Jean Paul into. Meanwhile, Ascalon and his Batwing Army head to the Belfry to battle Clayface and Numoz.  

THE FLASH #26 by Joshua Williamson and Howard Porter. In the “Near Future", a bearded Barry Allen says goodbye to Iris and proceeds to battle his villainous kids, Don and Dawn. This is the future that Eobard Thawne shows the present-day Barry Allen and Iris West. As Barry tries to explain to Iris, Thawne convinces him to follow him into the Negative Speed Force and he will never hurt Iris or her family. Of course, Thawne lies and heads Back to kill Iris, who has armed herself with a Black Hole gun. That’s when an angry Barry, affected by Negative Speed energy, arrives to confront Thawne.

THE FLASH #27 by Joshua Williamson, Paul Pelletier and Howard Porter. Negative Flash battles Reverse Flash as they travel through history, giving us glimpses of Anthro, Etrigan, The Shining Knight, Sgt. Rock among others. Back in the future, it seems that Barry has stolen Thawne’s powers and Iris kills him with the Black Hole gun. Iris vents on Barry and demands he take her home. They visit Wally in the hospital and she tells Barry to go away.

 GOTHAM ACADEMY SECOND SEMESTER #11 by Brenden Fletcher, Becky Cloonan, Karl Kerschl and Adam Archer. Kyle is injured and Maps blames Olive for it. Olive goes outside and the Terrible Trio, calling her Amity Arkham, try to convince her to go with them. Meanwhile, Kyle wakes and tells Maps, Pomeline and Colton that the secret to save Olive is in Wayne Manor. So they make their way into Wayne Manor, which they find is being robbed by Two Face. Pomeline and Colton get captured and Maps and Damian Wayne team up to save the day. Later, Robin arrives with the secret box the kids were searching for and Maps ends up wearing a Robin mask as she prepares to go save her friend.

GREEN ARROW #26 by Ben Percy and Stephen Byrne. Ollie is on the road to the Cascade Mountains to find the Ninth Circle. The Flash shows up and that leads to a team-up, where they discover that the Black Hole and The Burned are involved. Our heroes take them down and learn that there is a Speed Force bomb set to go off in Washington. Meanwhile, Ollie’s lawyer is mad he skipped bail and Black Canary asks Emiko for help with the problem of the Underground Men.

GREEN ARROW #27 by Ben Percy and Jamal Campbell. Ollie and Barry are investigating a murder at a lobbyist company in Washington. Soon, there is a war suit demonstration at an Arms Vendor Showcase that goes bad when the person in the war suit starts shooting everyone in sight. Ollie takes the bad guy down and as he is about to torture him for information, Wonder Woman shows up to stop him. She uses her lasso to find out the Ollie is innocent, leading them to a senator making a speech. The Ninth Circle attempts an attack and the duo save her. But she ends up in her limo with one of the Burned and learn that the Ninth Circle helped get her elected. Wonder Woman and Arrow save her a second time. Flash contacts Ollie and says the war suit seems to point to Lexcorp and that’s where he heads. Meanwhile, Black Canary and Emiko's get closer to finding the Auctioneer.

 GREEN LANTERNS #26 by Sam Humphries and Ronan Cliquet. From the journal of Rami, we see how the first seven Lantern rings were created from Volthoom's Travel Lantern. The Great Heart gets planted into Volthoom’s chest and we learn that his travelling back in time  to save his planet from exploding actually caused the destruction of his planet. The Guardians decide to take the Travel Lantern from him and he slays them all except for Rami, who destroys the Lantern and creates the rings from it.

GREEN LANTERN #27 by Sam Humphries and Ronan Cliquet. Jessica is fighting a giant monster on a planet of lava and trying to connect with Simon, whose ring has been destroyed. She uses her ring to find his heartbeat and that brings them back together. She sends out a distress signal and them pair hunker down to survive the night. In the end, they discover they are on Earth, 10 billion years ago. And that is when seven unidentified Green Lanterns arrive to rescue them.

HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERNS CORPS #24 by Robert Vendetti and Ethan Van Sciver. Romat-Ru’s taunts led Tomar-Tu to kill him. Fantas-M saw it all and agreed not to tell. John Stewart visits Bolphunga to tell him that is being sent back to his friends and they will be told how he tried to cut a deal with the Lanterns. Meanwhile, Soranik is so mad that Kyle killed their future son that she burns a Sinestro Corps symbol into his chest. In the end, John Stewart makes a public Tomar-Tu’s crime public and the Sinestro Corps is hee to take him away.

HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERNS CORPS #25 by Robert Vendetti and Ethan Van Sciver. The Sinestro Corps want Tomar-Tu for killing one of their members. Guy shows up with a branded Kyle Rayner, leading Soranik to admit the branding and telling how Kyle killed a descendant of Sinestro. She changes her name to Soranik Sinestro and calls the Sinestro Corps to her side. Some wish to stay with the Green Lantern and that leads to a battle between the two groups. John Stewart installed a failsafe in the Sinestro Corps battery which keeps their rings from being used against green. The Sinestro Corps leave and that leads to the Lanterns dismantling the Sinestro Corps lantern on Mogo. Those members leaving the Sinestro Corps are sworn in as Green Lanterns and Tomar-Tu pleads guilty. Hal has him send his ring to Xudar, where it finds Somar-Le. In the end, we see the Antimatter Universe, where a badly burned Sinestro is shown in Lyssa Drak’s arms. Their rings glow yellow and that can only mean trouble.

HARLEY QUINN #23 by Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, Paul Dini, John Timms and Bret Blevins. After Harley knocks out Harley Sinn for having Madame and Mason Macabres, she goes off on a dinner cruise with Goat Boy and her parents. But the ship gets robbed by the Clock King and Sportsmaster. Meanwhile, the Mayor and Madison Berkowitz seem to be getting away with murder, much to the dismay of Chief Spoonsdale, who punches the Mayor out in the bathroom of a restaurant. And Red Tool recruits Ivy for a plan. In the back-up, Harley and the Carpenter work on the new hideout, which Harley can’t pay for due to cost overruns. And Joker makes a deal with the Penguin to help kill Batman.

HARLEY QUINN #24 by Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, Paul Dini, John Timms, Joseph Michael Linsner, and Bret Blevins. Even though Gat Boy is trying to stop Clock King and Sportsmaster, it’s Harley’s dad who saves the day. The bad guys transport away, but end up in Power Girl’s bathroom. Later, Big Tony tells Harley that it’s Sy Borgman’s birthday tomorrow, so that will lead to a party. Meanwhile, Devani tries to convince Red Tool that they should team up to fight crime. In the end, Madison Berkowitz makes a call to hire Unconquerable 25 to kill Harley and her friends. In the Back-up, Harley fights the Carpenter and that leads to her dressing as a gorilla and start robbing fast food joints.

THE HELLBLAZER #12 by Simon Oliver and Davide Fabbri. Dante’s sister is still being tracked by Leon and the Djinn and that leads to Dante’s friend getting beheaded in the process. John meets with Dante and Mercury convinces him to join the to get the book. They retrieve the book and then Leon, Djinn and company arrive with Sam in tow. John convinces them to let Dante, Merc and Sam to leave with the book and he gives himself to the Djinn, who kills him. In actuality, his planned death goes awry as Misabel makes sure that John’s chance at redemption goes south.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #24 by Dan Abnett and Ian Churchill. Atlantis has been covered by a dome, the East Coast is about to be wiped out by a tidal wave and, when the Justice League arrives, they are attacked by Mera. She explains that she is trying to break the barrier to save Arthur and will stop anyone who stands in her way.  While she takes down the League with ease, Batman takes her down with a Hypersonic Screamer, which clears her memory. They take her back to the Watchtower and she becomes a member.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #25 by Bryan Hitch and Tom Derenick. A captured Molly tells Batman about the threat of Shirak and how everything is about crisis, flashpoints and rebirth. A teacher friend of Cyborg’s kills himself and a bunch of people are transform into creatures as Shirak is reborn. The League arrives and saves the day, as Shirak is transformed back into Cyborg’s friend we thought was dead. In the end, Molly tells Bruce his future will hold him accountable for his past.