DC REBIRTH Month 18, Part 1

ACTION COMICS #991 by Dan Jurgens and Viktor Bogdanovic. Superman is taken by his father to his lair where he sees where Mr. Mxyzptlk was locked up and also sees a restrained Doomsday. Father and son battle, as Jor-El blasts Superan with his Kryptonite eye. Frustrated, Suprman breaks Jor-El’s staff, which is keeping his Kryptonite poisoning in check, while the father explains that he never wanted to do what he did and has been controlled all along. Jor-El gets sucked away by the mysterious blue light, which also transports Superman back to his Fortress of Solitude.  This will lead to Superman’s search for his father as well the upcoming DOOMSDAY CLOCK mini-series.

ACTION COMICS #992 by Dan Jurgens, Rob Williams and Will Conrad. Clark finds himself dealing with the revelation that Oz is his father Jor-El and is trying to figure out how to find him. He ends up on Mogo where he sees Tomar-Re’s recording of the destruction of Krypton. Then they realize that the file has been corrupted-tampered with so that no one can see what happens after baby Kal-El’s ship leaves the planet. Upon further investigation, Superman finds that the file is fine, but someone has messed with time. He ends up using the Flash’ Cosmic Treadmill to travel back to Krypton. Unfortunately, Booster Gold arrives too late to stop him and stop Superman from destroying the timeline.

AQUAMAN #30 by Dan Abnett and Stjepan Sejic. The resistance begins in earnest as many of the key players in Atlantis, The Undercurrent, decide to revolt against King Rath. They are joined by Aquaman and Dolphin, who reveals that they are still alive. Vulko and Delphine show up and present Arthur with the trident they recovered. Meanwhile, Mera finds out that she cannot breathe underwater anymore because the amulet she was given by Garth is broken and is captured by King Shark, who wants to become the new boss of the Ninth Trides.

AQUAMAN ANNUAL #1 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Max Fiumara. It’s many years from now, and Aquaman, Mera and their son meet with Superman, Wonder Woman and Hal Jordan. They eventually get attacked by rebels, led by Murk, who are here to kill their son, who he insists is not really their son. Batman arrives, and we see that this is all a nightmare caused by something called the Red Seep. In the end, the nightmare is broken, leaving Arthur and Mera to ponder the future, including the non-existent child they have lost.

BANE CONQUEST #7 by Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan. Bane gets away from the attack by Kobra submarine and the Naja Naja gets rescued, only to slip inside the sub and break his neck. With the Naja Naja dead, the search is on, resulting in finding a baby in Bludhaven bearing the scared mark. Bane and his team arrive to find the baby is already in the clutches of one of Kobra’s operatives. She plays the sympathy card and that momentary distraction allows Kobra’s army to show up and prepare to kill Bane and his men.

BATGIRL #17 by Hope Larson and Chris Wildgoose. In the past, Batgirl and Robin fight Mad Hatter and try to save her friend Ainsely, only to have Hatter reveal that Ainsley was a drug addict, even without his help. Her response it s to beat him so badly she almost kills him. In the present, the pair take on Ainsley’s revenge driven sister Edith, now known as the Red Queen. The nanobots bite Dick and he becomes a follower of Edith, trying to kill Barbara. She uses her neural implant to fill Dick full of memories, which shocks him back to himself and they take the Red Queen down together. In the end, as we see Edith in a mental ward, Dick promises he will always be around for Barbara.

BATGIRL AND THE BIRDS OF PREY #16 by Julie Benson, Shawna Benson and Roge Antonio. The newly formed team of female heroes and villains go on a search to find who is responsible for the plague while also trying to come up with an anti-virus. They find a nurse trying to infect Ollie and discover that a group called the Daughters of Gotham is responsible for this. In the end, the team confronts the cult and Batwoman, Batgirl and Harley Quinn are captured and taken to their leader, Patient Zero.

being taken to the cult's leader.

BATMAN #34 by Tom King and Joelle Jones. Batman and Catwoman fight the Silent Army of the Pit, who were sent to battled them just so Talia could have them tired out. That leads to a sword fight between Batman and Talia, with him taking the worst of it. Batman reveals he is here to bring back Holly Robinson, so Catwoman and Talia begun their sword fight. Meanwhile, Superman confronts Damian and Dick, forcing them to wait outside the temple until Batman reappears.

BATMAN #35 by Tom King and Joelle Jones. Selina Kyle and Talia Al Ghul duel, with Selina beating Talia and meeting with Holly, who she tries to convince to come back to Gotham and own up to her crime. In the end, they all leave…minus Holly Robinson.

BATMAN ANNUAL #2 by Tom King, Lee Weeks, and Michael Lark. We have a story which presents the early days in the career of Batman and Catwoman, as they play cat and mouse and become emotionally involved. In the end, we see Batman on his death bed with his wife Selina by his side.

BATMAN BEYOND #14 by Dan Jurgens and Phil Hester. Bruce has just gotten out from having back surgery and that means Terry and Matt are staying with him for a while.  Bruce goes back to work on the classic Batsuit while Terry visits with Dana, where they end up in bed together. Soon he is called into action because the Royal Flush Gang is back in action. Terry confronts them and, just as Bane did back in the day, he finds himself with his back cracked over the knee of Ace.

BATMAN LOST #1 by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Doug Mahnke, Yanick Paquette, Jorge Jimenez and Jaime Mendoza. An old Bruce Wayne tells a story to his young granddaughter. She looks through a collection of books, as he made journals of hios major cases including Knightfall, The Long Halloween and Hush. She picks her favorite, which is The Case of the Chemical Syndicate. Throughout the story, Bruce realizes there are things wrong with the events of the narrative. In the end, we learn that Barbatos is the being responsible for creating Batman and that all of this is part of Batman’s dream while captured in the Dark Multiverse.

BATMAN THE DEVESTATOR #1 by Frank Tieri, James Tynion and Tony S. Daniel. The Devastator is the Batan from Earth-1 who injected himself with Doomsday DNA to become the creature he is. After killing that world’s Superman and Lois Lane, The Batman Who Laughs convinces him to join his team and he comes to Earth-0, where he decimates Lobo. In the process, he has managed to infect everyone with the Doomsday virus, including Lois who begins to turn by issues end. In the end, we see that our Superman is still being held captive in the Dark Multiverse.

BATMAN WHO LAUGHS #1 by James Tynion IV and Riley Rossmo. On Earth -22, The Joker destroys Gotham and everyone in it, forcing Batman to kill the villain by snapping his neck. Batman has his family of heroes come to the Bat Cave where he reveals that the chemical released from Joker’s body at the time of his death is changing him. And then he shoots them all, before going out and killing off the Justice League. After destroying his world, Barbatos finds him and gives him the chance to destroy multiple worlds, resulting in this Batman’s plans to conquer the universe with the corrupted Justice League.

BATWOMAN #9 by Marguerite Bennett and Fernando Blanco. While under the influence of Scarecrow’s psychedelic drugs, Batwoman and Colony Prime go on a hunt to retrieve Colony Prime’s helmet. They get the helmet and find a power outlet within the real world, allowing them to send a distress signal to Julia and the Colony.  The hallucinations get worse, but Kate uses her skills to transform herself into a giant bat and turns on Scarecrow.

BLACK LIGHTNING: COLD DEAD HANDS #1 by Tony Isabella and Clayton Henry. Jefferson Pierce fights crime as Black Lightning while also dealing with his father’s death. The old Tobias Whale is dead, killed by his uncle for taking his name. Then the real Whale kills his sister with a ship model, before launching his plan to discredit Back Lightning. While stop a bunch of criminals, they get electrocuted by one of Whale’s minions and that leads to Pierce being wanted by the police for murder.

BLUE BEETLE #15 by Christopher Sebela, Scott Kolins and Tom Derenick. Jaime finds himself getting beaten up by the aliens but gets away as Paco uses the car to run one of the aliens down. They end up crashing in an abandoned town where the motel they are staying in gets invaded by a group of senior citizens and feral children with guns. They learn that they are actually “the aliens”, who have been rescued from a senior citizen home by a mysterious benefactor who has given half of them youth and the other have stay aged…and then the process repeats. In the end, there is another time shift and it looks like the mad benefactor is at it again.

CYBORG #18 by John Semper Jr. and Will Conrad. Having defeated the Anomaly of the digital world, Exxy and Cyborg head home, with Variant staying behind to help them rebuild. Once back, they find that Anomaly's soldiers are destroying Detroit. As the battle rages, Anomaly realizes he has made a mistake, frees Silas Stone and sacrifices himself to save the world.

DEATHSTROKE #25 by Christopher Priest and Carlo Pagulayan. Deathstroke has been captured by The Society and is being put on trial by them. Finally, after having to relive his life, Deathstroke rebels and kills Grodd, Black Manta and Vandal Savage. It turns out to be just an illusion to prove that Deathstroke is STILL a villain. He gets freed by a surprise visitor who will be the only one to dish out justice.

THE DEMON HELL IS EARTH #1 by Andrew Constant and Brad Walker. Jason Blood is wrestling with his inner demon in the form of Etrigan, thus he finds himself hiding out in Death Valley. Madame Zanadu is on is trail, as she keep having visions. At the same time, a government missile test goes wrong and the rocket crashes near where Blood and a family of travelers are. This not only unleashes Etrigan, but a demon from underground.

DETECTIVE COMICS #968 by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez. Brother Eye has been activated and the Bat Family fights against Future Tim, who steals away with our Tim and tries to convince him to let him finish his mission to kill Batwoman. But time is short as Hypertime is fighting to pull Future Tim away. He arrives at the Belfry and confronts Kate, but he also finds that Brother Eye doesn’t have the control Tim thought he had. His attempt to infect all of the computer systems fails and he is pulled back to the future with a final warning to Tim.

DETECTIVE COMICS #969 by James Tynion IV and Joe Bennett. New Mayor Akins is holding a press conference about what he plans to do about the vigilante problem in Gotham. Meanwhile, Steph visits Lonnie at Arkham, but leaves when the discussion turns to the First Victim, she gets up to leave.  Later, she meets up with Tim, who she is both surprised and thrilled to see is alive. At the same time, Killer Moth has put together his own Rogues Gallery and means to take out the Bat Family. But Clayface has infiltrated the group and leads the attack on the villains while Batman meets with the Mayor. In the end, it seems Lonnie has friends in low places as he gets hooked up with the First Victim and the Victim Syndicate.

DOOMSDAY CLOCK #1 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Seven years have passed since the end of THE WATCHMAN book and Ozymandias' plan for world peace has failed. He meets with The Marionette and together they get The Mute out of jail, where they travel to the underground lair of Nite Owl and meet with Ozmandias, who says they need to find Dr. Manhattan. Meanwhile, Superman has a dream, for the first time in his life, about the night his parents.

THE FLASH #34 by Joshua Williamson, Michael Moreci and Pop Mhan. Meena reveals tht she knows the Negative Speed Force is killing Barry and arranges for he and Wally to race to test her theory. Meena turns the tables on Flash and she reveals she is working with Black Hole, leading to her stealing his Negative Speed Force, turning her into the Negative Flash. Meanwhile, Barry’s partner complains about being stuck at Iron Heights with Barry.

THE FLASH #35 by Joshua Williamson, Michael Moreci and Pop Mhan. It seems that Black Hole saved Meena when she was near death and now she wants revenge. Barry chases after Meena, but has to end the pursuit to save Kid Flash, with them teaming up to take down Black Hole. Raijin, the God of Lightning, turens out to be the person behind Black Hole and he pans on taking on the world. Meanwhile, Kristen is doing late night investigating at Iron eights and it may have just cost her her life.

GREEN ARROW #34 by Ben Percy and Stephen Byrne. After a brief flashback of Ollie with his father, his mother explains how she went from living on the streets to eventually becoming art of the Ninth Circle. Meanwhile, Diggle is in his bunker in the Olympic Mountains fixing up Merlyn, who he still owes a debt to, even though it looks like Merlyn may kill Diggle in the end. Back in Star City, Ollie and Black Canary take down the Clock King. Things look bad for Ollie as it seems that Wendy Poole may not be mentally able to be Ollie’s alibi and that leads him back into the arms of his mother, who still has access to some of the Ninth Circle’s “toys”.

GREEN ARROW ANNUAL #1 by Benjamin Percy and Eleonora Carlini. In a tale set prior to the events in GREEN ARROW #25, Strange bees attack Ollie and his friends on Christmas morning. When he wakes, he finds himself in a world totally changed. In fact, they al do. It seems that Count Vertigo has installed a device in the Space Needle that is making all the residents of Star City try to walk into the ocean and drown themselves. Dinah uses her Canary Cry to defeat him and they all have a Merry Christmas.

GREEN LANTERNS #34 by Tim Seeley and Ronan Cliquet. With Jessica still trying to save the people of Mol, Simon is with the Ungarans, where he uses his powers to heal the Regent’s daughter. Jessica finally saves the Molites and transports them to the Ungaran ship, where it looks like Simon may have a special moment in the future with the Regent’s daughter. In the end, it seems that Kesh Cur doesn’t want to Molites aligned with his Ungarans and kills Commodore Psyt for failing his mission. Jessica ends up back on Earth and Simon, without a job, crashes in the Lantern Sector House. But wait…Bolphunga the Unrelenting has come to Earth to kill some Green Lanterns.

GREEN LANTERNS #35 by Tim Seeley and Carlo Barberi. Bolphunga the Unrelenting has arrived and mixes it up with Jessica and eventually Simon. It seems that the alien needs the Lanterns help as he cut a deal with Singularity Jain to get out of prison and now he is a wanted man for not completing his assignment.  The Lanterns contact John Stewart to find out this may be a lie and they are supposed to take him into custody. But, despite what John says, Singularity Jain has arrived and is ready to take matters into her own hands.

HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERNS CORPS #32 by Robert Vendetti, Ethan Van Sciver and Liam Sharp. A DARK NIGHTS METAL tie-in, BATS OUT OF HELL PART 3. Hal battles the Dawnbreaker in his Nightmare Batcave, where he seems to be winning but ultimately loses the battle and is taken off to power up the multiversal tower where the rest of his fallen teammates are. Meanwhile, Batman Who Laughs is trying to extract Element X from within Cyborg.

HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERNS CORPS #33 by Robert Venditti, Tom Derenick and Jack Hebert. While Hal and Kyle are trying to help the residents of Planet Molta, Somar-Le is training with Ganthet and Sayd., until they get attacked by The Controllers, who are determined to eliminate all of the Guardians.

HARLEY QUINN #31 by Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti and John Timms. Mason has been kidnapped and Harley has dropped out of the race for Mayor. After speaking with his mother, she realizes that the Mayor will still have Mason killed, so she and Harley Sinn head off to Fire Island to save him. They end up being captured, with Sinn being shot. Helpless, Harley is forced to watch as the Mayor seemingly executes Mason.

HARLEY QUINN #32 by Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, Bret Blevins and John Timms. After watching Mason get executed, the Mayor has Harley shot and it looks like Harley Sinn is next. But Harley Quinn has gotten the upper hand by NOT getting shot in the head (she has her kill shot actually disarm her brain bomb)  and proceeds to take out all of the henchmen but one, who spills his guts before being left to Harley Sinn. Our gal informs Mason’s mom o the horrible news about her son before engaging on an assault on the Mayor’s mansion. She takes out his henchmen, beheads Madison and leaves her head in the Mayor’s bed, before allowing Madame Macabre the satisfaction of getting her revenge on the Mayor. In the end, Harley carries Mason’s dead body away.

THE HELLBLAZER #16 by Richard Kadrey and Davide Fabbri. Constantine is in San Francisco, looking to meet with an old friend Jenny following the death of several mages by someone dubbed the “Thank You Killer”. It seems everyone who has died was a member of the Wheel of Time church. Along the way, Jenny gets murdered and John encounters a demon named Kala Bhairab, before b eing confronted by the Bay Area Grand Dawn Coven, who want to question him about Jenny’s death.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #32 by Robert Venditti and Liam Sharp. A DARK NIGHTS METAL tie-in, BATS OUT OF HELL PART 2. Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Hal Jordan all are forced to face off against the corresponding villains from the Dark Multiverse, with each losing in the end. And Cyborg: well, he’s been captured too and Batman Who Laughs is planning to use him as their secret weapon.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #33 by Joshua Williamson, Tyler Kirkham and Mikel Janin. A DARK NIGHTS METAL tie-in, BATS OUT OF HELL FINALE. With Cyborg held captive, his Mother Box tells him to give himself up so he can be upgraded and be able to stop the Dark Multiverse army. The bad news is this upgrade could wipe Vic Stone the person out of existence. But a voice inside convinces him that he can be upgraded and still be Vic. Vic accepts and frees the rest of the team, discovering that Raven was actually the voice inside him. The team escapes and end up in Hypertime before being transported to off to “hack the Multiverse”. While that seems to be a good thing, they may actually be playing into Barbatos’ plans.