DC UNIVERSE Month 7, Part 2

MAN OF STEEL #2 by Brian Michael Bendis, Doc Shaner, Steve Rude, and Jay Fabok. Superman battles the original Toyman. He defeats him and passes him off to Hal Jordan. Fter being quizzed about how he is doing, Superman goes off to work at the Planet, where everyone wants to know what is going on between Clark and Lois, as they are apparently “estranged”. More fires break out mysteriously in Metropolis and Rogol Zaar, who may have been somewhat responsible for the destruction of Krypton, heads to Earth.

MAN OF STEEL #3 by Brian Michael Bendis, Ryan Sook and Jason Fabok. Rogol Zaar comes to Earth and invades the Fortress of Solitude, destroying Kelex in the process. Meanwhile, Madison Moore, along with Superman and Batman, investigate the most recent fire in Metropolis. Superman hears a signal and races to the Fortress, where he finds Supergirl. He also finds that the bottled city of Kandor has been destroyed, killing everyone. This sends them off to find the culprit and binging them face to face with Rogol Zaar. And what is going on with the mysterious ship with the bald-headed pilot that has appeared at some point in the Kent’s apartment?

MAN OF STEEL #4 by Brian Michael Bendis, Kevin Maguire and Jason Fabok. Superman and Supergirl continue to battle Rogol Zaar, who knocks out Superman during their fight. After reliving the arrival of what turns out to be Jor-El, who wants to take Jon with him, he wakes to find that Green Lantern has arrived. Knowing that Zaar is looking to eliminate all Kryptonians, just like he did with Krypton, Superman goes to the Fortress of Solitude, where it seems Zaar has plans to kill all of his family, including Lois and Jon. This angers Superman and his powers cause him to go Super-Nova.

MAN OF STEEL #5 by Brian Michael Bendis, Adam Hughes and Jason Fabok. Superman battles Rogol Zaar in deep space, while Supergirl continues to save people from the rash of fires happening in Metropolis. Kara heads out to find her cousin beaten badly on the surface of the moon. Back at Justice League headquarters, a healing Superman finally realizes that Zaar is planning to destroy the Earth as he did Krypton, which leads him to the center of the Earth for a confrontation. And Jor-El: he has plans to taken Jon into space to learn Kryptonian ways and Jon wants to go.

MERA QUEEN OF ATLANTIS #5 by Dan Abnett and Lan Medina. Mera gets attacked by Leron, her original teacher. She explains hat’s happening and thy go off to see Nereus. He agrees to help her fight Corum Rath, but only if Orm is instated as King of Atlantis. To push her, Tula has been captured and she will be Nereus’ bride if she doesn’t agree. She decides that she will fight Orm for the kingdom, and he accepts.

MOTHER PANIC GOTHAM A.D. #4  by Jody Houser and Ibrahim Moustafa. Jason Todd is still trying to clen up Gotham and has eliminated all other Robins and the Joker. He sends his own child Joker out to cause havoc and Fox and Panic get involved, with Fox taking him don by severing the muscles behind his ankles. A wounded Scarecrow goes back to Jason, to explain their failure and Todd kills him.

NEW CHALLENGERS #2 by Scott Snyder, Aaron Gillespie and Andy Kubert. As we learn that Moses Barber was a hacker who was murdered by some mysterious mummies after finding some mysterious code he pulled off a LexCorp server, we jump into the action with the team fighting the giant crab monster. Aquaman arrives to help save them but is then troubled by a vision of Atlantis falling. The team continue on and faces some strange new opponents. Prof instructs them to leave but Moses goes after an item he feels connected to, even encountering another mummy in the process. He gets the item and they head back to base. Prof says he will explain everything until he gets shot…by the classic Challengers team

NEW SUPER-MAN AND THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF CHINA #24 by Gene Luen Yang and Brent Peeples. Baixi and Kenan battle each other in a vide game before Kenan travels t the Realm of Ghosts to free Master I-Ching. But he has transported the League with him. They are then forced to fight evil future versions of themselves. Kenan meets with his future self before Master I-Ching arrives to defeat the future Kenan and explain that Kenan needs to focus on the goodness that is him and not the goodness that will never be. By using is mind, he transports his friends back home.

NIGHTWING #45 by Ben Percy and Chris Mooneyham. Dick wakes up and finds himself in bed with Barbara Gordon. But this may all be a part of him being infected by the Phantasm system. Dick goes off to train Willelm at the Bludhaven docks and Willem finds a dead body in the ocean. Detective Svoboda shows u and explains that the dead guy was killed virtually.  Dick calls Barbara, who is off saving a dog. He gets home and finds that Barbara is really a digital monster created by the Phantasm system.

PLASTIC MAN #1 by Gail Simone and Adriana Melo. Eel O’Brien, currently undercover, finds himself getting beat up by some thugs who he once worked with. But that’s okay because Eel got hit with some kind of gas on their last job and that turned him into Plastic Man. Later, he goes out and beats up some of these guys looking for information, as it seems he may have killed a security guard during this last heist. Back in his apartment, Spyral’s Obscura shows up and requests his help. Suddenly, he gets a call from his old friend Benny. When he shos up, Benny is dying and scrawls the letters JLA on the wall in his blood. Before he can react, the military arrives and have Plastic Man in their sights for allegedly killing Benny.

RAVEN DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS #6 by Marv Wolfman and Pop Mhan. Raven dies at the hands of her father, but she is brought back to life by the combined sacrifice of the faceless girls. Trigon transports himself back to an earlier time and it takes Raven and the faceless ones, living in her soul gem, to defeat him. This all leads to her being part of Baron Wnter’s new Night Force. In the end, Teri goes off to lie with her new family, Raven’s mom and aunt make amends and Raven must prepare for the next arc: battling the Shadow Riders.

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #23 by Scott Lobdell and Trevor Hairsine. Jason finally gets to read the letters he was given. They are from his father, who is in prison after many years of working as a henchman for many of Gotham’s most famous villains. Dad took many of these jobs to care for his son and his drug addicted wife. In the end, Jason is seen digging up his father’s grave while the Penguin is preparing to kill Red Hood. Jason finds the grave empty, as his father is not dead and may actually be getting an early release.

SIDEWAYS #5 by Robert Gill and Justin Jordan. While it seemed that Tempus Fuginaut was going to train Derek, he actually has appeared to ask him to help keep the fabric of reality safe. Then it’s off to school where The Showman arrives looking for a fight and trying to get Sideways to reveal his real identity. He uses his powers to control the students. But Sideways transports the both of them to a desert location, here he knocks the bad guy out. Meanwhile, Derek’s mom sees a file at her job on her son and wonders what is going on.

THE SILENCER #6 by Dan Abnett and Viktor Bogdanovic. Talia and Silerncer fight against Leviathan, leading to a final battle between the to where Silencer stabs Talia in the chest. Taking her son, who has been trapped in a bubble and playing with a mutated boy only he can see, she tells the family they are leaving on a vacation. Meanwhile, they are being observed by Cradle and Grave, who now are ready to attack after making their transformation from old woman and child to meta-human monsters.

SUICIDE SQUAD #43 by Rob Williams and Philippe Briones. Batman and Deadshot survive their encounter with the transformed snake monster, Batman flips out on Deadshot because he killed a Kobra follower who talked trash about Deadshot’s captured daughter. Then Harley, Boomerang and Captain Cold show up to take the pair down. Unfortunately, Harley is flying the helicopter, which means it all goes bad really fast, resulting in a major crash. Meanwhile, Kobra is ready to transform Lawton’s daughter.

TEEN TITANS SPECIAL #1 by Adam Glass and Robson Rocha. Three tales involving Robin, Kid Flash and Red Arrow. Robin’s favorite restaurant gets attacked by Black Mask’s men, leading to a vendetta hunt by Damian. When he finds Mask, he draws a gun and a shot rings out. Red Arrow tries to stop her mom from assassinating a prominent official at the Emerald City Summit. They battle, and Emiko is poisoned. She counteracts the poison with a jolt of electricity but is too late to save the official. Kid Flash fights to save the life of a criminal from Harley and El Diablo and succeeds with the help of Wally West. But she turns up dead too. In the end, the team decides that they will be doing things a little outside of the law, if needed and that means putting together a new team of Titans.

THE TERRIFICS #5 by Jeff Lemire and Doc Shaner. Mr. Terrific continues to run tests and Linnya to find out how to cure her, while Eel deals with a child he didn’t know he had and Metamorpho breaks p with Sapphire. They receive a distress call and go off to find people are being turned into versions of Metamorpho. This is all the doing of Algon, the Ancient Elemental Man, who transports most of the them to different places on the Elemental World and Rex to the Kingdom of Elements, where he is shown the Orb of Ra. Algon reveals that it’s Rex’ tie to  take the reigns as custodian of the Elemental World.

TITANS SPECIAL #1 by Dan Abnett, Sergio Davila, Vincente Cifuentes, Brent Peeples, Matt Santorelli, Brian Ching, Nicola Scott, Max Raynor, and Ben Oliver. Nightwing, with the blessing of the Justice League, puts together a new team of Titans made up of Raven, Beast Boy, Donna Troy, Steel/Natasha Irons and Miss Martian.  It seems their next big challenge will be dealing with the fact that the energies from the broken Source Wall are creating new Meta-Humans. And, if that wasn’t enough, Brother Blood is preparing to conquer the universe.

THE UNEXPECTED #1 by Steve Orlando, Ryan Sook and Cary Nord. Meet Firebrand, a paramedic who lost her life during the days of METAL but was resurrected by Civil Solutions. They gave her a new heart called the Conflict Engine and also gave her flame powers. But she must fight someone every 24 hours to feed the heart or she dies. She works at a VA Hospital under the name of Ronan and it is there she meets Bad Samaritan, who is intent on stealing her Conflict Engine. The Unexpected show up and battle with Bad Samaritan, with some causalities. Ronan must pull it together as the Multiverse may be in danger from a Thanagarian Hawk God straight out of METAL. Meanwhile, beneath Thanagar, someone else hungers for the heat and also a new Nth Metal isotope that Bad Samaritan has apparently created.

WONDER WOMAN ANNUAL #2 by James Robinson, Marc Laming, Frazer Irving, J. Calafiore, and Stephen Segovia. Wonder Woman is on Zamaron, the home of the Star Sapphires, where she learns they have also been invaded by the Dark Gods. So, it’s time for Diana to become a Star Sapphire again and take on Karnell, one of the Dark Gods. All the Sapphires band together to defeat him. She heads back to Earth and that’s when she needs to fight another Dark God.

WONDER WOMAN #48 by James Robinson and Jesus Marino. Continuing from WONDER WOMAN ANNUAL #2, Jason battles with Dark Gods Mob God, Savage Fire and the God with No Name. He defeats them with the help of Supergirl. But that means King Best is next and the Justice League arrive to help. But it may take the combined might of Jason and Diana, who finally arrives from Zamaron, to win the day.

WONDER WOMAN #49 by James Robinson and Jesus Marino. Diana and Jason battle King Best, while learning from Steve that the other Dark Gods are wreaking havoc across the globe by using their powers to change people into their servants. They defeat King Best and Diana goes to talk to Steve while Jason takes on Savage Fire in Paraguay. When Diana arrives, she finds that her brother is now under the influence of the Dark Gods.