DC UNIVERSE Month 38, Part 1

ACTION COMICS #1029 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, Phil Hester and Michael Avon Oeming. Superman and son continue to battle against the creatures from the breach. But Jon is concerned because his father gets injured and, because of his time in the future, he knows this is supposed to be the day Superman dies. In the end, the creatures are defeated, even with Superman weakened. But Warworld is on the horizon and it appears that Superman may be dying. In the backup, Midnighter battles with the voice in his head, which is the consciousness of Andrej Trojan. To end this, could this be the end of Midnighter as we know him.

BATMAN/CATWOMAN #4 by Tom King and Clay Mann. In the past, Bruce is getting ready for a party when Selena tells him The Joker has placed a bomb at the Gotham Ice Rink. He evacuates the ice rink, breaks the ice and retrieves the bomb, which turns out to be a fake. Batman catches up with Selina on the rooftops and asks her where Joker is. She cusses him out, throws the question back in his face and then leaves. In the present, Selina wakes up in a room, making her way to the bottom of a long stairway, where she finds Phantasm, who tells her that she is holding Selina hostage to set up a prisoner exchange with Batman for the Joker. Selina tells her that they are looking into her son’s murder and are uncertain if it truly was The Joker. In the future, Helena has put on her own Batsuit and visits The Penguin. She easily defeats his hired hands and demands he tells her about The Joker and her mother. She them heads to Arkham, where she talks to Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery to get more information about the close relationship between her mother and The Joker. Later, Selina meets with the Penguin, wanting to know what he told her/ To force his hand, she has her cat kill his pet penguin.

BATMAN/SUPERMAN #16 by Gene Luen Yang and Ivan Reis. Like an old movie, the Superman story and Batman story are told simultaneously on strips of movie film. In the Superman story, it is evident there is a problem with continuity. Lois doesn't know Clark is Superman and he needs to do the “hide and switch identities” as a bald "Unknown Wizard", who turns out to be Lex Luthor, appears at the public unveiling of the Omni Battery, which was built by his arch enemy Martha Wayne. It is revealed that Thomas Wayne was killed by the mugger and Martha and Bruce survived. Lois, Clark and Jimmy visit Wayne Manor and a snooping Lois gets in trouble as she meets a venomized Alfred, causing her to fall through the film strip. In the Batman story, Batman and Dick Grayson Robin go to an Arkham breakout engineered by someone called the Spider Lady. Afterwards, they visit the Warden, who has a Kryptonian spaceship with what is presumed to be a dead baby Kal-El inside. The head to the Arctic Circle and break into a fortress. While there, reality seems to dissolve and Lois drops into their film strip, following the incident from the Superman story. Batman believes she is the Spider Lady. In the end, Superman and Batman encounter a malfunction at a Wayne satellite, that the see is covered with movie film. Then they encounter aliens who accuse them of violating the Archive of Worlds.

BATMAN: URBAN LEGENDS #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Stephanie Phillips, Brandon Thomas, Matthew Rosenberg, Eddy Barrows, Ryan Benjamin, Laura Braga and Max Dunbar. In the first story, set in the days when Red Hood was thought to be dead, he is out fighting street level crime and discovers a young boy whose mother has lapsed into a coma thanks to Joker Toxin. He tracks down the boy’s father, but discovers he is an abusive drug dealer and Jason executes him. Next, Harley reveals how much she misses Ivy and only has the plant Ivy gave her to comfort her. In the third story, Katana and Black Lightning battle bad guys and need to get Metamorpho involved to save her. The final story begins with Grifter apparently being mortally injured in a battle with Mr. Freeze. Mid-way through the tale, he meets with Lucius Fox and later Batman. In the end, Nightwing finds a dead Nora Freeze.

CATWOMAN #29 by Ram V and Fernandeo Blanco. There’s a new assassin in town by the name of the Wight Witch. Selina and her sister are relaxing when Detective Hadley shows up, asking about an anonymous drop-off of drugs. He leaves the case file with her and she recognizes a certain symbol within the file. Meanwhile, a scientist is talking to his benefactor on the phone about their ability to reproduce the drug which gives The Wight Witch her abilities. The subject who they are getting their raw material from is Poison Ivy and the benefactor is Simon Saint. Catwoman goes to The Riddler’s apartment and finds packages of drugs with the symbol on them. But The Wight Witch is already there and they fight, which proves a challenge as The Wight Witch has a power that makes her body intangible. Nygma joins and helps them escape. As they flee, Nygma is shot by Father Valley.

CRIME SYNDICATE #1 by Andy Schmidt, Kieran McKeown and Bryan Hitch. On Earth-3, it’s November 22, 1963 and the child who would become Ultraman kills the President of the United States. In present day, Ultraman is not happy about the bad press he is getting from the Daily Planet. In Washington, President Oliver Queen is being menaced by Superwoman. John Stewart, Power Ring, is enacting his own brand of vengeance on crooks and crooked cops. In Central City, Johnny Quick and Atomica are enacting their brand of violence on everyone. Multiple Starros arrive on Earth and one of them burrows into Ultraman, causing him to attack Metropolis. Meanwhile , Owlman is looking to exploit the invasion and take over Gotham. In the backup, a young Clark Kent discovers the spaceship the reveals his true heritage.

DETECTIVE COMICS #1034 by Mariko Tamaki, Joshua Williamson, Gleb Melkinov and Dan Mora. Nakano is holding a fundraiser for his vision of the future of Gotham when a gang left from The Joker War crashes through the glass ceiling. Bruce changes into Batman, beats up the bad guys and leaves in the Batmobile. Apparently, he has spent the last month setting up miniature Batcaves in the sewers of Gotham Later, Bruce is an unwilling guest at a party thrown by his neighbors while Nakano deals with the aftermath of the incident at his fundraiser. In the end, one of the neighbors has been kidnapped and the inference is that one of Nakano’s staff may be to blame. In the backup, Damien meets with his mother, who tells him about a League of Assassins tournament. Damien leaves, apparently to claim his legacy. The League has a secret weapon to give them an advantage in the tournament: Connor Hawke.

THE FLASH #768 by Jeremy Adams and Brandon Peterson. Barry has decided to give up the mantle of The Flash, but Wally has decided he doesn’t want it and wants to spend his life with his wife and kids. So Barry and Wally have one last race, which will end with Wally being disconnected from the Speed Force forever. But something happens and Wally is thrown into the body of a caveman and gets chased by a Speed Force enhanced raptor. Barry, Mr. Terrific and Green Arrow try to concoct a plan to get Wally back, but he gets thrown into the distant future in the body of Impulse. He realizes this as a Dominator attacks and Gold Beetle what’s to know what he is doing!

FUTURE STATE VS. IMPERIOUS LEX #3 by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh. After the events of last issue, Lex needs a fall guy for hat happened and blames his faithful servant X-99, ho he exiles. X-99 finds the remains of the replicants and sets them onto Lexor. Superman arrives to save the day as Lois convinces the residents of Lexor that Lex lied. In the end, ex and X-99 get to send quality time together in prison.

THE GREEN LANTERN SEASON TWO #12 by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp. Hal Jordan is marooned on Athmoora without his ring. Vespero arrives to give Jordan a hand in defeating his enemies. Soon he finds himself fighting against plastic toy versions of his villains and they are easily defeated. Jordan leads Vespero, Samandra and Fekk to Star-City of the Golden Race to end their invasion of our universe. Hector Hammond is the source of the Golden One's knowledge about Jordan and he has agreed to help them in exchange for the power to destroy Hal. Hal confronts Hammond and uses his power of coercion to get his ring back and makes a deal with the Golden Ones to give them an alternate food supply if they leave Earth alone. In the end, Hal flies off to find himself, setting up the possibility for a new Lantern to police his sector.