DC UNIVERSE, Month 40, Part 1

ACTION COMICS #1031 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, Daniel Sampere, and Michael Avon Oeming. Superman and son take in the potential Kryptonian refugees, one of whom bears the El sigil on her palm, while fighting off the Warzoons. But some of the refugees are being held by the Atlanteans. He speaks with one of the refugees, who says the word Mongol. Back at the fortress, the girl with the sigil wakes and destroys Kelex. In a flashback, it seems that Mongol has sent her to deal with Superman in order to save her family. In the backup, Midnighter and Apollo's relationship is on the rocks and Andrej Trojan has captured Mister Miracle and his Mother Box.

BATMAN #108 by James Tynion IV and Jorge Jimenez. Batman continues to be mentally tortured by the Scarecrow. Elsewhere, Nakano holds a press conference where he introduces the hero of A-Day, San Mahoney. Simon Saint meets Mahoney and gives him a proposition. Saint gives him a tour of Saint’s labs and offers Mahoney the position of Peacekeeper-01. In flashback, Matches is interrogated by the Unsanity Collective and meets Miracle Molly, who explains she knows he is in a disguise. They go to a safehouse, where she explains their ideology. She explains they had a contract with Simon Saint to pull off the heists. In the end, Saint prepares to make Mahoney into Peacekeeper-01; explaining it will be painful.

BATMAN/SUPERMAN #18 by Gene Luen Yang, Jos Lus and Ivan Reis. Batman and Superman continue their fight with Auteur.IO in the Archive of Worlds, when he produces a Phantom Zone crystal. On film, our heroes are in the Batcave back on Superman and Lois Lane's world, where they are attacked by Wayne security robots while Jimmy Olsen gets attacked by a transformed Alfred. Superman saves Jimmy while Batman and Robin face off against Martha Wayne and this world's Bruce Wayne, who have captured Lex Luthor. Martha is involved in interdimensional smuggling with Dr. Atom and turns frightened Bruce into Bizarro. Superman defeats him and the Dynamic Duo unmasks Dr. Atom, revealing he is a Luthor from another world. Batman reveals his identity to Martha and the Bizarro Bruce returns to something close to normal, but has turned into Two-Face. Dr. Atom and the heroes jump through the burn hole and find themselves at the point where Auteur.IO produces a Phantom Zone crystal.

BATMAN: THE DETECTIVE #2 by Tom Taylor and Andy Kubert. Batman and Squire interrogate a crook, before heading to an underground clinic under Piccadilly circus where Knight is recovering from her injuries. Batman finds the tracker on the crook reveals he is on a train in Paris. But this is a ruse as the crook has been killed by the leader of the group he works for. On the train, Batman meets up with Henri Ducard. Ducard says he can help Batman for a fee. Later, Equilibrium arrives at Ducards hotel, where he gets shot. In the end, Batman holds a mortally wounded Ducard as Equilibrium escapes.

BATMAN: URBAN LEGENDS #3 by Chip Zdarsky, Che Grayson, Brandon Thomas, Matthew Rosenberg, Eddy Barrows, Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque, Max Dunbar and Ryan Benjamin. Batman drops Tyler with Leslie Thompkins  which is somehow connected to Cheerdrops. Jason follows a lead which leads him to Mr. Freeze. In the second tale, Lady Shiva visits Batman, before he takes her to see how happy her daughter is in her new life. In the Outsiders story, we learn Katana’s battle was just on the Astral Plane. Black Lightning and Metamorpho arrive to rescue her. Later, Jefferson reveals he is building a new team made up of himself, Metamorpho, Katana, The Signal and a surprise fifth member. In the last story, Grifter, six months ago, gets recruited by some mysterious men. In the present, he sleeps with his new boss, has dinner with Bruce Wayne, meets with Batman and then breaks into a secure area of Wayne Tech. But the Men in Black arrive and Grifter needs to leave. In the end, Cole is hanging out a window to stay hidden.

CATWOMAN #31 by Ram V and Fernado Blanco. Catwoman is confronted by Mr. Roy and his crew. She explains how she and her crew distracted everyone to steal Ivy from him. He responds by saying Simon Saint is a frightening man and shooting himself in the head. Elsewhere, Saint dispatches the Wight Witch to take care of Catwoman and Ivy. Later, Ivy is being stashed in an abandoned terminal building where Selina meets with her mysterious benefactor. In the end, Leo has been kidnapped by Father Valley.

CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER SONS #2 by Peter J Tomasi, Max Raynor and Jorge Corona. The boys seek out Wonder Woman and tangle with a minotaur bearing the Sword of Ares. They defeat him and save Wonder Woman from her prophesized death. In the distant past, Felix Faust and a much younger Rora meets with Vandal Savage. Faust is interested in discovering the secret to immoral life and has convinced Savage into helping him by offering to show him the future. Jon and Damian arrive, revealing this is what happened in issue #1 when they first met Rora. They are captured and Faust realizes they hold the key to the future.

CRIME SYNDICATE #3 by Andy Schmidt, Kieran McKeown and Bryan Hitch. The team battle Starro while arguing about how to do it best. Donna Troy takes action, even as Starro claims that they are the last hope to free the galaxy from the Overlords of Oa. Starro is defeated, but with great loss of life in Metropolis. But Ultraman is proud that he saved the physical city of Metropolis, much to the dismay of Alexander Luthor. In the backup, Donna meets and kills Steve Trevor.

DETECTIVE COMICS #1036 by Mariko Tamaki, Clayton Henry and Dan Mora. Lydia catches Bruce bringing Sarah Worth, who has been murdered, into his apartment and calls the police. It turns out Sarah has turned into Lady Clayface. Later, he meets with Huntress and they bring Lady Clayface to one of his Batcavees, where she says she remembers Sarah saying a man said “kneel”, which Batman deduces means Neil Betterman, who is connected tp Mayor Nakano. They track Neil down, who dies in front of them with a creepy eye fungus and blood on his hands. The blood is Lydia’s, whose death will probably be pinned on Bruce. In the backup, Huntress tracks down Mary’s ex-boyfriend to see if he murdered her.

THE FLASH #770 by Jeremy Adams, Jack Herbert, Brandon Peterson and Kevin Maguire. Jay Garrick and Happy Terrill, the superhero known as The Ray, are dispatched by the President of the United States of America to retrieve the Spear of Destiny before Adolph Hitler can get his hands on it. But they get captured by Parsifal, who can nullify the powers of metas. At this point, Wally West jumps into the Jay’s body and the Speed Force energy shoots from into Hitler, who now possesses the Spear of Destiny. They confront Hitler, but he uses the Sear to stop them in their tracks. Wally jumps out, freeing Jay, who uses the Speed Force to overload the Spear, seemingly killing Hitler. Jay and Happy escape and Wally…he has jumped into Reverse Flash’ body, in a cartoon version of the Legion of Doom.

FUTURE STATE: GOTHAM #1 by Dennis Culver, Joshua Williamson and Giannis Milonogiannis. Jason battles The Ventriloquist who mans a full sized mecha Scarface. After defeating him, there is a large explosion, that leaves a large crate in the form of a bat. Later, Jason is accepted by the Magistrate, with the possibly of becoming a Peacekeeper himself. In the end, a less than friendly Bat Family meet with Red Hood.

GREEN LANTERN #2 by Geoffrey Thorne and Dexter Soy. The Guardians and the Lanterns gather to mourn Koyos. His sister Nemosyni upends the hierarchy of the Lanterns, distributing the patrolling of 1200 sectors to the United Planets and reassigning the Lanterns. John Stewart is assigned to explore the Dark Sectors, with 1,000 other Lanterns. John says goodbye to Keli and Simon but, as soon as he leaves, the giant Lantern Battery on Oa explodes, apparently killing all the Lanterns on Oa except Keli. That’s when Sojourner Mullein arrives.

HARLEY QUINN #3 by Stephanie Phillips and Riley Rossmo. Harley Quinn sets up a support group for former clowns to help them deal with their guilt and anxiety. Hugo Strange's thugs show up to collect test subjects for his medical experiments as part of Mayor Nakano’s S.A.F.E program. Harley breaks free of capture and ends up in the sewers where she is confronted by…Solomon Grundy.

THE JOKER #3 by James Tynion IV and Guillem March. Jim Gordon recalls the traumatic events of THE KILLING JOKE before meeting with Cressida. She gives him a bank card with an unlimited cash access and he boards a plane. Meanwhile, Barbara Gordon, Cassandra Cain, and Stephanie Brown attempt to track down Cressida. Gordon tracks down and mees with The Joker, who insists he wasn’t responsible for A Day. But this may lead to a team-up as Vengeance and her team are out to kill The Joker. In the backup, Orca has been brought back into prison to make an example out of Punchline. And Blue Bird is tracking down Punchline's past, but that may get her killed.