DC UNIVERSE Month 41, Part 1

ACTION COMICS #1032 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Becky Cloonan, Daniel Sampere and Michael Avon Oeming. Superman tries to figure out what is going on with the mysterious “Kryptonian” girl. Then he goes off to help Aquaman battled transformed Atlanteans and discovers Necropolis. In the end, Steve Trevor shows up demanding the artifact found in Atlantis and Aquaman threatens war. In the backup, Midnighter works on his relationship with Apollo while having internal debates with a version of Andrej. And Andrej orders that Mister Miracle be killed.

BATMAN #109 by James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez and Ricardo Lopez. Batman talks to Oracle after he met with the Unsanity Collective and decides he needs to meet with Simon Saint to find The Scarecrow. Arriving at Saint’s office, Batman threatens Saint, leading to him getting into a brawl with the newly developed Peacekeeper-01. Meanwhile, Harley and Ghostmaker bond in The Haunt before Bella Garten, Poison Ivy’s college girlfriend, shows up, saying Ivy is out of control and needs Harley’s help. In the backup, Ghostmaker prepares to battle Brainstorm, who reveals why he is looking for revenge, after having been defeated in the past and tortured for many years.

BATMAN: REPTILIAN #1 by Garth Ennis and Liam Sharp. Batman hears the news that Scarecrow and Mad Hatter have been badly mutilated, which sends him to find out what happened. He grills a guy, doesn’t learn a lot, but whatever is responsible…it has claws.

BATMAN/CATWOMAN #5 by Tom King and Clay Mann. In the past, Selina gets really drunk and beats up the bartender. She decides to steal something and, because she is really drunk, it does not go well. Batman arrives and takes her away. In the present time, Selena watches as Phantasm kills as former Joker follower. In the future, Harley shows up at Selena’s and threatens to kill her for Selena killing Joker. Selena subdues her. That’s when Helena Wayne shows up and wonders what has happened here.

BATMAN/SUPERMAN #19 by Gene Luen Yang, Emanuela Lupacchino, Kyle Hotz, Steve Lieber and Darick Robertson. Auteur.IO and all the heroes face off against each in the satellite. Dr. Atom explodes himself, injuring Auteur.IO, who escapes into the “Alanna of the Planet Rann" film. There they meet and fight with Alanna and Dr. Sardath against Auteur.IO. He escapes again and they end up in the "El Diablo in the Desert of Doom" film. They team up with El Diablo and they take on Auteur.IO, who has transformed into a train. He explains how he had come to Earth and was fascinated by films. When theaters closed, he followed a voice that clothed him in armor, leading to him creating the Archive of Worlds. In the end, Auteur.IO unleashes Etrigan.

BATMAN: THE DETECTIVE #3 by Tom Taylor and Andy Kubert. Equilibrium has shot Ducard multiple times and Batman races to get Ducard to the Paris Hospital for treatment. In a flashback, a 17 year old Bruce Wayne saves Ducard from an assassin and convinces him to train him. The pair ends up as manhunters until Bruce learns that some of the assignments turn into assassinations, which is an issue for Bruce and his moral code. Back in the present, Ducard is recovering from his injuries as Bruce is arrested by Parisian police, charging him with killing Ducard.

BATMAN: URBAN LEGENDS #4 by Chip Zdarsky, Camrus Johnson, Meghan Fitzmartin, Matthew Rosenberg, Eddy Barrows, Loyiso Mkize, Belen Ortega and Ryan Benjamin. In the Red Hood, Jason recalls his death at the hands of The Joker as he finds himself frozen by Mr. Freeze. While Batman is investigating another Cheerdrops incident, he learns Jason is in trouble and races to save him. He does but gets frozen in the process. In the second story, Batwing faces off against The Riddler and gets some unexpected help from Killer Croc. In the third story, Tim Drake is on the case of the Chaos Monster and some missing kids. He meets up with his old friend Bernard, only to have that meeting interrupted by Chaos Monster, who kidnaps Bernard. In the last story, Grifter stages a fight with Deathstroke that gets out of hand, leading to Superman getting involved. Meanwhile, armed gunmen burst into a Lucius Fox gala and luckily he gets saved by Zealot. In the end, Superman and Batman discuss the situation, with Superman saying Grifter isn’t working alone and Batman declaring he can handle it by himself.

CATWOMAN #32 by Ram V and Evan Cagle. Father Valley continues to torture Leo, leading to Leo telling Valley how he and Selina met. Their crew was going to take down Mafia kingpin Diego Messina. During the assault, gang leader and Selina’s love Frank Baz is killed. Following his burial, Selina exacts revenge on Messina. Earlier in her life, we see how a young Selina became an integral part of Mama Fortuna’s crew. In current Alleytown, GCPD is taking down the Strays in Alleytown. Hadley visits Maggie, who tells him he should stay away from Selina. In the end, Valley leaves a mortally wounded Leo to die, even as Leo says Selina will come to save him. Continued in CATWOMAN 2021 ANNUAL #1

CATWOMAN 2021 ANNUAL #1 by Ram V, Kyle Hotz, Fernando Blanco and Juan Ferreyra. Someone, but not Selina, saved Leo and got him to a hospital. She visits him and is now prepared to confront Father Valley. In flashback, Azrael, Ludovic Valley, is waging his war on crime in Morocco. Later, he meets with Karl Wasieman. Ludovic is then tasked by Ariel to destroy the Order of St. Dumas to save the order. Azrael sets about killing members of the Order, which puts him face to face with Karl, who attempts suicide rather than fight the man he saw as his father. Karl survived and set about rehabilitating and transforming himself into Father Valley. Back in the present, the people of Allentown are pushing back against the police and Valley blows up a church, which is sure to turn the heat up in Allentown. Continued in CATWOMAN #33.

CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER SONS #3 by Peter J. Tomasi and Jorge Corona. Jon and Damian have been captured by Felix Faust and Vandal Savage. But the boys escape and get pursued and eaten by a monster, who ends up vomiting them out thanks to help from Rora. Back in the present day, the pair have knocked out Hawkgirl to save her from a poison gas attack. Unfortunately, she doesn’t understand and wakes up rather mad. The boys prepare the use a Chronometer to find Rora and save the rest of the Justice League. They find Rora…and she’s being held at knifepoint by Savage.

CHECKMATE #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev. Two years ago, Manhunter Mark Shaw met with Talia Al Ghul. A few weeks ago, Talia meets with her son as they look at taking down Leviathan. Somehow, they get captured and are prisoners of Shaw. There is a new Checkmate in the DC Universe made up of Lois Lane, The Question, Green Arrow, Mr. Bones, Steve Trevor, Kate Spencer and their enigmatic head, Mr. King. Later, Lois is doing research when she is visited by a co-worker, who reveals she is working for Shaw. She delivers a present to Lois which is Lois’ “father’s sacrifice”. As she examines the item, she is within the sight of a sniper.

CRIME SYNDICATE #4 by Andy Schmidt, Kieran McKeown and Bryan Hitch. Johnny Quick and Atomica are causing all kinds of destruction, which concerns a troubled Lex Luthor. He tells the world that he needs heroes to come together. Thaal Sinestro arrives and says they need to find a way to convince John Stewart, the Emerald Knight, to not give in to the corruption his power ring causes, and they need to get him to join Luthor’s team. Elsewhere, Ultraman, Owlman and Superwomam decide to form the Crime Syndicate. And Superwoman also wants an heir and looks to be interested in making Ultraman the DNA donor. Sinestro confronts John Stewart while Ultraman cleans up Starro. Stewart’s ring tries to sway hi from joining Luthor and he visits his daughter, who sends him away. In the end, Stewart ends up with Luthor’s team, which he has dubbed the Legion of Justice. In the backup, Stewart, a Coast City cop, gets the Power Ring, which he uses to execute the son of a man who loaned him money to help his daughter.

CRUSH & LOBO #1 by Mariko Tamaki and Amancay Nahuelpan. Crush is fighting some aliens and realizes she is going to be late in attending her girlfriend's birthday party.  She arrives and everything seems fine until it becomes obvious that she has tracked in some kind of chemical from the alien fight and that creates some extremely toxic gas. This ruins the party and leads to Crush's girlfriend breaking up with her. Later, Emiko shows up at Crush’s apartment. Crush shows her a video message from her father Lobo inviting her to come visit him in prison. So she steals a jet from Titans Tower and heads for the prison reunion.

DETECTIVE COMICS #1037 by Mariko Tamaki, John Ridley, Dustin Nguyen, Karl Mostert and Viktor Bogdanovic and. Huntress discovers a dead Neil Betterman with some sort of ocular parasite evident. Bruce Wayne comes home to find out that Lydia has been murdered, leading to him being interrogated by police and ultimately being detained in jail. Meanwhile, Roland Worth storms into Nakano's office demanding answers about Bruce’ involvement in Sarah’s death. Not satisfied with how Nakamo treats him, he blows up the police station with an RPG. Apparently an SMS message cleared the building before it happened, save for everyone but Bruce. Bruce escapes and is able to lure Worth into the sewer, where he attacks Worth…as Batman. Elsewhere, it appears the Nakano’s man Vile is the person killing people with his parasites. In the first backup, journalist Deb Donovan writes about the not-so-innocent people involved in current Gotham events. In the second backup, a younger Lucius Fox needs to step up to assist Batman and Robin.

DETECTIVE COMICS #1038 by Mariko Tamaki, Meghan Fitzmartin, Viktor Bogdanovic and Karl Mostert. Batman is fighting Mister Worth until Lady Clayface, looking like Sarah, shows up and dissolves in his hand. This distracts him enough to lead to his arrest which doesn’t last long as he gets released and threatens to kill both Bruce and Batman. Worth is met by Hue Vile, who makes promises so they can work together. Later, Vile kidnaps Deb Donovan, setting up an explosive booby trap that Worth sets off, potentially killing Donovan, Batman and The Huntress. In the backup, The Penguin decides to no longer be the butt of jokes and prepares to team up with Worth.

THE FLASH #771 by Jeremy Adams, Kevin Maguire, Howard Porter, Berat Pekmezci, Bryan Hitch, Max Raynor, Scott Kolins, Tom Derenick, Fernando Pasarin, Oclair Albert and Brandon Peterson. Wally has jumped into the body of Reverse Flash and he's about to be inducted into the Legion of Doom. Because this is the Omniverse, this incarnation of the Legion of Doom looks like an episode of SUPER FRIENDS. This leads to a battle with Superman and Wally is able to use Luthor’s dampening ray to drain the Speed Force from Superman’s body and throw Wally back in the Speed Force. He gets sent through various times and places including into Max Mercury in 1832, Miguel in the current Teen Titans Academy, the Justice Society and even the Flash himself. He ends up in his adult son Jai’s body and talks with his adult daughter Irey. She reveals that both the kid’s became superheroes and Wally was still a hero. Mr. Terrific uses the Tachyon device and Wally is transported again…the site of the murders during HEROES IN CRISIS.

FUTURE STATE: GOTHAM #2 by Dennis Culver, Joshua Williamson, John Ridley, Giannis Milonogiannis and Oliver Coipel. Jason, now working undercover as a member of the Peacekeepers, battle the Bat family, injuring Black Lightning in the process. In flashback, we learn that Jason is in his current role because the mysterious stranger he has been meeting with is Bruce Wayne. Later, Jason goes to Blackgate Prison to meet with Astrid Arkham, but that is interrupted by the new Batman. They fight each other but then need to team up, as every door in Blackgate has opened and they are surrounded by Gotham’s most dangerous criminals. Elsewhere, someone is rallying the people of Gotham after last issue’s explosion, saying they need to be ready for war. In the backup, the new Batman has been captured and is being tortured. Luckily, he has backup in the form of his sidekick…his kid sister Tiffany!

GREEN LANTERN #3 by Geoffrey Thorne and Tom Raney. The Central Power Battery is gone and most of the Lanterns have gone off to the Dark Sector. John Stewart has been saved from deep space by drones and taken in by an alien mother and daughter who read his mind. Now he has to protect these people from the Qinoori when he no longer has his Lantern ring. On what is left of Oa, Jo Mullein is trying to work with the United Federation of Planets to restore the planet. Simon is alive and recovering and that thrills Kelli. Jo sends out a message looking for any Lanterns who can hear the message and it looks like Hal is one of them.

HARLEY QUINN #4 by Stephanie Phillips and Riley Rossmo. Harley attempts to play chess with Solomon Grundy which results in her finding herself and deciding to do thing the “Harley way”. With a makeshift utility belt and cape, she heads off to rescue Kevin from Hugo Strange. She makes her way into Strange’ stronghold and, in the process, sees some of his experiences. She quickly dispatches a bunch of orderlies but that comes to an end when she comes out of an elevator to find Hugo Strange and his crew waiting for her.

INFINITE FRONTIER #1 by Joshua Williamson and Xermanico. A spaceship crashes with Batman inside. But this is Earth-23 and this isn’t this world’s Batman-this is Flashpoint Batman, A.K.A. Thomas Wayne. The Multiverse has changed, becoming the Omniverse and the Totality is trying to keep everything in check. Later, the original JSA Headquarters explodes in green flame and Alan Scott and his son find that Jade is missing. In Paris, Director Bones meets with Agent Chase, telling her the D.E.O.  has reformed and he needs her back full time. Elsewhere, Justice Incarnate (President Superman, Mary Marvel from Earth 5, Machinehead from Earth 8, Aquawoman from Earth 11, and Captain Carrot from Earth 26) meet with Batman, who wants to know where Barry Allen is. Barry is on Earth Omega, where he discovers the Quintessence has been killed and he gets attacked by the Psycho Pirate, who reveals a new crisis is coming and they need to team up. In the end, Roy Harper deals with an angry customer in a diner when he is attacked by X-Tract. He defeats them and realizes that he is wearing a Black Lantern ring and is dressed like a Black Lantern.

INFINITE FRONTIER: SECRET FILES #1 by Brandon Thomas, Joshua Williamson, Stehanie Phillips, Dan Watters, Valentine de Landro, Inaki Miranda, Stephen Byrne, Phil Hester and Christopher Mitten. At the D.E.O., Director Bones reviews tapes focusing on several individuals on several Earths including President Superman, Roy Harper, Obsidian and Jane, the two Totalities, Captain Boomerang and the Psycho Pirate, who ends up meeting Darkseid on Earth Omega, who transforms him to a new version o himself.

THE JOKER #4 by James Tynion IV, Sam Johns, Guillem March and Mirko Andolfo. Gordon and The Joker team up to save themselves from Vengeance and her assault team. The daughter of Bane gets her hands on The Joker, but that’s when the Sampson Crime Family from Texas show up, leading to a standoff. Joker unleashes his gas which takes everyone out. When a captured Gordon awakes, he find The Joker sewing Buddy Sampson’s mouth shut, while explaining that he wasn’t responsible for A-Day. The Joker leaves, saying he is headed to Europe. Vengeance frees Gordon and tells him to go back to Gotham. Elsewhere, Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain are maintaining surveillance on Cressida. But unknown to Barbara, there is an Owl hiding in her nest. In the backup, Bluebird escapes a near death situation at the hands of one of Alexis Kaye’s former classmates. In Blackgate, Punchline has ended up in the hospital ward after her fight with Orca. The Queen of Spades plans to dispatch her, but it looks like Orca and some of the other prisoners have sided with Punchline and the Queen may be dead!

JUSTICE LEAGUE #62 by Brian Michael Bendis, Ram V, David Marquez and Xermanico. Hippolyta goes to the Hall of Justice and meets with the Flash, who explains how he sent the League to Naomi’s birth world and screwed up his calculations. The powered down League faces off with Brutus, to keep him from invading our world. Hippolyta and Flash join the fight and take down Brutus, but then Zumbado shows up. In the backup, Justice League Dark continue to follow clues in search of Merlin and what his endgame is. It seems that Merlin is looking for Atlantis. Also, it looks like the Upside Down Man still has a hold on Zatanna.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #63 by Brian Michael Bendis, Ram V, David Marquez and Xermanico. Naomi wakes in the custody and care of the Justice League. We learn that the Nth Metal in Hawkgirl’s mace temporarily took down Zumbado, allowing them to escape this world and return to their own. The League offers her, Black Adam and Hippolyta a place on the team. In the end, Zumbado demands McMurph and Brutus find a way to get him back to our Earth. In the backup, Constantine allows the League to leave the Library by casting a spell and writing their own present. Man-Bat and Khalid work together to try and reactivate the magic in Dr. Fate’s helmet. Elsewhere, Elnara visits a cathedral, demanding the robed figures release their prisoner. As she battles them, Batman watches from the wings.