ABSOLUTE POWER #4 by Mark Waid and Dan Mora. Ollie orders all the Bureau forces on Gamorra to reform in preparation of a full assault. Waller has Failsafe activate her Multiversal Gate. In the Dark Roads, the heroes discuss their plan. Hal goes to deal with the Gate while Batman uses a Boom Tube to take on Bureau. Sarge Steel instructs the Bureau’s troops to fire on the heroes but their weapons backfire and shock them; exhibiting Ollie’s work to destroy the Bureau from the inside, much to Waller’s anger. The heroes make their way into the facility, running into Task Force VII. Jon and Nightwing break into Waller’s command center but she uses a piece of Kryptonite to keep Jon down. Failsafe restrains Nightwing, leading Waller to declare she will kill all the superheroes. Batman, Blue Beetle and Time Commander complete the device that Ollie was building, which will reverse the timelines to just before Task Force VII stole their powers and then restore them. But they are attacked and Ollie arrives and uses the device to restore the powers to the heroes, even though some powers have now been switched. He reveals that Martian Manhunter had implanted a belief in him that Waller was right-all to keep the Bureau’s psychics from detecting his deep cover.
Waller prepares to kill Nightwing but Dreamer arrives and subdues Waller, explaining that Jon’s dreams of her resurrected her. Waller rants about how she fooled the whole world but Air Wave has managed to broadcast her rant to the whole world. Elsewhere, Barry fights the three evil speedsters but Johnny Quick activates the gate, but Hal creates a barrier to hold them back while Barry tries to deactivate the Gate. The barrier begins to crack and the Flash Family arrives to reinforce it. Barry shuts down the Gate, cutting Earth-0 from the Multiverse forever. Two days later, Jay and Wally confirm their access to the Multiverse is gone and Barry no longer has his powers. Waller wakes in prison and is confronted by Dreamer, who reveals she has locked Waller’s memories of the heroes’ secrets, while also hinting she has had a Brain Bomb implanted in Waller’s head. While the Fortress is being rebuilt, Ollie calls Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman together, saying that they need to reform the Justice League. In turn, they show him plans for a new Watchtower.
ABSOLUTE BATMAN #1 by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta. Secret agent Alfred Pennyworth has been pulled off a five-year search for a target and sent to Gotham, where he attempts to call his daughter Julia. On a video call with his handlers, her learns to a terrorist group known as the Party Animals who have increased the murder rate by 700%. While being told to observe only, he is also made aware of a vigilante, which Alfred has permission to engage with if needed. As he leaves his safehouse, he notes his motorcycle has been stolen. The following day, civil engineer Bruce Wayne is working out in Croc’s Gym, owned by childhood friend Waylon Jones. Waylon tries to convince him to come to a poker game with his other childhood friends: Oz, Eddie, Harvey and Selina. Elsewhere. The heads of Gotham’s crime families meet with Roman Sionis: the leader of the Party Animals. He is told to leave Gotham by dawn or they will have him and the Party Animals killed but Sionis has them all killed instead. That night, at a town meeting, the townspeople blame Mayor Gordon for the recent problems. Alfred observes the Party Animals making their way to the meeting and asks his superiors for permission to engage but is told to only observe. Martha Wayne tells tries to calm the townspeople down as a smoke grenade fills the room and the Party Animals gun Gordon down. Barbara Gordon tells the police to secure a perimeter and when she opens a door, she sees Batman who orders her to shut it and stay inside. Alfred observes Batman as he battles the Party Animals and, at one point, one of them pulls out a cleaver and attacks. Batman, who pulls out an axe and cuts off the hand of the attacker. Alfred engages Batman but his easily disarmed, with Batman escaping with Alfred’s gun. At this point, Alfred realizes that Batman is Bruce Wayne. Bruce’s story is that he won a student engineering competition and the prize was a trip to the zoo, where the zoo was attacked by a mass shooter that resulted in his father’s death. After time as a juvenile delinquent, he gets an athletic scholarship but fakes an injury in order to devote his time to the subjects he would need as a crimefighter. The next day, Afred follows Bruce to his mother’s house, planning to kill him, but is distracted by a text from Julia telling him to never contact him again. That night, he tracks Bruce to his hideout and Bruce shoots Alfred with the gun he took, which has transformed into a non-lethal weapon. He then jumps on the motorcycle and drives it out of the skyscraper; flying away with the help of the wings on his costume. In the epilogue, a private helicopter in manila picks up Alfred’s original target: a mysterious billionaire who has been training the with the most dangerous people in the world before killing them. No one knows his real name but, because he has never laughed, is known as The Joker.
ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #1 by Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman. In Gateway City, a strange flying object arrives and horrible monsters fly out of it, attacking the citizens. In the midst of it, a masked woman riding a skeletal flying horse arrives to fight the creatures. She removes the mask and, speaking an unknown language, clangs her bracelets together and there is a huge explosion. In flashback, on the prison of Circe located on the Isle of Hell, Circe arrives and delivers Diana: a baby who is the last of the Amazons. Circe also declares that the child can never be reunited with her sisters again and the word Amazon can never be said by the woman ever again. Over time, the child grows up and discovers she has natural skill that allows her to calm even the most savage creatures. Eventually, as Diana grows up, she finally manages to say the word Amazon and embraces it. Back in the present, Diana tries to reason with the main creature but has no effect, leading to her to declare herself the last of the Amazons and the Princess of Hell and she has no plans to let these creatures take this world.
ACTION COMICS #1070 by Mark Waid, Mariko Tamaki, Skylar Patridge, and Clayton Henry. Fifty-two days between Waller’s defeat and Darkseid attacking the Watchtower, the Phantom Zone Projector in the rebuilt Fortress of Solitude cracks and opens a portal that allows three prisoners who had been fused together to escape. They head to Metropolis and attack Superman, overpowering him until he is rescued by Supergirl. Superman heads to Ethiopia where he digs up a lead canister containing Gold Kryptonite, which would rob the prisoners of their powers but would do the same to Superman and Supergirl. While fighting the escapees, the canister is knocked away and Jimmy Olsen uses his signal watch to distract them and use the Gold K on them. Kara tells them that they are screaming in Kryptonese to kill them. Superman miniaturizes them and sends them to a hospital in Kandor. He tells the family that he is going into the Phantom Zone to investigate but finds himself confronted by a band of armed men when he arrives. In the backup, Supergirl has Steel build her a spaceship to head to Thanagar and then uses circuitry in her eye to erase his memories. Power Girl attempts to stop her and she again uses her power to erase her memory. Arriving at Thanagar, she meets with an official at a United Planets outpost before also erasing his memories.
ACTION COMICS #1071 by Mark Waid, Mariko Tamaki, Skylar Patridge, and Clayton Henry. In the Phantom Zone, Superman is attacked by armed denizens of the place. He takes them out, but does so at a cost as the special battery bracelets he wears are running out of power. He also gets attacked by giant spider creatures and that forces him to use more energy. That is when the Phantom King arrives and Superman is taken into custody. The Phantom King reveals himself to be Superman’s old friend Mon-El. Also, Jon and the Superman of China are forced to end their baseball game and head to the Fortress, where they are in for a surprise. In the backup, Supergirl heads to the High Court of Thanagar to retrieve a prisoner. But a strange spider creature attacks and takes out and kidnaps the judge, leaving Kara wondering how to find both the judge and the prisoner.
ACTION COMICS #1072 by Mark Waid, Mariko Tamaki, Skylar Patridge, and Clayton Henry. Superman meets with Mon-El who shows him he has captured the real Captain Xa-Du. Mon-El explains that a being named Aethyr who arrived in the Phantom Zone and promised to make the world more like how things were in the material world. But he quickly became a dictator, turning the place into his own personal prison, with Xa-Du as his handpicked warden. Many Kryptonians rebelled, capturing Xa-Du and killing the survivors, much to Superman’s dismay. They soon discover that Xa-Du has escaped and he has made his way back to Aethyr, who claims he is in the process of destroying Earth. Meanwhile, Jon and the Superman of China discover that all the artifacts in the Fortress has been stolen. A portal opens up and both are transported somewhere; somewhere that has all the artifacts set up like in a museum. In the backup, Supergirl finds the captured judge and gets attacked by the alien creatures. The judge gives Kara the coordinates to deliver the prisoner and, telling Kara to finish the mission, promises to finish hers.
ACTION COMICS #1073 by Mark Waid, Mariko Tamaki, Skylar Patridge, and Clayton Henry. As Superman and Mon-El travel through the Phantom Zone, they get attacked by Xa-Du’s ship where Superman, whose bracelets are almost out of power, is forced to attacked Xa-Du. Mon-El ends up saving him from a face to face with Xa-Du, leaving Superman to face Aethyr. Angry with Xa-Du, Aethyr tosses him into the Eye of the Zone and does the same to Superman. But the Man of Steel undesratnds this is a fall through time and manages to break through one of the walls and ends up…on Krypton as it once was. Meanwhile, Jon and the Superman of China meet the curator of the Royal Museum of Space. In the backup, Supergirl continues on her journey to deliver the prisoner to their final destination.
BATMAN #153 by Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jimenez. Batman meets with Jim Gordon as the city rebuilds and comes back to normal. At the same time, Edward Nygma, with the help of Wayne Enterprises, has started a tech giant called Nygmatech. Even though he has been exonerated for his crimes, Mayor Nakano is suspicious. Leonid from the Court of Owls meets with him and threatens to reveal his alleged indiscretions. Batman meets with Nygma and, while impressed by his technology, explains he will be watching him. Nakano’s wife makes the decision to leave him, taking their son with her. At Wayne Enterprises, Bruce is advised to look at merging with Nygma’s company; something being arranged by Bruce’s own personal assistant. Later, Batman apprehends some criminals and runs into a new, gun-toting vigilante named Commander Star. Commissioner Savage arrives and declares they don’t need two vigilantes and orders his men to arrest Batman, who flees. In the end, an alleged brother files a claim against Bruce for half of his shares and someone shoots Nakano in the chest, seemingly killing him.
BATMAN AND ROBIN #14 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Javi Fernandez. In 1892, Nicodemus dies but there may be a promise of him to come back to life sometime in the future. In the present, Batman and Robin are fighting a gang of criminals that are connected to the Order of the Green Knight. Later on, Bruce and Damian go to an event celebrating the rebirth of the Scared Heart Medical Center. Before entering, Bruce is hassled by someone that he will be ground up by “the wheel” criminals who are followers of Nicodemus move in and assault the place. While Bruce becomes Batman to fight against them, there is an explosion and Damian is caught in it.
BATMAN/SUPERMAN: WORLD’S FINEST #32 by Mark Waid and Adrian Gutierrez. Eclipso has destroyed the Watchtower and captured most of the heroes, except for Batman and Superman, who have been corrupted. Robin gets involved and heads to the Justice Society headquarters, getting them to split up to try and help out. The Spectre gets called in and appears to break Robin’s neck, which snaps the Dark Knight out of his possession. The rest of the Justice Society manages to toss Superman into the sun, which burns out his possession. The now freed heroes, along with Batman and Superman, attack Eclipso. But he attacks back and now there heroes have been altered and stopped in their tracks.
BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #18 by Christian Ward, Zipporah Smith, Jeremy Adams, Mauguerite Sauvage, Brendan Hay, Patric Reynolds, Mike Norton, Laura Braga, and Marco Santucci. Batman has to deal with a villain named Doubt whose voice allows him to corrupt people’s mind with his negative words. Batman is forced to fight through those suggestions and finally recalls a conversation with Alfred when he was young to help him defeat the villain by using his own voice. In the second feature, Constantine and Streaky continue to team-up to defeat someone who was using the Talisman of Osiris to reanimate the dead; specifically his deceased friend. He eventually realizes this is a cruel fate for his friend’s beloved pet and destroys the talisman, reversing everything. In the third tale, M’Gann and Jackson team up to defeat a villain trying to bring new life to Mars by draining the water from Earth. In the next tale, Harley faces of against the Ghosting Master, who has been stealing identities from millions of people. In the final story, the Robins team up to find out who has been kidnapping Robin cosplayers, only to get captured themselves by Killer Moth.
BIRDS OF PREY #14 by Kelly Thompson and Sami Basri. Cassandra Cain, using the name of Shen, attends a meeting where she is forced to fight off bodyguards. As it turns out, the meeting gets rescheduled. Apparently, Cass has gone undercover to rescue five Amazons who have been captured by this organization known as the Ninth Day. When she finally gets that meeting, she is taken to an underground laboratory and finds the Amazons. At the same time, Onyx and Grace engage in a violent training session with Barda.
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